- Man, oh man, do I love potato soup? It's creamy, it's rich, it's delicious. I can't think of anything
that sticks to your bones more during those cold winter months. Plus all the toppings,
it is so dang delicious. I know you're gonna love this recipe. I'll never forget when my
roommate in college said, "Hey we're gonna go get some
potato soup from Quintin's." All I could think of is, "Isn't that where we just
drank beer at last night?" This place was a hidden gem
for food during the day. Who knew, the potato soup was phenomenal. They served it in a
bread bowl, so delicious. They actually put little bits
of sweet potato in there. Just made it next level. But you know me, I'm gonna keep things a
little bit more traditional, so we're gonna keep it classic. But first we're gonna start off by knocking out a little prep. Sound good? Let's cook. We're gonna start off
with a few yellow onions. Mine are on the smaller side, so if you have to medium
to large size onions that should be sufficient for this recipe. Go ahead and slice the ends
off, slice them in half and then of course let's
remove that rough outer shell. And then I'm going to
small to medium dice them. That should be good for this recipe. And then of course, I've got some bacon. And what I'm going to do
is just thinly slice this. Now, you can use apple
smoked, cured, or thick cut. This is just a regular center cut bacon. It's gonna work perfect in this recipe. And then of course, like I always say, when you're ever you're using raw meat of any kind even if cured or not, give your cutting board a
rinse and bring it back. Cause we're gonna have some more to prep in just a little bit. Now I'm gonna take the
bacon and the onions over to my cooktop. I've got a large pot over medium heat. Just gonna add in the
bacon and give it a stir. What we're looking to do
here is crisp up the bacon because we're gonna use it
later to top off the soup but most importantly, we want to render off all that bacon fat. This looks fantastic at this stage. So what we wanna do is scoop
out the crispy bacon lardons, leaving as much fat as possible in the pot and then setting the
crispy bacon to the side. I know sometimes when
you render bacon fat, sometimes the bacon
just gives off more fat. Sometimes it gives off a little bit less. Either is fine, don't sweat it. I don't want you to freak
out at this stage, okay? Here's what we're gonna do next. We are going to add the small
to medium diced yellow onions right to that pot of rendered bacon fat. Now, this is gonna take
about 45 minutes on low heat to perfectly caramelize. And you wanna come back and stir maybe every four to five minutes to make sure nothing's sticking
to the bottom of the pot. Going to stop real quick and
say, this step is so crucial. Taking the time to caramelize these onions is gonna make your soup that much better. I mean, you've seen me do
it in my spaghetti sauces and plenty of my other soups. This is just that extra little bit of love that's gonna be in this soup. It's so good. Again, 40 to 45 minutes. Take the time to do it,
can't say it enough. Here's what we're gonna do now. Got a few celery stalks
that we want to medium dice. Make sure they are medium dice because we want these chunks
to be small in the soup. No big old large chunks of celery in here. And the next thing I'm gonna do is run a few garlic cloves
through a garlic press because I hate chopping
garlic in this life. And because so many folks ask,
this is a Rosle garlic press. And now we're gonna move
on to some potatoes. I've got about four pounds
or so of russet potatoes. What we're gonna do to start is give them a peel across
all of the potatoes. And then I want to medium dice it. To do this, I'm gonna slice down through the potato while
laying on its side. And then I'm gonna stack up two at a time just so they don't move around too much. We're gonna cut them to
a fry style like that and then I'm going to turn them and then medium to large dice this. This is absolutely fantastic. Now, because we're not
gonna use these right away, It's important to set them to
the side in a pot with water because this will keep
them from browning up. Sorry to stop again so
quick but I do wanna say, if you do not like russet
potatoes and you wanna sub out, you can absolutely do so
with Yukon Gold potatoes which are those yellowish gold ones that you see in the grocery
store or even the red bliss which are those small red potatoes. You can use either of those or heck, why not use a combination of them? Any of them are totally fine. Now let's go have a look, those onions. Grab the celery and the
garlic go over to the cooktop. We're gonna take a look at those onions and goodness, do they look amazing? Awesomely brown and caramelized,
the smell is fantastic. This is excellent. We're gonna add in the celery and then the next thing we're gonna do is pop in the garlic that
we finally minced up. We're gonna give it a quick stir. What we're looking to do here is sort of saute, sweat these for
about four to six minutes. We want the garlic to cook and we want the celery to
become a little bit more tender than it already is. So give it a quick stir and then let it cook for
about four to six minutes. This looks absolutely fantastic. You can really see the celery start to turn color a little bit and the flavors that are coming from this are gonna be fantastic. And at this point, we're
gonna add in some flour because we wanna make a roux. We want to ensure that this
