Best Baked Potato Soup

For all of you trying to survive the blizzard that seems to be hitting just about every area of the country this week, I thought I would post the recipe for a delicious Baked Potato Soup I made last week. It made it onto Micah’s list of favorite dinners instantly, probably because it involves bacon… While it’s not blizzarding in Phoenix, it’s even pretty cold here. I’ve never heard so many people cuss about weather under 40 degrees in my life. Nor have I ever seen so many people wearing shorts and eating ice cream cones in 35 degree weather either. Yes, I witnessed both of these things happening on campus today. Arizona is a strange place… Let’s just say that it is cold enough here that I actually put on my mittens in my car today to touch my cold steering wheel (not to buffer my hands from a hot steering wheel, which is how I use the same mittens in August), and I had a strong desire to be wearing earmuffs as I walked to my car after class.

But anyway, back to the soup. I modified this recipe from one I found on Allrecipes (I pretty much modify every recipe I make because I’m picky, lazy, feeling creative, don’t have ingredients, etc.) and turned it into an amazing crockpot creation that cooks while you do whatever the heck you want all day long (or go to work, school, etc). If you are stuck at home in snowy weather, this soup will warm and cheer you right up. Hopefully you have ingredients or can find a way to get to the store to pick up some groceries….

Plan to spend about 20 minutes putting the soup together in the morning. I didn’t give myself enough time, and I was almost late to school and had to leave dirty dishes in the sink. Yuck.

Add to a crockpot:
Two 14.5 oz. cans of chicken broth
1 small onion chopped into tiny pieces (I only use half an onion because I don’t love onion…)

Now you need to fry up 3-5 strips of bacon. You can actually do this before or after you put everything in the crockpot. When the bacon is done cooking, take about 2 tablespoons of the bacon grease and add it to the crockpot. This is the secret ingredient.

Cut the rest of the bacon into tiny pieces and put it in the fridge until dinner time. I use handy ol’ kitchen scissors for this job. I love kitchen scissors.

Let the soup cook for 6-8 hours on LOW. It helps if you can stir it once about halfway through the process, but if you can’t, no big deal. Just stir it up about 5-10 minutes before you serve it.

Serve both the homemade “bacon bits” and grated cheddar cheese as a garnish for the soup.

I wish I had a picture of this goodness from last week, but I forgot to take photos… sorry! It was gone before I could get out my camera (okay, not really… this easily feeds 4-6 people and we still have some in our freezer which I will probably enjoy for lunch tomorrow…I am just not used to taking pictures of what I cook yet because, let’s be honest, it’s kind of a weird thing to do). But I promise, it’s amazing!