Mashed Potato Soup
One of my favorite parts about Thanksgiving dinner is turning those yummy Turkey Day leftovers into something completely new but just as delicious-like Mashed Potato Soup! This soup checks all the boxes for me: it's rich and creamy, but it's also super simple and it only takes fifteen minutes to make!
🔍 Recipe At-A-Glance: Mashed Potato Soup
- 🕰️ Prep Time: 5 minutes
- ⏰ Cook Time: 10 minutes
- 💛 Flavor Profile: Like a loaded baked potato and your favorite mashed potatoes collided and fell into a pot of soup.
- 🍽️ Good For: Mixing up your Thanksgiving leftovers game. A simple, warm weeknight dinner served with crusty bread or Easy Drop Biscuits and a Mason Jar Salad.
- 🧡 Difficulty: The easiest soup you'll ever make.
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🧡 Why You'll Love This Recipe
Hey friend: One of the constants on my Thanksgiving table every year is my slow cooker mashed potatoes recipe, and they are just as good as leftovers as they are fresh! And while sure, you could use leftover mashed potatoes to top a hearty Shepherd's Pie, you could also turn them into the best potato soup!
Here's why you'll love this recipe:
- Works with any mashed potato leftovers: Your potatoes can have the skin left on, or the skin removed. You can use red, white, purple, or yellow potatoes. You can even make this mashed potato recipe with leftover loaded potatoes! This recipe is as versatile as it gets, so whatever potato leftovers you have, you can feel confident knowing they'll make a delicious leftover mashed potato soup.
- So versatile: This soup's versatility is one thing I love about it. You can keep it super simple and it'll still be creamy and loaded with rich flavor. Or, you can add toppings at the end to take it up a notch.
- Speedy and easy: This soup takes literally 15 minutes, start to finish. The only way you could get soup on the table faster would be to open a store-bought can of soup!
🥔 The Ingredients You Need
- Leftover mashed potatoes: I usually use either my slow cooker mashed potatoes recipe or my Instant Pot mashed potatoes recipe. But really, any mashed potato leftovers will work!
- Chicken broth: Store-bought broth will work just fine, but I like to use homemade bone broth for an even more nourishing soup. Or if you make broth with the bones from my dry brine turkey recipe, turkey stock works well too!
- Flour and butter: You'll start the soup making with a simple roux made of flour and butter, which will make a thicker, creamier soup.
Make sure to check the recipe card below for the full ingredients list, along with quantities and my expert tips and tricks.
🔁 Variations & Substitutions
- Nix the roux: This recipe is already simple, but if you want to simplify it even more, you can skip the first step where you combine the butter and flour to make a roux. This step will thicken the soup, but it's not necessary.
- Fully loaded potato soup: If you want to add even more flavor to your leftover mashed potato soup, try topping the finished soup with sour cream, chives or green onions, more cheese, and a sprinkling of cooked bacon! Yum!
- Beef potato soup: I also love potato soup with beef broth instead of chicken for a deeper, earthier flavor.
- Leftover turkey: Mashed potatoes aren't the only Thanksgiving leftovers you can turn into soup! I love to use leftover turkey for turkey wild rice soup, turkey gnocchi soup, or turkey vegetable soup, too.
🥣 Mashed Potato Soup How-To
Step 1: First you're gonna make a roux. That may sound intimidating, but it really just means whisking butter with some flour, salt, and pepper over medium heat for a minute or so.
Step 2: Slowly add chicken stock to the roux, whisking constantly so lumps don't form.
Step 3: Stir in the milk, mashed potatoes, and cheese. Whisk constantly until the soup simmers so that the cheese doesn't burn or stick to the pan.
Step 4: Let it simmer until the soup is thickened. Serve with whatever toppings you like.
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🙋🏻♀️ Mashed Potato Soup FAQs
You sure can! Start with a small amount of mashed potatoes and let the soup simmer for a few minutes before deciding whether you want to add more. This trick works especially well for vegetable soups (hello, broccoli cheddar potato soup), pureed soups, and soups that already contain diced potatoes, but you can use it for just about any of your favorite soup recipes.
I typically opt for the bacon, cheddar, and green onion option, but you can also jazz up mashed potato soup with paprika, rosemary, thyme, roasted garlic, or any number of spices. If you like it on a baked potato, you'll probably like it in this soup.
👩🏻🍳 My Expert Tips & Tricks
- Other potato soups: You can use mashed potatoes as a shortcut for most potato soups, like my cheeseburger potato soup! Traditional potato soups have diced potatoes that you mash part way through the cooking process. This mashed potato soup recipe skips those steps and fast-forwards directly to delicious, mashed potato goodness. That's why this recipe is so quick and easy. You've already done most of the cooking work!
- Thicken (or thin out) your soup: This is a very forgiving recipe. If your mashed potato soup is too thick, whisk in a bit more chicken broth. If it's too thin and you prefer a thicker soup, you can always add more mashed potatoes to thicken it up.
- Make it a meal: We love this soup with a side of bread, salad, or both! Try my Irish Soda Bread (or Quick Gluten-Free Bread if you're gluten-free) and this Kale Caesar Salad!
🍜 More Soup and Stew Recipes:
If you tried this mashed potato soup or any other recipe on my blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the comments!
📖 Recipe
Mashed Potato Soup
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground pepper
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1 cup whole milk
- 4 cups prepared mashed potatoes
- ½ cup cheddar cheese
- Cheddar cheese, bacon, green onion/chives, sour cream for serving (optional)
Instructions
- In a large pot, melt 2 tablespoons unsalted butter over medium heat and add 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, ½ teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon ground pepper.
- Use a whisk to mix everything together and cook for 1 minute.
- Slowly pour 4 cups chicken broth into the pan, whisking constantly.
- Add 1 cup whole milk, 4 cups prepared mashed potatoes, and ½ cup cheddar cheese and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly so that the cheese doesn't burn, just until the soup reaches a simmer.
- Continue cooking until desired thickness is reached.
- Serve with optional Cheddar cheese, bacon, green onion/chives, sour cream .
Notes
- This recipe is very forgiving! Make this soup thicker by adding extra mashed potatoes, or thinner by increasing the broth.
- For a vegetarian soup, replace the chicken broth with vegetable stock.
- If you don't feel up to making the roux, you can skip it. The soup will be a little thinner and a little less creamy, but it will still be delicious!
If you're sick of nuking Thanksgiving leftovers, why not revitalize them! This mashed potato soup takes those leftover mashed potatoes and turns them into a hearty, delicious potato soup you'll love in those late November days. Enjoy!