Robyn Stone
Potato Soup Recipe – My Grandmother Verdie’s Potato Soup recipe makes an old-fashioned, easy, comforting soup recipe. Made with 5 ingredients and no heavy cream!
Soup always makes one of my favorite meals. Like our favorite vegetable soup and chicken and dumplings this is one of the soups that I grew up loving the most. Before there was such a thing as loading a potato soup with bacon, cheese, onions, my Grandmother Verdie made her potato soup very simply – with potatoes, milk, butter, and salt and pepper. If my sister Wendy and I knew that Grandmother made this soup for supper, we’d beg to be able to eat supper with her. With one bite, it is so easy to understand why! 🙂
The Best Potato Soup Recipe
You could add all sorts of things to this soup if you’d like, but I recommend starting with this simple, basic recipe and go from there. Most times, we would rather stick with this version than add a lot of other ingredients, like leeks, onions, and what not.
Ya know, simple really is best most of the time, isn’t it?
How to Make The Best Potato Soup Recipe
To make Grandmother’s Potato Soup Recipe, you’ll only need to do a few things.
Prep potatoes. begin by scrubbing your potatoes clean, peeling, and then cutting them into about 2-inch chunks. Place the potatoes into a large soup pot (I use my Dutch oven) and cover with clean water.
Cook. Cook over medium heat until the potatoes are fork tender, about 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and drain away the water from the potatoes.
Add your whole milk and butter to the potatoes and place back on medium heat. Allow the milk to bubble slightly around the edges of the soup pot, about 5 to 10 minutes.
Season. Remove from the heat and season with salt and pepper to taste.
To customize the consistency and texture of this soup recipe, you can serve it as shown with tender chunks of potatoes or you can make a smooth soup by using an immersion blender in your soup pot until it reaches the consistency you prefer. But really, the chunkiness is simply perfect and I definitely recommend that you give it a try!
If you like a smoother textured soup with all the trimmings, you may want to check out my Loaded Potato Soup Recipe as well.
Can You Make Potato Soup Ahead?
Allow your soup to cool completely and then store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Reheat and serve.
Other Favorite Soup Recipes:
Here’s Grandmother’s Potato Soup Recipe. I hope you love it as much as we do!
Potato Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 pounds (about 6 medium) Russet potatoes scrubbed, peeled, and chopped
- water
- 3 cups whole milk
- 4 tablespoons butter
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Cover potatoes with water in a large soup pot.
- Cook over medium heat until fork tender, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and drain.
- Add milk and butter to the potatoes. Place back on medium heat and allow milk to bubble slightly around the edges of the soup pot, about 5 to 10 minutes.
- Remove from heat and ladle into soup bowls.
- Serve with salt and pepper to taste.
Nutrition Information
Enjoy!
Robyn xo
From the Add a Pinch recipe archives. Orignally published 2011.
My Great Grandma Montange, Grandma Sargisson and my mom’s recipe as well. This is the perfect potato soup recipe.
Aren’t these heirloom recipes from our grandmothers the best ever? Thanks, Devin!
I can’t wait to try yr grandma potatoe soup thank you
Hope you enjoy!
I know this is your grandmas recipe so you profitably have fond memories of this recipe but it just didn’t do it for me. It was very very bland, it was ok for tonight as an “I haven’t been able to grocery shop this week” type of meal. But I hopefully won’t be making this again and will stick with my stepdads recipe.
What about using fat free milk instead?
I have not used fat free milk in this recipe, Jessica.
I was looking for something like my grandma’s recipe too! I made this absolute bowl of perfection potato soup today!
Thank you! Our grandma’s had great taste!
They certainly did, Renee. I’m so glad this soup was like your grandmother made for you, too.
What about adding onions. If i wanted to add onions how could i incorporate it? This looks exactly like what i remember my GMA would make.
If you wanted to add onions to this soup, cook them with the potatoes, Court. Hope you enjoy!
😁😁😁😁
I was skeptical at first, but now I am a believer. To add my own personal touch to it, I added a little bit of onion powder and, of course, bacon pieces.
“Add bacon”…
words to live by
I’m glad you liked the soup, Andrew.
I’ve used this recipe three times now and it is awesome. Sometimes simple is better and in this case, it definitely is. I add cheese and chives to each serving and my roommate, who is very picky, loves it!
Thanks, Sandy. I have always loved this simple soup my Grandmother made.
I was undecided of which kind of soup to have for dinner. I made the right choice. It was the delicious and it was a big hit with the family.
