Spanish Potato Soup with Carnitas and Cheese
This creamy, richly spiced soup is simple comfort food at its best. Potatoes are cooked until deliciously tender in a broth flavored with onion, red pepper, garlic, cumin, oregano, and paprika before adding sour cream, cheese, and pork carnitas.
As is the case with most soups, you have plenty of options with this recipe. To make a lighter version of the soup, leave out the sour cream and cheese – or reduce their amounts. You can also make this soup vegetarian by using vegetable broth and leaving out the pork carnitas. The potatoes cooked in the broth are perfectly delicious all on their own.
If you’re making this as a part of Winter Meal Plan #5, you probably have some Pork Carnitas in your refrigerator that you reserved just for this soup. If not, no worries. You can leave the meat out altogether, or purchase some pre-cooked pork roast at your local market and add that in place of the Carnitas. Or, fry up some bacon or sausage and use that.
Used in this recipe:
Any heavy bottomed sauce pan will work fine for cooking this Spanish Potato Chowder, but if you don’t have a dutch oven, I encourage you to invest in one. They are extremely useful and will last for years. Mine generally gets used at least once a week, often much more than that.
Weekly Meal Plans that include Spanish Potato Soup:
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Spanish Potato Soup
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
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*Makes a great addition to your Take-Out Freezer.
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 large yellow onion, peeled and diced
- 1 red pepper, seeds removed, and diced
- 1 tbsp diced garlic
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- 1 tsp paprika
- A dash of cayenne (optional)
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 2 tbsp unbleached, all-purpose flour
- 6 cups chicken or vegetable broth
- 3 lbs Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 to 1 & 1/2 inch chunks
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 1/2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
- 2–3 cups Pork Carnitas (Substitute pre-cooked pork roast from your local market, or fry up some bacon or sausage to use in place of the Carnitas if you like.)
- 1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Instructions
- Add the oil and butter to a large heavy bottomed sauce pan or dutch oven and set over medium heat. When the butter has melted, add the diced onion and red pepper. Cook until softened, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes.
- While the onion and pepper is cooking, add the garlic, cumin, oregano, paprika, cayenne (if using), salt and pepper to a small bowl and stir to combine. Add to the softened peppers and onions and cook, stirring constantly for 1 minute.
- Sprinkle in the flour and cook for about 1 minute more, stirring constantly.
- Stir in the broth slowly to prevent lumps from forming. Turn up the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Add the potatoes, turn down the heat to medium-low and allow the potatoes to simmer until they are fork tender, about 10 minutes.
- Ladle about 1 cup of liquid from the soup pot into a bowl. Stir in the sour cream until completely incorporated. Stir back into the soup pot.
- Remove the pot from the heat, add the cheese and stir until melted and completely incorporated into the soup. Stir in the Carnitas. Allow to sit for 5 minutes to heat the meat through. Sprinkle with the chopped cilantro and serve.
4
This is one of the best soups I have ever made or eaten ever! I loved it so much, I can’t wait to have it for lunch again! I added a sprinkle of tortilla strips as a garnish. The flavor here is unbelievable, I love everything about it, I had leftover pork carnitas from tacos. Can’t wait to make this again! So delicious!
★★★★★
Thank you SO much for taking the time to let me know how much you enjoyed this soup, Crissy! Your comment means more to me than I can express. This is one of my favorite soups as well – and, I think it’s even better after it sits in the refrigerator for a day or two. Since you liked the flavors in this one, I’m certain you’d like this Chicken Tortilla Soup as well. Have a wonderful day and thank you again for your kind words!
should the carnitas/ bacon or sausage be cooked first before adding to soup?
Hi Paul! Yes – add pre-cooked meat to the soup. You can make these Carnitas in the slow cooker the day before making the soup, then just shred some of the meat and add it to the soup at the end. Or, sauté some ground sausage in a skillet and add that. Please let me know if you have any more questions. I can’t wait to hear what you think of this soup after you make it! xo
This is a wonderful recipe. We love this soup. Even our Friends love it. We live in Thailand and like strong flavour. A perfect taste. Thank you for the recipe.
★★★★★
Hi Manu! I am so glad you and your friends like this soup! Thank you so much for taking the time to let me know! I really appreciate it. xoxo