Crock Pot Loaded Potato Soup

Who doesn’t love a nice big bowl of homemade potato soup?  I personally love it, but I don’t usually make it very often because the recipe I’ve been using for years, while extremely delicious, is kind of tedious and not exactly figure friendly.  It involves baking potatoes, letting them cool, peeling them, cutting them, and THEN starting the soup with a beschamel sauce, then there’s lots of milk and cheese…  Doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but peeling about 6 already cooked potatoes is kind of a pain.  Anyway, that’s why I’m so excited about this recipe!  It’s super easy (done in the crock pot!), a little healthier (there is some sour cream and cream cheese, but I used lite…and there is bacon, but there has to be bacon), and so delicious and creamy.  It really is like a loaded baked potato in soup form, so it has all of the wonderful stuff that is (in my mind) required – cheese, sour cream, bacon, and scallions. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it!

You seriously have to give this one a try.  It’s definitely a keeper in my recipe box!  Just throw it in the crock pot before you go to work and enjoy a delicious bowl of loaded potato soup when you get home.

Crock Pot Loaded Potato Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 bag of frozen Southern style hash browns (the little cubes)
• 4 cups of chicken stock (or broth)
• 1 cup of water
• 8 ounces of sour cream (I used low fat)
• 8 ounces of cream cheese (I used 1/3 less fat)
• 1/2 to 1 onion, finely chopped (to your taste)
• 1 tablespoon of water
• 1 pound of center cut bacon, sliced and cooked until crispy
• 4 scallions, finely chopped
• about 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese
• additional sour cream for garnish
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

In a microwave safe bowl, combine onions and about a tablespoon of water.  Cover with plastic wrap and cut a slit in the plastic.  Microwave for 1-2 minutes until onions begin to soften.  Add potatoes, chicken stock, water, sour cream, cream cheese, and softened onions to the crock pot.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Cook on low for 8 hours, until potatoes are tender.  When ready to serve, stir in half of the cooked bacon.  Top bowls of soup with (more) bacon, scallions, cheese, and sour cream.  Of course, any and all of these toppings are optional, but I load them up.  You could also use precooked bacon to save time.

Enjoy!