Give me a potato and I am good to go! I love them any way they can be prepared,as french fries, chips, home fries, hash browns, baked, mashed, scalloped—you name it.So you can imagine that because of that potato leek soup is one of my favorites! On top of that, this soup is creamy without adding any cream at all, so it doesn’t have to be high in fat. You can also make it without any meat of diary so your vegan friend will be thrilled! Here’s what you’ll need to make my version:

1-lb. leeks (3 or 4 leeks)
2 tbsp. butter or olive oil
2-lbs. potatoes (about 4-6 russets or yukon golds)
2 cups water
2 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 tbsp. fresh thyme (or 3/4 tsp. dried thyme)
Hot sauce (optional)
Salt and pepper

Wash and chop your leeks into small slices. Leeks can have a lot of dirt tucked in between the layers, so you may need to rinse the slices after chopping. Only use the white and light green parts. Discard the dark green portion.

On low heat, melt the butter or heat the olive oil and add leeks, salt and pepper. Cook covered until softened, stirring often (about 10 minutes). Try not to let the leeks brown because they will have that burnt garlic taste.

While your leeks are cooking peel and chop the potatoes.

Add the potatoes to the pot along with the water and stock. Bring up to a boil and simmer until the potatoes are soft (abut 20 minutes).

While you’re waiting, prepare the thyme by removing the leaves from the woody stems. My thyme is homegrown and still pretty young, so I did the best I could removing the leaves from the stems, but a few soft stems won’t make any difference.

When the potatoes are soft, pour half the soup into a blender and puree. If you’re using a hand blender, remove some of the potatoes with a slotted spoon and put them aside.

Blend the remaining soup until smooth.

Before putting the chunked potatoes back into the pureed soup, I mashed them a little with a fork. If you like them chunky there’s no need to do this. I just like this consistency better.

Mix the puree and the chunky potatoes together and add the thyme.

Mix everything together and give the soup a taste. Add salt and pepper if needed. I like to add a few dashes of hot sauce too. My favorite is Louisiana Hot Sauce, but you can use any brand you like.

Mix it all together and you’ve got soup. I like to top mine with a few bacon crumbles and some chopped chives or green onions. To make the soup a little more decadent, add the bacon crumbles into the soup pot. You could also add a cup of shredded cheddar and a 1/2 to a full cup of heavy cream if you really want to go nuts. However, I like to keep the fat content down, so I usually don’t bother. Plus, this soup is so creamy and flavorful you really don’t need it.

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