Skip to main content
Main

Potato Soup

A creamy soup made with milk, mashed potato, butter, flour, onion, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Potato Soup

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Add the mashed potato to the milk and cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Melt the butter in a pan.

  4. Stir the flour into the melted butter.

  5. Add the butter and flour mixture to the milk.

  6. Cook the chopped onion with the potato mixture.

  7. Season the soup with salt and pepper.

  8. Strain the soup through a strainer.

Serve

  1. Reheat the soup.

  2. Serve the soup with croutons or hot crackers.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melted with flour to form a roux that thickens the soup and adds richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup and gives it a creamy body.
Mashed potato
Adds starch and body, thickening the soup and giving it a smooth texture.
Flour
Stirred into melted butter to thicken the soup as a roux.
Onion
Cooked into the soup to add savory, aromatic flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture to the milk. If the roux is added to hot milk without stirring, flour can clump into lumps. Whisking steadily while adding it keeps the soup smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, potato, flour, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, potato, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More potato soup recipes

Irish 12Sweet 9Cream 8Creamy 8Swiss 6Scotch 5 See all 473 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes