Ahh nothing like a bowl of goodness to warm you up on a cold and rainy day! Even better, when the crock does all the work!!

By now, you know know my stance on leaving the house for work and letting my trusty crock pot make me look like a champ at dinner…I’m all for it! This one literally took me 17 minutes to throw together this morning before jumping in the shower and heading out for another day of bliss at the office (HA). So yes, there’s some cutting involved. And Yes, there is some work to be done when you get home, but overall, you will be delighted with this tasty loaded baked potato soup….not to mention warmed from within, which, now that the temps are hanging out in the 50’s and 60’s, is a nice feeling.

Ingredients

• 5 pounds russet potatoes washed but NOT peeled. Diced into 1/2 inch(ish) cubes
• 1 medium/large yellow (or spanish) onion diced
• 6 tablespoons minced garlic
• 64 ounces  chicken stock or broth
• 1 tablespoon seasoned salt
• 3 tablespoons Hormel bacon bits
• 16 oz cream cheese softened
• 1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced

Instructions

• Add potatoes, onion, garlic, seasoning, Bacon bits, and chicken stock to slow cooker. In my 7 qt crock, it’s a TIGHT squeeze, so if you don’t have a large one, you may want to halve this recipe.
• Cook on low for 10 hours.
• Add the softened cream cheese and puree soup with an immersion blender until the cheese is incorporated and about half the soup is blended. Since there’s little to no room in the pot, I like to take out about HALF of the “soup” and blend it in another pot….that way I have less mess to clean up off my counter.
• Add cheese and green onions and stir to combine. Adding more to each bowl is a wonderful idea (and it looks so pretty too!)
• Yields about 10-12 servings….which is a lot, so YES this can be frozen! Just be sure that when you re-heat, you do so slooooooowly otherwise you may burn it.

So thoughts….this honestly would be best if you had the time to fry up a package of bacon. But I like to get as much extra minutes of sleep as possible each morning to prevent the murdering of “innocent” lives all day. Are you an early riser? Then take the time to cook up your own bacon. For those of you who are like me though, Hormel bacon bits IS REAL BACON so it will be just as good. You want to kick it up a notch when you get home? Fry up a few fresh slices on bacon, crumble them up and use for garnish…looks lovely, tastes even better and no one has to know that we saved ourselves about 15 extra minutes of sleep 😉

Alternately, I have gone even lazier with this and chopped up raw bacon and put it in with the potatoes all day…flavor is amazing, but you don’t get the texture of crispy bacon. Up to you, but anyway you do it, it’s BACON and you can’t go wrong.