At midday, my husband and I leave our computers and sit down to lunch. Soup, hearty and rich and filling, is a mainstay on our lunchtime table. Either one of us will toss the ingredients into a single pot around noon, and let it simmer until done, when we sit down to eat, supplementing lunch with a big salad, a slice of no-knead sourdough bread, homemade fermented vegetables and chicken liver pate from time to time, too.
I save the leftover soup to add to our son’s lunchbox the next day. I warm it on the stove in the morning, pour it in a thermos, and set it in his lunchbox along with a small serving of sauerkraut or sour pickles.
From time to time, I make a double batch, pouring the leftover soup into pyrex containers (like these) to freeze for an easy lunch or dinner some time when we’re too busy or tired or overextended to cook.
Loaded Baked Potato Soup
We have our favorite soups, to be sure: Sweet Potato and Poblano Pepper, Lentil Stew with Winter Vegetables, Bacon Leek and Potato. With a glut of potatoes from our CSA to work our way through, we’ve found ourselves leaning upon a new favorite: Loaded Baked Potato Soup topped with sour cream, sharp cheddar cheese, crispy shoulder bacon, green onion and thinly sliced jalapeno pepper.
It is positively lovely.
A New Kind of Bacon?
As you longtime readers know, bacon is particularly well-loved (over-loved?) in our home. Its salty, smoky crispness goes particularly well with potato. I’ve been working as an advisor to Applegate over the last year, and, recently they released Good Morning Bacon, which is a leaner bacon cut from the shoulder rather than the belly. Its flavor and texture is reads like a cross between bacon and ham.
The shoulder is typically an underutilized cut of pork, though it makes a lovely bacon – leaner, which means less fat will render, so the bacon yields more smoky, salty meat which is particularly well-suited to culinary applications that are already rich and don’t want for more richness – like this ultra-creamy, rich potato soup.
Loaded Baked Potato Soup with Crispy Bacon
Ingredients
- 2 pounds Russet potatoes peeled and quartered
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1 tablespoon ghee find grass-fed ghee here
- 8 ounces Applegate Good Morning Bacon check it out here, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 2 teaspoons unrefined sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
- 4 ounces grated sharp cheddar cheese divided
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/4 cup chopped green onion
- 1 jalepeno pepper sliced thin
Instructions
- Dump the potatoes into a heavy stock pot. Cover with broth and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Simmer, covered, until the potatoes fall apart when pressed with the tines of a fork, about thirty minutes.
- While the potatoes boil, heat the ghee in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. When it melts, reduce the heat to medium, and toss the bacon into the pan. Fry it in the hot fat until crispy, about 20 minutes, and then transfer to a plate with a slotted spoon.
- Turn off the heat to the potatoes. Pour in the heavy cream, salt, pepper and half the grated cheese. Stir 1 to 2 minutes, then puree with an immersion blender until smooth.
- Ladle into bowls. Top the soup with the remaining cheese, the sour cream, the green onion and the reserved bacon.
Apple gate was bought out but Hormel in 2015
Yes, and they continue to operate autonomously and independently.
Jenni, I’ve used your bacon recipe for years with wonderful soy free organic bellies. How would this work with a shoulder?
Your cookbooks are at the center of my kitchen. THANK YOU!
Because I do not tolerate large quantities of dairy at one time, I used coconut milk in the place of dairy milk. That was the only substitution I made. My husband, who doesn’t care for coconut milk, had no idea i used coconit milk. He, and our kids, loved the soup. Thanks for a great recipe.