I’m so happy you liked this soup, Jacquelin. It has always been a favorite of mine since I was a little girl.
My mom made this same soup with the addition of onions. I saw her make it many times, but she failed to pass on the actual recipe for family members. Its nice to have actual measurements to pass along. Thanks sooo much for sharing!!!
Teena
I’m so glad I had my grandmother’s recipe to pass along. Hope you enjoy the soup and it brings back sweet memories of your mother.
It doesn’t seem that this recipe makes much. What would you do to have a larger portion? Double recipe exactly?
I’ve looked at many recipes that looked like my Gma used to make. As soon as I looked at the pic, I knew this was the one. I’ve made it twice this week, taking it to friends who are sick. They loved it to. It’s exactly as I remember from my childhood. Thank you!
Isn’t it amazing that so many of our grandmothers made similar recipes? I’m so glad you found this one. Thanks
Many years ago, I found a similar recipe in a Fannie Farmer Junior cookbook from either the 1940’s or 50’s. Your grandmother’s soup recipe is very similar and equally wonderful. I like it best simple and “unloaded” and it’s healthier too.
This is a really simple soup. You can add other ingredients to this soup if you like but I always liked it simple just as Grandmother made it. Thanks.
My grandmother made this soup, but without the milk. She also added a dash of sugar. I really enjoy eating cornbread with it. Thank you so much for sharing your recipe.
It was so easy and it was delicious I will make it again and again
Thank you
Love the potato soup recipe. Reminds me of my mother’s which I love, love. I have big boys who can eat some serious amounts of food. My boys couldn’t get over how I just or their words exactly…”MOM, JUST PotatoeSoup and nothing else? So my questions is should’ve I made some type of bread or another side with your delicious Potatoe Soup? Thank you hungry boys love to eat.
Holly, glad everyone loved the soup. Next time, you can serve rolls or other bread and/or salad with this soup. Or you could add any other similar side dish that your boys love with soup. Thanks.
My mother always made this soup, except she always cooked onion in it. So good and so many memories! I love this simple soup!
I grew up on potato soup just like this and have made it like this many times myself. Along the way, I kept trying more complex recipes, but always end up missing this delicious simple recipe. I just made a batch. I am thrilled that you tooke the time to post it!
Thanks, Toni. I grew up with this potato soup, too and sometimes, like you, I just want a simple soup. xo
Yes, my Mom and Grandma made this simple soup from the over-supply of potatoes we always had from
Grandpa’s farm. It was the first recipe I learned to make, when I was maybe eight years old. Now my
husband and I make it, some 50+ years after I first learned to make it for baby brother. Simply the Best!
Cathy, I love that you had this soup from your grandmother just like I did from mine. I love those old recipes, don’t you? Thank you.
this is very similar to our old family recipe. Differences, we add a couple onions to the raw potatoes and cook everything in the Milk. To mix up the meal sometimes we have side options to add to the top like bacon, cheese, green onions. I remember this soup as a staple in my childhood home! yum!
Jennifer, you might also be interested in my Loaded Baked Potato Soup recipe.
Great recipe. My family has always made it this way, back several generations. We add celery salt and some add onions.
It’s interesting to see how many people all across the country have made the same recipes for generations. It makes you wonder where the original was developed. xo
I want to thank you for your grandmother recipe, it’s the BEST!! I tried it today and love it.
Alma, I’m so glad you love Grandmother Verdie’s potato soup recipe. It was such a favorite as I was growing up.
This is the recipe that I have made for almost 50 years now. Love it. Hope yall enjoy it too.
Susan, I love that you have been making this same soup as my grandmother and mother for all these years, too.
I made this yesterday on a wet rainy day and added onions and celery to the taters and as it simmered in milk I added a little bit of chopped up ham I had leftover…It was amazing….
This soup is soo good on wet rainy days, isn’t it, Betty? So glad you liked it.
Thank you for your recipe. My Mother wanted some old fashioned potatoe soup that was like her Mother’s soup. Came across recipe and made it for her and she said it tasted like her Mother’s. Good recipe 👍
That’s amazing, Kathy. I guess a lot of the grandmothers made this same potato soup recipe. I’m glad it was like your grandmother remembered.
Vola G. Steele August 01, 2020
I have not make this potato soup. I will be trying in a crock pot; When me and brother was little and had a stomached my mother. My mother would made homemade potato soup( she would cooked the potato down low and leave the milk out because of the stomache.) How do you do think this will come out trying the crock pot.
