I love potato soup. I used to order it every time I went out to eat, once upon a time. But then I realized how easy it is to make this Slow Cooker Potato Cheddar Soup recipe.

There is a bit of prep work with this soup because you need to peel and chop the potatoes and chop the onions and garlic, but then the soup basically makes itself until the very end.

Slow Cooker Potato Cheddar Soup Recipe

Slow Cooker Potato Cheddar Soup Ingredients:

• 6 potatoes
• 1 medium onion
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 32 oz. chicken broth
• 1/2 stick butter
• 2.5 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 pint (1 cup) heavy cream
• 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
• 2 green onions
• Sour cream (optional)

How To Make Slow Cooker Potato Cheddar Soup:

Peel and chop the potatoes.

Chop one onion.

Chop five cloves of garlic.

Put the potatoes, onion, and garlic in the slow cooker.

Pour in the chicken broth.

Add the salt and pepper. Slice the butter and drop it on top.

Cook on low for seven hours and one hour on high.

Use a potato masher to mash the potatoes and stir the ingredients together.

Stir in the heavy cream and cheese.

Stir in almost all the green onions (reserve some for a garnish).

Serve with a dollop of sour cream and a pinch of green onions.

Do you have to peel the potatoes?

Peeling potatoes isn’t anyone’s favorite kitchen chore. But it’s so worth it.

When you make this potato soup, the potatoes, onions, and garlic basically liquefy. So it’s a nice creamy soup.

Potato skin doesn’t melt like that. So you pick up a spoonful of this soup, and end up chewing the skin.

I personally really like potato skin … but in certain recipes. And this isn’t one of them. Baked potatoes and French fries are fine with the skin on. Mashed potatoes and potato soup should use peeled potatoes.

Do you have to peel the potatoes? No. But should you? Yes.

Do you have to cook the potatoes before slow cooking them?

The potatoes will cook completely in the slow cooker. You don’t need to par-boil them first.

The key to the slow cooker is how you layer the ingredients.

Put the potatoes in first so they’re exposed to all the surface area of the bottom of the slow cooker. That will help them cook faster.

This recipe doesn’t really have ingredients that need to cook slower, but some slow cooker recipes do. You want to layer the quicker cooking ingredients on top of the slower cooking ones.

Can you use a bag of shredded cheese in this soup?

I say this almost every time shredded cheese is in a recipe. Buy a block of cheese and shred it yourself. Recipes come out so much better that way than if you use a bag of shredded cheese.

It takes, like, one minute flat to shred cheese with a good cheese grater and the taste is so much better than bagged shredded cheese.

Why?

Bagged shredded cheese has preservatives added to it that prevents it from melting in the bag and keeps each piece individual. The trouble is that when you actually do try to melt the cheese, the cheese won’t melt well.

Block cheese doesn’t have this preservative, so it melts so much better. So any time you have a recipe where the cheese melts, you should shred a block of cheese yourself.

Can you make Slow Cooker Potato Soup with milk?

If you don’t have heavy cream handy, and don’t feel like buying it just for this recipe, you can use milk. Heavy cream makes this soup really creamy and delicious. It also thickens the soup.

Half and half is a good substitute for heavy cream in this recipe, but milk will work in a pinch.

If you do use milk, don’t use a skim milk. That won’t really add anything but additional liquid to the soup.

And you’ll need to make a roux to act as a thickener.

What’s the best way to thicken potato soup?

If you used milk instead of heavy cream to make this, your soup is going to be a little thin. The heavy cream acts as a thickener.

If your soup needs to be thickened, make a roux with 1 tablespoon of flour and 1 cup of your soup.

This is so much easier than it sounds.

After you add in the milk, but before you stir in the cheese, remove one cup of the soup. Pour that into a bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of all-purpose flour to the bowl. Stir until the flour is completely incorporated.

Pour that mixture back into the soup and stir in it.

There’s some magic in that roux that will thicken the soup.

You can use cornstarch instead of flour to make a roux, but a lot of people complain that cornstarch changes the flavor of recipes when it is used to make a roux. Personally, I don’t mind using cornstarch, but I do always use flour.

Can you make vegetarian Slow Cooker Potato Cheddar Soup?

I love the way chicken broth tastes in this soup. It gives it a really flavorful taste without adding any heaviness.

If you want to make this vegetarian, though, you can use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth.

And if you want to make it vegan, use vegan chicken stock and skip the butter and sour cream dollop on top, unless you use vegan versions of those products as well.

Personally, I’ve never made this soup vegan, so if you do, be sure to let us know how it tastes.

If you are looking for a vegan soup idea for dinner tonight, check out our Vegan Kale And Bean Soup.

More Slow Cooker Soup Recipes:

We have this Cook & Carry slow cooker, which I’m obsessed with. It’s 6-quarts, which is enough to make six servings. And it fits every slow cooker recipe we’ve posted on the blog.

It has a locking feature too, which makes it safe to transport.

So of course, I use it all the time.

If you’re looking for some more soups to make in a slow cooker, check out a few of our favorites:

• Slow Cooker Chicken Soup
• Slow Cooker Taco Soup
• 30 Slow Cooker Soup Recipes