Wednesday’s are my favorite day of the week. I work from home every Wednesday and with no interruptions of a phone ringing and people popping in and out of my office needing things, I can get 8 hours of work done in 2 hours. Leaves me a lot of time to do some household projects as well as getting to try out a lot of recipe’s that normally take a few hours to cook.
This in one of the kids favorites. It’s a spin off of the Paula Dean Easy Crockpot Potato Soup recipe. DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a figure-inspiring meal!! lol I add ham and cheese to her recipe and the man and the kids DEVOUR it. In fact, I now have to double the recipe as my college-living son will come home to pick up a giant container of it!! Soup sounds good today….as the weather cools and we start breaking out the over-sized sweaters, this is a rocking comfort-food recipe!!
Here are the ingredients (doubled):
- 2 – Frozen country style hashbrowns
- 3-4 cups diced ham, precooked
- 32oz chicken broth (one extra on hand, sometimes will need some extra liquid toward the end)
- 1 large onion, diced
- 2 cans cream of chicken soup (or cream of mushroom, or cream of celery…whatever you have on hand. Although, the cream of celery tends to be very salty, so I would only suggest using one of those.)
- Pepper and garlic to taste.
- 8-13oz of cream cheese, added in the last 30min (yes, that much. 8oz for a single recipe, so I actually use less than the recipe calls for doubled.)
- 1-2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese, or a few handfuls, added in the last 30min
NOTE: the cheaper potatoes seem to soak up more of the broth and lends to a “mushier” soup. My kids don’t mind this as it doesn’t affect the flavor and with 4 enormous boys…I take every opportunity I can to cut $$ on groceries. But, for the perfectionists and picky eaters out there, springing for the extra dollar or two, may be worth it. This is a hearty soup and should be pretty thick when done.
Oh and my favorite tool and tip for dicing onions is this thing: Prepworks from PI, GPC-4000 Fruit and Vegetable Chopper. I LOVE this tool…it has changed my life…no joke! No tears and dicing an onion takes literally 30 seconds! The hardest part is remembering which way to quarter the onion so it comes out in dices and not long pieces! haha You can find it on Amazon for about $25 here: http://amzn.to/1NDtcHU
the results…perfectly diced onion.
Dump everything into the crockpot. It will look like a hot mess, but it’s easier to stir when it’s warm.
Cook on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 3-4 hours. The cream cheese will thicken it up, so before adding it, this is a good time to see whether you need more liquid. I find it depends on the quality of the potatoes. I’m using cheap ones here, so I will have to add more liquid. Add cream cheese and cheddar cheese then stir, let cook for another 30 minutes, stirring occasionally until smooth.