This simple healthy recipe for Potato Leek Soup is deceiving flavorful. A nourishing, soul-satisfying meal in under 30 minutes, made with simple ingredients. Vegan adaptable. With a video!
This Potato Leek Soup is cozy and warming, perfect for cooler fall weather. Fall has officially arrived and leeks and potatoes are showing up in full force at the farmer’s markets.
A quick, nourishing meal with simple ingredients that comes together in about 30 minutes!
What I love about this Soup
I love the use of sour cream in this recipe, which gives it a delightful tanginess and richness. You can also use yogurt with a similar effect. While the soup simmers, whip up the flavorful Leek oil made the green leek tops. Drizzle this over the soup for a boost of leek flavor!
Potato Leek Soup Recipe | 45-sec video
To be honest, in the past I have tended to shy away from Potato Leek Soup because of the many occasions when ordered, it arrived bland and lifeless.
This version, I assure you, is not. It’s rich and flavorful, all the while staying light and healthy.
Ingredients in Potato Leek Soup
- Leeks
- Olive oil (or butter or ghee)
- Garlic
- Fresh thyme (or sub dry thyme)
- Potatoes- yukon gold potatoes, russets, or any thin-skinned potatoes- red, fingerling.
- veggie broth or chicken stock
- salt and pepper
- Sour cream, or sub-heavy cream. See notes for vegan version.
- Fresh chives (or scallions) for garnish
How to make Potato Leek Soup
Step One: Slice the leeks into ¼-inch slices using the white, yellow and pale green parts. Rinse under running water to remove any dirt. You’ll need about 4-5 cups.
TIP: If feeling even just a little ambitious, save the dark green tops and make the flavorful Leek Oil ! You can do this at the same time the soup is simmering. Use this Leek oil to drizzle over the soup and many other things.
Step 2: Saute the leeks and garlic over medium-low heat until leeks are tender, about 8-10 minutes.
Step 3: Add the thyme, broth and sliced potatoes, cover, and simmer gently until tender ( about 15 minutes)
Step 4: Blend the soup until just creamy. Over blending may create a “gummy” texture- so just blend until mostly smooth.
Step 5: Whisk in sour cream or heavy cream. ( See notes for vegan version).
Taste and adjust salt and pepper.
Serve!
Serve in bowls with chives, or a swirl of leek oil and crusty bread.
Or make this Leek Bread!
Refrigerate any leftovers for up to 4 days.
Freeze Potato Leek Soup without the sour cream for up to 6 months.
Hope you enjoy this simple Potato Leek Soup as much as we do!
xoxo
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Potato Leek Soup
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Total Time: 30 mins
- Yield: 8 cups
- Category: Soup, stew, vegetarain
- Method: stovetop
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
This delicious healthy recipe for Potato Leek Soup is deceiving flavorful! A nourishing, soul-satisfying meal made with the humblest of ingredients. Serve with optional Leek oil and Crusty Bread.
Ingredients
Units
- 3–4 large leeks, (4–5 cups sliced)
- 3 tablespoons olive oil (or sub butter or ghee)
- 4 cloves garlic, rough chopped
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dry thyme)
- 1 1/2 pounds yukon gold potatoes, thinly sliced. Or sub any thin-skinned potatoes- red, fingerling, or use russets, peeled.
- 4 cups veggie broth or chicken stock
- 1 teaspoons salt, more to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh cracked pepper
- 1/2 cup sour cream (or heavy cream) see notes for vegan.
- 2 tablespoons fresh chives (or scallions) for garnish
Optional – Leek oil for drizzling! (Make this with the green tops of leeks while the soup simmers.)
Instructions
- Slice leeks into ¼-inch thick slices. Rinse under running water to remove dirt and sediment. Drain. ( The water will help soften the leeks as well.)
- Heat oil in a heavy-bottom pot or dutch oven, over medium-low heat. Add rinsed leeks and garlic and thyme, sauté until tender, golden and fragrant, 8-10 minutes.
- Add potatoes, stock, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, cover, turn heat to low and simmer, covered, for 15-20 minutes, until potatoes are fork-tender.
- Make the optional leek oil.
- Blend the soup. When the potatoes are very tender, use an immersion blender and blend the soup until relatively smooth. TIP: Over blending may cause the soup to have a gummy texture. Alternatively, blend in batches in a regular blender (remember, you don’t want to fill up a blender with hot liquid, or you will have a soup explosion- so blend in small batches, less than half full, holding the lid down firmly covered with a kitchen towel. )
- Return the blended soup to the pot, and whisk in the sour cream. Taste and adjust salt and pepper. Gently warm over low heat.
- To serve, divide among bowls, drizzle with the leek oil, sprinkle with fresh chives or scallions.
Notes
To make this vegan, you can altogether leave out the dairy- it is quite creamy on its own. Or use vegan sour cream or vegan cream. Alternatively, you could add a 1/4-1/2 cup raw cashews to the simmering potatoes and leeks, and let them get soft. Blend the soup. Place back in the pot. Add a couple of drops of vinegar or lemon juice (1/4 teaspoon) and stir in a teaspoon or two of nutritional yeast to taste if you like. Adjust salt and pepper.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 ⅓ cup ( without leek oil)
- Calories: 198
- Sugar: 5.2 g
- Sodium: 784.5 mg
- Fat: 11 g
- Saturated Fat: 3 g
- Carbohydrates: 24.1 g
- Fiber: 3.1 g
- Protein: 2.8 g
- Cholesterol: 11.3 mg
Wow Wow Wow! Made leek oil yesterday and soup today! It’s delicious! Love both the leek oil and the blended leek puree in the soup! I’ve made several of your recipes and haven’t been disappointed. Thank you for a wonderful website!
