A Potato and Leek soup recipe, perfect for slow weekend cooking. Making the potato skin croutons is absolutely worth the effort in this case. But if you’d like to make this a quick and easy mid-week option you can skip the Tato Skin croutons and just add the potato, grated or finely chopped to the soup once the leeks and onion have caramelised.
This recipe is an all-time favourite, the trick lies in caramelising the leek and onion just a tad, not too much though, just enough to add depth of flavour is perfect. We’ve added a bit of courgette here to add more vegetable goodness, you can equally swap the courgette with carrot or leave it out if you choose.
What you’ll Need for your Vegetarian Potato and Leek Soup Recipe
- Organic potatoes
- Organic olive oil
- Organic pasture-raised butter
- Organic leeks (roughly 250g)
- Organic onion chopped
- Organic courgette chopped (optional)
- Fresh thyme
- Organic vegetable stock
- Organic pasture-raised milk or a vegan alternative such as Soy or Almond Milk
- Organic or vegan cheese, cheddar or parmesan style cheese are both fine
- Organic yoghurt or soy yoghurt
- chives, salt and pepper to serve
Making the Potato Skin Croutons
To make the croutons you’ll need to bake the potatoes in the oven until the skin becomes slightly crispy. This baked potato tutorial is a good guide, baking the potato for an hour is a good rule of thumb. Once the potato is baked you can remove the flesh, as listed in the recipe but leave a bit of potato flesh for the croutons as the skin on its own will be too thin.
Once you’ve removed most of the flesh, add that part to the soup. Then sprinkle the skin with cheese of your choice and bake in the over for a few minutes until the cheese has melted and starts to brown slightly. Cut in bite-sized bits and serve with the soup or top and serve.
Freezing the Soup
This recipe is definitely suitable for batch cooking and freezing, just double or triple the quantities as required. If you’d like to batch cook this recipe you will most likely have to sacrifice the cheesy potato skin croutons. Alternatively, you can freeze the potato skins separately and make the croutons using the frozen skins. Just defrost before adding the cheese and baking.
Potato and Leek Soup Recipe with Potato Skin Croutons
Ingredients
- 2 large organic potatoes
- a few splashes of organic olive oil
- 1 tbsp organic pasture-raised butter or vegan butter
- 2 medium-sized organic leeks (around 250g) roughly chopped
- 1 medium-sized organic onion chopped
- 1 small organic courgette chopped (optional)
- 2 sprigs of fresh thyme
- 500 ml organic vegetable stock
- 125 ml organic pasture-raised milk or soy milk
- 1 handful of organic or vegan cheese
- 2 tbsp plain organic yoghurt or vegan soy yoghurt
- chives, salt and pepper to serve
Instructions
Bake the Potatoes and Make the Croutons
- Coat the potatoes in a bit of olive oil and bake in the oven at 190C / 170C fan for an hour.
- Once the potato is cooked remove from the oven and quarter the potatoes, then remove the flesh of the potatoes leaving just a little bit for the tato skin croutons. Add the potato flesh to the soup and sprinkle the skins with a bit of cheese and put back in the oven to melt for another 10 minutes.
Making the soup
- Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the onion, leek, courgette and thyme to the pan and simmer over medium to high heat until the leeks and onion start to caramelise. Depending on the heat this can take between 15 and 30 mins. Be careful not to burn the onions.
- Once the onion has slightly browned and caramelised add the stock and simmer for a further 15 minutes.
- Once the potato flesh from the baked potato is nice and soft add it to the soup mix and blend with a hand mixer until smooth. Add the milk, simmer on low for a minute or two (be careful so it does not separate). Season to taste.
- To serve swirl in the yoghurt for extra creaminess, sprinkle with chives and the tato skin croutons.
Start the soup Simmer the ingredients Blend the soup with a stick blender Remove the flesh from the potato Sprinkle with cheese Bake and serve