soup is nice and thick. It's creamy potato soup, my friends. So go ahead and mix in the flour until it is completely combined. You'll notice that all the vegetables will sort of combine together. Once it's here, go back
over to your potatoes. What we wanna do is
give them a quick strain and then of course, just
give it a little shake to get off any excess
water that is unneeded. We're going back over to that pot, pour all of that goodness in there followed up with adding
in some chicken stock. I of course have a great
homemade recipe for you. You could also use water and
vegetable stock, of course. That part is totally up to you. Now we're gonna crank the heat on to high because we want to bring this to a boil. I'm sure you can already notice that this makes quite a bit of soup. I can't help myself, you know
that I cook and when I do so, it's for the entire neighborhood. Mostly it's just because of leftovers because I like to eat soup and I graze on soup for a few days. But just as a reminder, if you go to my website billyparisi.com, scroll down to the little recipe card put your cursor, the little
mouse over the serving amount and then slide it down. It will scale down to the
serving size that you need. Maybe it's only for two or four people and then the ingredient
amount will change also. Just a little tip for you. Here's what we're gonna do next. The soup is really starting to thicken up. Now that it is boiling, go
ahead and give it a stir just to make sure nothing
is sticking together on the bottom or next to each other. You can see it's nice and thick. It's got a really great consistency. So at this point, what we're gonna do is
we're gonna cream it. We're gonna add in some
heavy whipping cream. This is gonna make it nice and white but it's also gonna add
lots of fat, lots of flavor. You wanna make sure to sort
of keep it on that high heat because that will continue
to activate the roux to make sure this stays nice
and thick like you see here. And now I've got a hand blender. I'm going to gently blend part of this. I want some chunks and
I want it to be smooth. Now, if you do not have a hand blender, go ahead and take half of it out and mix it in a regular blender and pulse until slightly
chunky and pour back in. This soup right now, my
friends, is smelling good and it's looking absolutely perfect. I sometimes get the question around, why did this not thicken? Or why did the sauce not
thicken or the soup not thicken? I don't know exactly why,
sometimes it's just a science. But what I will say is
if you get to this stage and the soup isn't thickened at all, you need to make a slurry. To do this, you need to whisk
half a cup of corn starch with a third cup of cold water until it's completely combined and then pour it in and
whisk it into the soup, bring it to a boil. That sort of activates it to make sure the soup is nice and thick. Again, if it's very runny and not looking good at all at this point, you need to thicken it up a little bit,. It's a quick trick, if for some reason, our roux did not work. Now, what we're gonna do is,
season this soup up very well with sea salt and fresh
cracked black pepper. And what I'd like to add in is a little shot of Worcestershire and a little shot of Tabasco hot sauce. It just sort of rounds
out the recipe and flavor. Just gonna give it a quick stir, incorporate all of those ingredients. You can see that the consistency and the thickness is fantastic, slightly chunky, slightly
smooth, just like I like it. We're gonna take it off the cooktop. We're heading right over to our countertop because it's coming time
to plate this thing up. If perhaps you wanted to make this vegan or keep it vegetarian, sub out the bacon for olive oil or butter. And then instead of the chicken stock, use some vegetable stock. That will make sure it's to your liking, the flavor is still gonna be fantastic. And like I tell you every
week, you start understanding these fundamental
foundational basics of cookery and applying it to all
of your everyday cooking, you are gonna be that much better chef, that much better cook, your
food is gonna be so fantastic. Understanding how to perfectly
caramelize those onions, the knife cuts, so they cook quicker, but your soup's still a little chunky. All of those things play in
to all facets of your cooking. And like I always say, homemade food from scratch
is just so much better. You know what the
ingredients are, you made it. It's that much more delicious,
it's simple, it's amazing. You'll love it. And of course, when it
comes to potato soup, I love toppings, you don't have to do it but I love adding on a bunch of stuff because it just makes it top
flight next level, my friends. So let's play it up in slow mo. I've got an absolutely massive bowl because I wanna eat a lot
of this cause it's so good. Pour some soup into a bowl then what I'm gonna do just for fun and just for a little garnish, is drizzle on a little bit of sour cream. I'm gonna hit it with some
shredded cheddar cheese. Go ahead and grab that crispy bacon up and then finish it off with a little bit of chopped parsley and green onions. Again, all these toppings are optional, but man, oh man does it make it good? And check out this beauty. (upbeat music) You better go get yourself
a bowl of this quick because it is so dang tasty. Be sure to subscribe to my channel, like and share this video and definitely check out
this video right here. I made it just for you, you'll love it. I'll see you on there. ( upbeat music)
