Baked Potato Soup

My department at work had a get together a couple of nights ago, catered by Fatz Cafe, which featured salad, rolls, chicken fingers, baked potatoes, and ice cream. Since I helped organize it, I got to take home some of the leftovers. I decided to take home 4 potatoes with the intention of making baked potato soup. My poor dutch oven has been getting lonely in the cabinet, gathering dust, so I pulled it out in its blazing red glory to whip up a batch of soup.

Since the potatoes were already baked, all I had to do was peel and mash them. Obviously if you were making this from the start, you'd have to bake potatoes (I bake mine at 375 degrees for 1 hour and 45 minutes-you get a perfect potato every time).

Once you've peeled and mashed the potatoes, set them aside.

Then, put some flour in a dutch oven and whisk in the milk. Once those are combined, turn the heat onto medium for about 10 minutes and wait until it gets thick and starts to bubble.

 

In the meantime, crisp up some bacon!

 Next, add in the mashed potatoes, cheese, salt, and pepper. Keep stirring it until the cheese melts.

Once the cheese is melted, take the pot off of the heat and stir in the sour cream and green onions. Then return the pot to a low burner, and let everything warm through for about 10 minutes.

Since I didn't do a really great job of mashing the potatoes, I used an immersion blender to smooth out the consistency a bit before serving.

Garnish the soup with some green onion, cheddar cheese, and bacon. Yum!

I really like this soup-- it is very filling. The only thing I would change is the kind of cheese I used-- I picked up reduced fat mild cheddar, instead of the extra sharp as the recipe called for. Next time, I'll definitely go for the stronger flavored cheese.

I was actually surprised how few ingredients there were, really, only 5 main ingredients (plus salt and pepper), and bacon for a garnish.

This recipe was from Cooking Light-- click here to view how to make Baked Potato Soup.