Chunky Potato Leek Soup Recipe

Are you familiar with the leek? They look like big fat green onions, but they taste more like very mild white onions. Leeks can be eaten on their own as a veggie side dish, and they're also good in a stir fry. Where leeks really shine, however, is in soups such as the Scottish dish cock-a-leekie and the classic French vichyssoise that was Julia Child's favorite.

Vichyssoise typically calls for shallots, onions, and chives as well as leeks, and its other ingredients include white wine, chicken stock, potatoes, milk, and cream. Recipe developer Catherine Brookes' chunky potato leek soup has similar flavors of a vichyssoise, but in a simplified version that omits the wine, shallots, chives, and milk, and adds garlic. She describes the dish as "hearty, warming and nourishing," and says it makes for a good meal on a cold day as the potatoes bulk it up and make it quite filling. The leeks, Brookes says, add their "delicious savory flavor." If you're looking for the perfect soup, give this chunky potato leek soup a spin.

To make this soup, you won't need too many ingredients, just an onion, leeks, potatoes, and garlic. You'll also need some olive oil for cooking, plus some vegetable stock and heavy cream. Brookes says there's "no problem swapping the [vegetable] stock" for chicken or beef stock, if you prefer. You may also want to lighten up the soup by using half and half in place of the heavy cream.

You'll first need to prep the veggies, peeling, slicing, and chopping them as specified in the ingredients list. Once the vegetables are prepped, heat the olive oil in a deep skillet or saucepan and cook the onions and leeks until softened, about five minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute.

Add the stock and the diced potatoes (peeled or not) to the aromatics, then turn up the heat to bring the pot to a boil. Once the soup starts boiling, turn the heat down to low, put a lid on the pot, and simmer it for about 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.

Take the soup off of the heat and pour in the cream. Stir it up, then pour ⅓ to ½ of the soup into a blender. Blend until smooth, then pour the blended soup back into the chunky soup. Depending on how chunky you want your soup, you can puree more or less of the mixture to taste.

The soup is ready to serve now, though you can dress it up with extra cream or chopped chives if you like. Brookes says this dish "would be great with some crusty bread or garlic bread." If you don't finish all the soup in one go, Brookes says it should keep for 3 days or so in the fridge, and you can also freeze it.