Potato and Collard Green Soup

I like most soups, but not all. I particularly like creamy soups, doesn’t everyone? But I usually find the whole thing to be a pain in the ass. The recipes all make too much, and they have a ton of steps. Boo. I am so not into that.

I stopped buying potato chips a few months ago, as many of you know. I have tried to eliminate soybean and canola oils (except for that occasional fried something at a restaurant…I can’t help it!!! It is so hard!). I couldn’t find any chips fried consistently in healthy oils, so I just let them go. We will often have sandwiches on the weekends. But even though my kids do, I don’t like having carrot sticks with my paninis. So here is the new world’s greatest soup. It is stupid easy. It’s super quick, only about 20 minutes. And I added seasonal dark greens and didn’t lose my mind with the fat. The basic recipe can be altered 100 different ways. I made this whole thing just to include some heavy dark leafy greens in our day.

Potato and Collard Green Soup
4-5 cups of stock or plain ole’ water
1 ounce of bacon (no nitrates)
3 small/medium waxy potatoes, skins on (if you are using Idaho or Russetts, peel them)
I leek
1-2 cups of collard greens roughly chopped, or one HUGE leaf
¼ cup heavy cream
Don’t forget to sale and pepper to taste (you didn’t need me to tell you that)

In a pot, boil the bacon, potatoes, leek and greens in the stock or water. Boild until the potatoes are very soft, about 20 minutes. Blend the soup well. I used an immersion blender, so this is a one pot meal. When the soup is blended, add in the cream and blend it in. Serve it hot.

The variations are ENDLESS here. You could make the soup completely vegetarian by eliminating the bacon and stock. You could add more greens to make it ‘greenier’. You could substitute kale for collards. You could change out the leek for onions. You could eliminate the greens and make just a potato leek soup. Jeez, you could do anything here. It is awesome. And easy. And fast. And husband approved.

This post is part of Food Renegade's Fight Back Fridays