Baked Potato Soup {SRC}

Secret Recipe Club (SRC) is back today after a nice holiday break in December.

This month, I was assigned to Jean’s Blog, The Tasty Cheapskate!  Jean is a mom of four and a self proclaimed cheapskate.  She strives to make the most out of her food, stretching it wherever possible.  But while she may be a cheapskate, you will never see margarine in her pantry, because even a cheapskate has her limits!

As I see food prices constantly on the rise and along with them, my grocery bill, I am loving the concept of The Tasty Cheapskate!  Let’s stretch that expensive meat a little bit further!  Then we won’t have to hide the grocery bill from our husbands – ha!

As I perused The Tasty Cheapskate, I was immediately drawn to the soups.  It’s just something about this time of year that makes me yearn for soup.  And not just soup, potato soup!  I looked back in my blog history and realized that for the third year running, I have posted a potato soup of some sort in the third week of January!  Crazy!

I do love this soup in particular because of its simplicity (especially if you cheat like I did and use store bought bacon pieces instead of thawing and frying bacon).  The baked potatoes can be made ahead of time (maybe at dinner the previous day?) making this an extremely fast and easy weeknight meal.

Recipe Notes

*To save time, bake the potatoes the day before

*After I fry bacon, I save the drippings in a glass jar for later use (fried eggs are awesome in bacon grease, fyi).  That’s what I used in this recipe.

Baked Potato Soup

Adapted from The Tasty Cheapskate

2 lb red potatoes (6-8, depending on the size)

2 tbsp bacon drippings (or fry up 3 strips of bacon, crumble & reserve drippings)

1 tbsp butter

½ small onion (1/3 cup or so)

½ cup celery, diced small (1 large stalk)

1 clove garlic, minced

3 tbsp all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp dried basil

½ tsp black pepper

3 cups chicken stock

1 cup milk (or use half milk, half cream, or any variation)

½ tsp hot sauce (such as Frank’s)

¼ cup Oscar Mayer Real Bacon Pieces (if not using fried bacon)

Shredded cheddar cheese, for garnish

Plain Greek Yogurt, for garnish

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Wash the potatoes and pierce with a fork.  Bake for 1 hour.  Remove from the oven and cool.

Place the bacon drippings and butter into a soup pot over medium heat.  Add the onions and celery and cook until tender, about 5 minutes.  Add the garlic, salt, pepper, and basil and cook for a minute more.

Sprinkle the flour over the vegetable mixture and stir.  Continue stirring and cooking until the flour is lightly toasted, 3-5 minutes.

Slowly whisk in the chicken stock.  Continue whisking until all of the flour mixture is incorporated into the stock.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 3-5 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop the cooled baked potatoes (skin and all) into bite sized pieces.  Stir the potatoes, crumbled bacon (or OM bacon pieces), milk, and hot sauce into the soup and heat through.

Divide the soup into bowls.  Garnish with a sprinkling of cheese, a dollop of Greek yogurt (or sour cream) and additional bacon pieces.

Makes 4 bowls of soup