Cut Back On Potato Soup Prep Time With One Frozen Ingredient

Potato soup is a cheesy, creamy bowl of warm heaven on a cold day. However, the prep time and hassle for this soup can be extensive. There are a lot of chopped elements, such as potatoes, onions, celery, and herbs, if you use fresh ones. It's quite a bit of chopping. To cut down on all that prep, there is a shortcut that you can use: frozen hash brown potatoes. That's because hash browns are thinly sliced and get tender quickly when cooked. Another benefit of frozen hash browns is that they break down quicker when boiled and blended, perfect for people who like smooth potato soup with few lumps.

There are other ways to cut back on prep time, including using pantry goods or prepared foods from your grocery store's deli. You can use pre-made mashed potatoes from the deli section to cut prep time and get a smoother soup, for example, though it requires a quick whip through the blender to eviscerate the onions and other veggies you choose to include in your recipe.

Using frozen hash browns isn't the only way to reduce the prep time for potato soup. For example, you can use frozen chopped onions alongside the hash browns since the frozen onions are already cut into small pieces. It also saves you tears from the onion fumes. If you happen to have some frozen homemade stock in your freezer, grab some of that too. It can give your soup the flavor of having simmered on the stove all day but you've been cooking for less than an hour. The storebought variety does fine if you don't have frozen stock.

Another option is using a slow cooker to make your soup. You can load all your ingredients into it and set it to cook for four to six hours while you do other things. You end up with a slowly simmered soup with a cooked-all-day taste. If you want someting a little different from the usual, you can also try making vichyssoise, a classy cold potato soup.