I try to write about a variety of recipes that I make since I cook and bake fairly often but I wanted to share another yummy soup recipe with you all. Soup and Chili are on the menu today as well but I am making one I already shared with you so next week will not be a soup recipe, I hope.
Every so often I try to use up what we have on hand mostly because I don’t like wasting food, but also I generally have no more room for anything else. I tend to make things with what I need to use up, my daughter tends to buy things for a recipe she wants to make so you could think of it as a constant battle or maybe we just work well together or maybe she likes to challenge me hmmm. I’ll have to investigate this more.
Back to the soup, there were some leftover ham pieces in the fridge and 1 leek that I wanted to use up. My go to Ham soup is Ham and Asparagus Ham & Asparagus Soup but I didn’t have any asparagus on hand. What I did have was a little chicken stock some carrots, a leek a bunch of potatoes from my garden and a lot of chunks and shredded cheeses on hand so this is how I got here.
Cheese Ham and Potato soup
Ingredients
- 3-5 potatoes peeled or unpeeled and diced
- 4 carrots peeled and chopped
- 1 large onion diced
- 1-2 cups ham chopped
- 3 ribs celery diced
- 1 leek diced and cleaned
- 4 cups chicken broth or stock homemade is best but use what you have
- Kosher salt and black pepper
- 5 tablespoons butter
- 5 tablespoons flour
- 2 cups milk
- 2-4 cups cheese shredded or finely chopped. cheddar, gruyere, Havarti, provolone are great choices
Instructions
- in a stock pot or Dutch oven add a little olive oil and saute the onions and leeks till they soften about 3-5 minutes, add the garlic and saute for another minute. Add a handful or so of the potatoes and cover with the chicken broth and bring to a boil cooking over medium heat till the potatoes are tender. Using a potato masher break up these potatoes, it will help thicken the soup even more. Then add the carrots, celery and rest of the potatoes cook over medium heat till the veggies are tender. Note you don't need to cook the potatoes in batches as I did, I just wanted to mash up some of them to thicken the soup.
- Add the ham and season with salt and pepper to your liking. Keep in mind depending on what cheeses you are using, some are more salty that others just keep that in mind so you don't over salt it.
- in a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Whisk in the flour and cook stirring constantly until it thickens. Slowly add the milk whisking all the time to avoid lumps. Increase the heat to medium and continue stirring until it thickens about 4-5 minutes.
making the roux
- Remove from the heat and add the shredded cheese and stir until it melts. Add this to the soup and cook until everything is heated through. Serve warm.
2 thoughts on “Cheese Ham and Potato soup”