Potato Soup Recipes

During its first year, Essex Farm harvested 10,000 pounds of potatoes in just one day; Kristin Kimball turned some of them into potato-leek soup. If you have a blender and good chicken broth, she swears it's one of the easiest soups to make. This version has a fabulous topping of supercrispy sourdough and pancetta crumbs mixed with sage and rosemary.

Guanciale (pork jowl) adds salty richness.

Influenced by his Turkish-American wife, Meltem, Scott Conant spices up his silky potato soup with Turkish red-pepper paste (biber salcasi), made from sweet and hot peppers. Look for the paste at Middle Eastern groceries, or use harissa instead.

This silky-smooth pureed soup may sound like an Escoffier classic, but its taste is purely Tuscan. Chef Lauren Kiino, a firm believer in whole-vegetable cooking, uses more of the leek greens than any French chef would tolerate, for tons of gentle leek flavor. Kiino also stirs in a little creme fraiche. "But the Italian spirit is still the same," she says.

Often served chunky, a quick pulse in the blender turns this soup into a creamier soup.

Ask your butcher to split the ham hock in half.

At Manka's Inverness Lodge, in Inverness, California, chef Daniel DeLong uses local wild stringing nettles to give a tangy flavor to this light, creamy soup. Because nettles are prickly, use gloves while working with them. If nettles are unavailable, substitute fresh spinach or a combination of parsley and sorrel.

At Manka's Inverness Lodge, in Inverness, California, chef Daniel DeLong uses local wild stringing nettles to give a tangy flavor to this light, creamy soup. Because nettles are prickly, use gloves while working with them. If nettles are unavailable, substitute fresh spinach or a combination of parsley and sorrel.

For a lighter version of this soup, use milk in place of the half & half.

If you don’t have fresh oregano, use 1 teaspoon of dried, crumbled oregano.

The peppery-ness of arugula stands in for black pepper in this recipe.

Feel free to substitute yellow cheddar for a fun color change in this soup.