Sunday, August 18, 2013

Easy Slow Cooker Potato Soup




I make a lot of Potato Soup throughout the year.  I came up with my own recipe and my son loves it.  He likes it "loaded" with turkey bacon, extra sharp cheddar cheese, and flavorful croutons.  The soup is rich and thick but quite a bit of work to make. I feel like I kind of have to baby sit the soup when it cooks to ensure it doesn't get over done... mushy potatoes... ick!

With a new puppy in the house, life seems rather busy lately.  I saw a Crock Pot Potato Soup recipe on line the other day and it looked ridiculously easy compared to my recipe. So of course, I had to give it a try.

The verdict: GREAT!

I have seen a few versions of this soup and I made the one I stumbled across on a blog called "Okay, BA".   The recipe link is HERE.  I spent some time today reading this blog.  Turns out it's not a cooking blog per se so I am not sure how I happened to find this blog. The blog's writer is very entertaining and she is a very, very good writer.  I like her stories very much and I hope she continues to occasionally post recipes she enjoys.

For my soup, I used:

30 ounce bag of frozen (shredded, not cubes) Oreida brand hash brown potatoes
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1 carton of chicken broth (32 ounces) plus 1/2 can of chicken broth (about 1 cup)
3/4 of a yellow onion, diced
lots and lots of ground black pepper
1 pkg. of cream cheese (8 ounce size)
dried Italian seasoning/herbs
garlic powder
garnishes (yum!): cooked, chopped turkey bacon, grated cheddar cheese, croutons

Place the first five ingredients in the crock pot except for the cream cheese.  Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours. Stir the soup and then add in the cream cheese.  I cut my cream cheese into about six smaller chunks to help it melt more easily. Cover and cook for an additional hour.  When I added the cream cheese I added in about 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoons of dried Italian Seasoning and about 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder.

I was thankful my son liked this soup.  So much easier than my recipe.  Thank you, "Okay, BA!"




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