Chorizo Sausage Potato Soup
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What I Love About My Creamy Chorizo Sausage Potato Soup
We love a good potato soup at my house and between our favorite the loaded potato soup and ham potato soup, I wanted to create one with a whole new flavor profile:
- I built this soup around what I love most about Mexican chorizo: it’s already so well spiced and it transfers those flavor well into the soup. Who doesn’t love more flavor?!
- Naturally thick – mashing a few of the potatoes when they’re cooked gives the soup body without adding flour or cornstarch.
- Easy to adjust heat – the jalapeño seeds and membrane are easy to keep in or discard, so the soup can go mild or spicy depending on who’s eating. (Remember seeds and membrane is where most of the spice is stored.)
- Ready in about an hour – it’s a weeknight-friendly soup that still tastes like it simmered all day.
Table of Contents
Key Ingredients and Notes
- Idaho potatoes – these are high-starch, low-moisture potatoes, the same kind you’d use for baked or mashed potatoes. That starch is exactly what thickens the soup as it simmers. (Waxy potatoes like red or fingerling hold their shape and won’t give the broth the same body.)
- Mexican chorizo sausage – use fresh, raw Mexican-style chorizo, not the cured Spanish kind. It comes out of the casing and browns and crumbles right in the pot.
- Jalapeño peppers – this is where you control the heat. Younger jalapeños with smooth, deep green skin are mild, while older ones with light brown veins running along the skin are spicier. Leave the seeds in for more heat, or take them out for less.
- Corn on the cob – fresh corn gives the best sweetness and snap. No fresh corn on hand? Frozen or canned both work, just thaw and drain frozen corn first, or drain canned corn well before adding it to the pot. If you have extra corn left over, you can make corn salsa.
How to Make Chorizo Potato Soup
- Prep the vegetables. Dice the onion, stand the corn cob up and slice the kernels off with a sharp knife following its curve, dice the jalapeños (keep the seeds in for more heat or remove them for less), peel and cube the potatoes, and press the garlic.
- Sauté the onion and jalapeño. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat and cook the onion and jalapeño until soft and turning golden.
- Brown the chorizo. Add the chorizo to the pot and break it up as it cooks, until it’s fully cooked through.
- Add the corn and potatoes. Stir in the corn and potatoes and let them cook for a few minutes, then stir in the cumin, paprika, garlic powder, oregano, chili powder, black pepper, and salt.
- Simmer until tender. Pour in enough chicken broth to cover the potatoes comfortably, stir well, and lower the heat. Simmer, stirring every 10 minutes or so, until the potatoes are fork-tender. PRO TIP: For a thicker and smoother soup texture, I like to mash a few of the potatoes right in the pot with a potato masher, just a handful of mashes, not all of them. Mashing too many will make the soup gluey and like thin mashed potatoes.
- Stir in the cream. Once the potatoes are tender, pour in the heavy whipping cream and stir well. Taste the soup and add more salt if it needs it.
- Serve. Let the soup heat through, then take it off the heat and serve.
Variations to Try
- Add kale or spinach – stir in a couple handfuls of chopped kale during the last few minutes of cooking for extra greens.
- Make it cheesy – stir in a handful of shredded Monterey Jack or pepper jack cheese along with the cream.
- Turn up the heat – add a diced serrano pepper along with the jalapeño, or leave all the jalapeño seeds in.
How to Store, Freeze, and Reheat Chorizo Potato Soup
- Store: in the refrigerator, in an airtight container, for up to 5 days.
- Reheat: on the stovetop over medium-low heat, stirring often, or in the microwave in 30-second increments, stirring between each one.
- Freeze: it’s best to freeze the soup before adding cream, since dairy-based soups tend to separate once they thaw. Also, I should note that the texture of thawed potatoes is very different and usually more crumbly and thin.
- If you do want to freeze it, make the soup through the broth and potato step, skip the cream, and cool it completely before freezing.
- Freeze in an airtight container or freezer bag for up to 2 months, leaving room for the soup to expand.
- Thaw in the refrigerator overnight, then reheat on the stovetop and stir in the cream while it warms through.
Creamy Chorizo Potato Soup Recipe FAQs
Fresh Mexican chorizo is the right choice here. It’s a raw, loosely packed pork sausage that crumbles and browns right in the pot, seasoning the broth as it cooks. If all you can find is chorizo in links/casing, simply take off the casing and bread it up. Cured Spanish chorizo is a cured, sliceable sausage that has a completely different texture and flavor.
Jalapeño heat comes mostly from the seeds and membrane, so leaving those out tones the soup down. Younger jalapeños with smooth, deep green skin are milder than older ones with more visible veining. A milder chorizo and a little extra cream at the end help soften the heat too. For more heat, you can also always add a spicier chili pepper.
This soup holds up well over a few days in the refrigerator, and the flavor actually gets better as the spices settle into the broth. If you’re making it more than a day ahead, it’s worth reheating gently and stirring the cream in fresh rather than storing it already mixed in, since that keeps the texture from breaking down as much.
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Chorizo Potato Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp avocado oil or another neutral oil
- 1/2 yellow onion
- 3 jalapeno peppers
- 2 corn on the cob kernels cut off (about 3/4-1 cup of kernels)
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 lb Mexican chorizo sausage
- 3 lbs Idaho potatoes
- 2-2.5 cups chicken broth enough to cover potatoes well
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1/2 tsp chili powder
- 1/4-1/2 tsp black pepper to taste
- coarse kosher salt to taste
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
Instructions
- Prepare all your veggies before starting to cook: dice onion, cut the corn kernels off the cob, dice jalapeno peppers (keep seeds in for more spicy soup or discard for less spice), peel and cut potatoes into small cubes, press garlic cloves.
- Preheat a large pot over medium heat and add some oil. Add diced onions and jalapenos and and let them sauté until golden and tender.
- Add in the chorizo sausage and break it up as much as you can. Let it cook, breaking up the clumps as it cooks, until chorizo is cooked through.
- Add in corn and potatoes and stir well to mix. Let it cook for a few minutes and then stir in the seasonings.
- Pour in chicken broth and make sure there is enough to comfortably cover the potatoes with liquid, stir well, and lower the soup to low. Let the soup cook until potatoes are nice and tender. Make sure to stir every 10 minutes or so while soup it cooking.
- Tip: for a thicker texture of the soup, I like to use a potatoes masher to mash some of the potatoes. Not all, just a few mashes.
- Once potatoes are completely tender, pour in the heavy whipping cream and stir. Taste the soup to make sure it's seasoned well. (Salt more if needed.)
- Let the soup heat through and take off heat.
Notes
- Substituting heavy whipping cream: I do highly recommend heavy whipping cream for the rich creamy texture. At the very least, use half and half but it won’t be quite as creamy.
- Another sausage: chorizo is the big flavor in this soup, it’s a flavorful Mexican pork sausage with spices the compliment the soup. You can use regular pork or chicken sausage if needed but will need to increase the seasoning in the soup. Don’t use Spanish chorizo, it is a completely different sausage.
- Storing: store the leftovers in air-tight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
- Reheating: reheat individual portion in the microwave or the whole pot over medium-low heat until just heated through.
Nutrition
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Disclaimer: Nutrition information shown is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as most ingredients and brands have variations.
