This Hairy Bikers leek and potato soup recipe comes from their Colcannon soup in Our Family Favourites, built with milk instead of cream. So you get a lighter bowl at around 215 calories, and it feeds four in roughly 40 minutes.
Si and Dave call that Colcannon soup “a firm favourite for the cooler months,” and Si adds that he thinks chicken stock is best here. Their version carries cabbage and single cream, while this one drops both, so the leeks and potatoes have to carry the whole bowl.
Everything rests on keeping the leeks pale, since they sweat alliums gently for pale soups and save browning for earthy root ones. So in British Classics they write “don’t allow them to colour,” because a browned leek turns bitter and a blended soup hides nothing.
Hairy Bikers Leek and Potato Soup Recipe
Description
A pale, silky bowl thickened by the potato itself and seasoned with white pepper so it stays that colour. The milk goes in after blending, which keeps the texture smooth rather than grainy.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Soften the leeks: Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a medium heat, then add the onion and leeks. Cook gently for about 5 minutes until they are soft and glossy, and keep them pale because colour here turns the finished soup bitter.
- Add the potatoes: Once the leeks have softened, stir in the potatoes and garlic, then cook for another minute so they pick up some of the butter.
- Simmer in stock: Pour in the stock and drop in the thyme and bay leaf, then season with salt and white pepper. Bring it to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer with the lid partly on for 15 to 20 minutes until the potatoes crush easily.
- Blend until smooth: Fish out the thyme and bay leaf once the potatoes are soft, then blend with a stick blender until the soup is completely smooth.
- Stir in the milk: Pour the milk into the blended soup and warm it through gently without boiling, since milk added after blending keeps the texture silky rather than grainy. And if you prefer a chunkier soup, blend only half of it before the milk goes in.
- Season and serve: Check the seasoning and add more white pepper if it needs it, then ladle into warm bowls and scatter with snipped chives.
FAQs
Which potatoes work best in this soup?
Floury ones, and the books are more specific than most sites will tell you. The Colcannon soup just says floury potatoes, while Perfect Pies names Maris Pipers or King Edwards for their creamy colcannon, so those are the two the Hairy Bikers reach for.
Waxy potatoes like Charlottes hold their shape instead of breaking down, which leaves you blending lumps rather than letting the potato dissolve into the soup.
How do I thicken it without adding flour?
You do not need any. Their clam chowder in Ultimate Comfort Food is built on the same leeks, floury potatoes and milk, and the book says plainly that it is “thickened with potatoes, which gives it a really comforting texture.”
So if yours comes out thin, simmer it with the lid off for another five minutes or add one more potato next time, rather than reaching for cornflour. And you can see the same trick working in smoked haddock chowder, where the potato does the same job. And their scotch broth with pearl barley leans on the same idea, though there it is the lamb bone doing the thickening.
Can I make this in a slow cooker?
Yes, and it suits one well because the low steady heat softens the potatoes without catching. But still sauté the leeks and onion in butter on the hob first, since a slow cooker cannot sweat them properly and you lose the whole flavour base.
After that, tip everything except the milk into the slow cooker and cook on low for about four hours, then blend and stir the milk in at the end. And the pea and ham soup takes to the slow cooker the same way.
What do Si and Dave put on top of theirs?
Their Colcannon version has an optional garnish that turns it into a main course, and it is worth knowing about. They crumble 100g of black or white pudding into olive oil and fry it, then season it with mustard powder, a couple of teaspoons of cider or sherry vinegar, a dash of Tabasco and a dash of Worcestershire sauce.
Spooned over a pale soup it gives you crunch, heat and sharpness all at once. If you want to keep things simpler, a warm focaccia alongside does the job.
Is this soup good for slimming?
At around 215 calories a bowl it is genuinely light, and the potato fills you up in a way that thin vegetable soups do not. Swap the butter for low-calorie spray and use semi-skimmed milk if you want to bring it down further.
Even unchanged it is mostly vegetables and stock, so it sits well in a calorie-counted week. So their carrot and coriander soup sits in the same range if you want to rotate. And their chunky chicken soup is 306 calories, if you want something with protein in the rotation.