Wonderful to hear DD!
This was amazing, and so simple. I had only trimmed leeks, so no opportunity for the oil (which I have in my mind for the next batch), but had a bunch of wild mushrooms that needed to be cooked up. I sautéed those to use as a “finisher” for the soup. A slab of chewy sourdough, a glass of wine, and sitting on the porch on one of the last warm days of the year made this an event. Thank you. It really helped bring some joy this week!
Sounds perfect!
Made exactly as written (minus the leek oil, regrettably) and it was delicious! and easy!
Great to hear!
I harvested leeks & thyme from my garden yesterday to make this delicious soup. Served with crusty bread and a side of arugula/brussel sprout salad for a simple fall dinner. Will be making this soup again. Wonderful flavour.
Sounds perfect Victoria!
Super easy and sooooo delicious! The fresh thyme and the sour cream definitely make it! Really enjoyed this simple, flavourful and filling soup
Thanks Jessica!
Really enjoyed this.. added some bacon bits as topping also… leek oil made it look restaurant quality! Thankyou will pin this
Glad you enjoyed this Allison!
Am making the soup now! Just a note of thanks for the wide variety of delicious recipes you offer! Keep up the excellent work!
🥰 Awww thanks Rika!
This recipe for potato leek soup is stellar! I am a private chef, and I have been making Julia Child’s version since I started cooking 40 years ago. Well, this one blows it away (sorry Julia!), and I made it vegan, with cashews for creaminess. Thank you, Silvia, you have given me countless fabulous ideas, and my clients are all thrilled with every one. Keep ’em coming!
Glad you like this one Evie!
The soup is delicious. I added the entire leek – green part included.
Thanks for the recipe!
Oh perfect! Great to hear!
Hi Sally, thank you very much for your recipes, have made quite a few & always turn out great. When I go through your recipes is there a way I can like/save them & go visit them at a later day? Thank you, thanks for sharing & keep up the good work.
Hi Annie- we are having our site redesigned and will hopefully have this functionality. 🙂
Delicious
Great to hear!
I fell a little funny commenting on this recipe because I changed it so much, but I did use the basis of the recipe to make potato leek soup for dinner tonight. It was excellent. How did I change it? Well, we had a bunch of potatoes left over from a wonderful potato au gratin recipe I made a few days ago. So I sautéed the leeks, added the garlic and thyme, plus pepper, paprika, the vegetable stock (home made, of course) and then added the potato au gratin. The potatoes were made with chopped red onion, garlic, cream and a load of gruyere cheese. When everything was hot and soft I used an immersion blender to smooth it all out. Wow! Creamy, cheesy, full of flavor and very satisfying. Sorry. Not vegan, nor low calorie, but what a soup!
It sounds incredible Chris! My mouth is literally watering. 😉
Another great recipe! Almost tastes like asparagus soup from my childhood at time! Very easy to make and great! I did use more water but that is always the case. I even made the leak oil but only had the bitter olive oil so 🙁
Glad you liked the soup Anna- sorry about the bitter olive oil- I had that happen to me too.
Simple and very tasty…I used russets and added a cup of chopped scallions to supplement only 4 cups of leeks. Added some greek yogurt and well, yum.
Thanks so much Sally!
Very tasty…I used russets and added a cup of chopped scallions to supplement the leeks. Greek yogurt and yum!
Very good – we love this recipe! Boil all ingredients for a while and then taste before adding salt. Our stock was already salted and didn’t need any extra.
For my vegan granddaughter I used coconut milk and added some chopped up mushrooms. excellent, creamy and tasty
This soup is great! I made it with small red potatoes because I had some at home. I knew the taste and texture would be fine, but I was pleasantly surprised that the color wasn’t weird at all. Just posting this in case anyone else is contemplating using red potatoes.
Googled to confirm exactly this so thank you for posting!!
Delicious soup! Replaced sour cream with Greek yogurt and came out fine.
Well, you’ve done it again. We had some potatoes that were starting to look a bit sad – so I did a search here and found this recipe. I made a double batch! It is SO very good. We didn’t have sour cream but I had a little container of crème fraîche and a little bit of cream cheese and they added some nice body – but it was even good without.
Thanks again for giving us all such a beautiful place to go to find recipes that make us look like chefs!
Awwww, thanks Laura!!!
Easy to make and light and delicious.
I’m very interssted
For dairy-free, could I use coconut yogurt or milk instead of sour cream?
I’m afraid the coconut might alter the taste? Is there a vegan sour cream you could use?
For dairy free, just skip the sour cream—soup is still delicious—not quite as creamy white but yummy just the same. I like to use leek and potato as a base for other soups too—add a bit of cauliflower, or parsley root or celery root to this, anything that will blend in well to boost taste and nutrition (at my house it’s called root soup, and kids love the challenge of trying to identify all the flavors). For the grown ups, Frank’s Red Hot sauce makes an unexpected garnish instead of chives.
Thanks Bri! Very Helpful! Appreciate this.
Delicious and easy recipe. Yummy for a quick healthy dinner on a cold night.
Hi Sylvia! I made this recipe last week and it turned out so amazingly creamy and cozy. It hasn’t taken me long.. I am now an official fan of your recipes and style. Love the way you easily combine ingredients and make them into really interesting and delicious recipes.
I didn’t use sour cream and I added an extra onion (because I like it too much!). I also added a little bit of nutmeg (that’s a final touch my parents always add to their recipe) – but loved the proportions and easy recipe you presented here. Thanks so much! Spreading the word… 🙂
Hi Silvia, Thanks! So happy you enjoyed and modified it to your taste. Appreciate your comment and your spreading the word. Have a beautiful day!!!