Loaded Baked Potato Soup

This Loaded Baked Potato Soup has a sweet surprise ingredient that elevates the flavors and results in a perfectly balance bowl of comforting deliciousness. Easy and economical, this is one of our top five 30-Minute Meals!

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• What Makes this Potato Soup so Special?
• What Goes into this Recipe
• Serving Suggestions
• Expert Tips
• More Creamy, Cozy Soup Recipes
• Loaded Baked Potato Soup

What Makes this Potato Soup so Special?

Loaded Baked Potato Soup is one of our top five favorite 30-minute Meals - and this one I'll even serve to company! 

Oh, you'll be here in half an hour? And you're starving? No problem!

The first time I made this soup was when my girls were young and they unexpectedly brought home a few extra friends for dinner. We never turn away a hungry kid, but I had barely enough potatoes to begin with, and so I wasn't sure we would have enough soup to go all around. I did, however, have a sweet potato, so I threw that into my baked potato soup instead. 

Oh, my! What a difference that little sweet potato made! I'll never make baked potato soup without one again! 

Fast, economical, and straightforward, this delicious, easy-to-make Baked Potato Soup has a chowder-like consistency and a sweet surprise on the ingredient list. Check it out! 

What Goes into this Recipe

Ingredient Notes & Substitutions

★ Russet Potatoes: It is important to use Idaho Russets or other high-starch potatoes for this soup. Russet have a neutral flavor and high starch content, which gives them a creamy, soft texture that breaks down easily. This all makes them the perfect choice for making a creamy soup like this one.

I have also successfully made this Baked Potato Soup with Yukon Gold potatoes, but the soup required a little more mashing than usual to achieve the desired consistency.

DO NOT USE waxy potato varieties (e.g., red potatoes, new potatoes, fingerling, etc.) for this recipe. Waxy potatoes have a low starch content and have a creamy, firm flesh that holds its shape well after cooking. They do not break down easily when cooked, resulting in a thin, bodiless soup.

★ Sweet Potatoes: Use white sweet potatoes for this recipe. 

What's the difference between orange and white sweet potatoes anyway? (And my Gramma told me the orange ones were yams. Are you contradicting my Gramma?) 

I don't know about you, but I grew up calling orange fleshed sweet potatoes "yams." However, as I have since learned, it is nearly impossible to find true yams is the United States. Most of the tubers we were fed as children and told were yams were really sweet potatoes. It's true. 

OK, now that we've cleared that up, here's the scoop on the differences between orange and white sweet potatoes. 

While sweet potatoes around the world come in many different colors - brown, red, yellow, white, even purple - in the United States, nearly all of our sweet potatoes fall into two categories: [1] golden skin with creamy white flesh, and [2] brown or copper skin with an orange flesh.

Orange sweet potatoes are the heroes of holiday side dishes everywhere. They have a sweet, smooth, soft texture. White sweet potatoes, on the other hand, have a milder flavor and crumblier texture when cooked. 

★ Garlic: This is for all you cooks who habitually double the garlic in a recipe (I see you). You (i.e., We) are the reason this recipe recipe only calls for one clove of garlic instead of two. One large or two average-sized cloves are perfect, but if I put "2 cloves of garlic" in the ingredient list, someone is going to make this soup with four cloves instead, which is way too much - it simply overpowers everything.

All that being said, if you like a garlicky soup, you can safely add one more clove. Or two.

For real garlic lovers only: Try this making potato soup recipe with a handful mashed, roasted garlic cloves. So good!

Serving Suggestions

Baked potato soup is is delicious served as is, but if you're feeding a crowd, you can set up an easy soup bar.

Topping ideas include:

• bacon bits
• sliced green onions
• chopped tomatoes
• slice jalapeños
• grated cheese
• sour cream
• pepitas
• oyster crackers
• hot sauce

Expert Tips

FYI Classroom Teachers: While I was preparing this post, I ran across these nifty (and free) Sweet Potato related STEM resources offered by the The North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission.

More Creamy, Cozy Soup Recipes

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Originally published November 9, 2012. The post has been updated with new content, images, and recipe instructions to improve reader experience.