I’m sorry but I haven’t tried making this soup in a crock pot, Vola, so I can’t tell you how it will turn out.
Growing up in the 50s-mid-sixties, we had potato soup often in the winters and I loved it. It didn’t seem to be common among friends’ families. But I grew up pretty poor and after high school and when I was going to nursing school, I started having friends who grew up in Middle-upper middle class homes. I was basically told by them that potato soup ALWAYS has cheese; no one would want what I was used to. So, I actually thought that it was another of my mom’s money saving measures. I love cheese, so I started making potato-cheese soup, often with bacon. But though I first liked it, over the years, I grew tired of it and longed for my mom’s version plus I’m on a campaign to prepare simpler foods. We add so many calories and other things when we put three different things into a dish, not to mention time and money. I’m not saying I never make a dish with more than one protein, but not nearly as often. So, anyway, asked my mom for her potato soup recipe and also looked in a bunch of cookbooks and found that potato soup without cheese is a “thing,” not just my mom’s economic measures (she DID have a lot of those, too, but honestly, I can’t remember ever having cheese except as grilled cheese or a lunch of crackers and cheddar. Parmesan? On my spaghetti? I still only use it occasionally though my husband can’t make himself think of eating it without parmesan!
Linda, potato soup with cheese and bacon is good but I just love my grandmother’s simple potato soup recipe. I think of her every time I make it. Sometimes the simple recipes from the past are just the best!
My mother and grandmother Always made this with a little diced onion, lots of butter and whole milk. They served cornbread on the side (not the sweet kind). Thanks for posting this recipe. I am making it tonight!
Katie, don’t you just love that so many of our grandmothers and mothers made foods so similar? xo
Hi could you double the recipe as I have 8 people to feed and they all like alot of potatoes in their soup. Thank you for your response in advance
You can definitely double this recipe if you wish, Beverly.
Can’t wait to make this soup
Hope you enjoy, Linda!
Just made this on a cool breezy fall day! I made it just like it said, and we enjoy it very much! Thank you for posting.
I’m so glad you enjoyed the soup, Teresa!
About how much salt and pepper? That’s an important measurement. Please clarify.
Lezli, “salt and pepper to taste” means you add the amount of seasoning to the taste you prefer. The same amount could be too much for one person and not enough for another. If you don’t know how much salt and pepper you prefer in soup, I would start by adding 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper to this soup, then taste it. Add more of each until it is the flavor you prefer.
How much milk do you add
I’m sorry you missed that. It is the 3rd ingredient in the recipe – 3 cups whole milk.
Making this today sounds so good
Made this on the 14th it was a hit making again tonight the 28th
My husband grilled some steaks tonight, I made your soup as I side. My 4 year old skipped the steak and ate a big bowl of soup, my 8 year old had the soup as an appetizer 🙂 I did add a little dill weed, because I love dill. Thank you!
Thanks, Christine!
This is similar to my grandma’s potato soup and I love it. Grandma always put some chopped carrots in hers too. Love a thin brothy soup.
Growing up our neighbor (Mrs.Byrd) use to make potato soup every Friday and invite me over. Her recipe is basically the same except she would not drain the potatoes she would stir in an envelope of Lipton chicken noodle soup, add some milk and mash the potatoes just a bit. It thickens the soup. Delicious
I had baked a pane bianco with sun dried tomatoes and I wanted a soup with subtle flavors so decided upon a potato soup to go with it. While browsing I saw the same sautéed onions in butter and cheese and thought where is the potato in these soups?! And then I came across your recipe and wow! This was just the simple yet richly flavored soup I had been looking for all this time. Absolutely perfect. There can’t be a better potato soup recipe than this and it complemented my pane bianco so well. Thank you for this simple yet wholesome recipe.
i used lactose free milk and it curdled, is it ok to eat?
The soup is safe to eat, Freddie. It just may not look as appetizing.
My mom (who just turned 94) always made this but she added leftover roast beef…just little chunks. It was so good! We called it Soupy Hash.
Im gonna make these soups
I hope you enjoy, Lisa!
Thank you for sharing this recipe, I used it as a starter and included squash, broccoli, ham (cooked with some brown sugar), diced carrots, chopped celery ribs, minced garlic cloves, couple of diced onion caramelized, minced leek, sliced mushrooms sautéed, minced cilantro, some frozen peas, frozen sweet corn, a bit of white cheddar cheese, some extra virgin olive oil. Debating about mozzarella cheese for next time and will have to share to let you know how it went. Thank you for sharing and hope you have a great day!