This cheesy ham and potato soup is easy to throw together and will quickly become a favorite family dish with its rich, creamy texture.
What You’ll Love About This Recipe:
This is a delicious soup, made with simple ingredients, that the whole family can enjoy. All you need are hearty potatoes, sharp cheddar cheese, and tasty ham, plus a few other ingredients for the perfect soup to eat on cold winter nights. Serve it with some crusty bread (or better yet, make 30 Minute Dinner Rolls for the perfect meal for a chilly fall day. Try making our Sheet Pan Garlic Breadsticks with this soup recipe, or simply use a store-bought garlic bread recipe as well for an easy side dish.
Key Ingredients
Hearty potatoes will be needed. Use either Yukon gold potatoes or peeled red potatoes for this cheesy ham potato soup. As for the ham, you will need cooked ham. This is the perfect recipe to make after a holiday meal where you have plenty of leftover ham!
Chicken broth and whole milk mixed with a flour roux will create the best creamy base for this cozy meal.
Use a block of sharp cheddar cheese, and shred it. This will give the best results to have the cheese melting perfectly into the soup base.
Equipment Needed
For this recipe, you only need a few simple kitchen tools. We recommend using the following equipment:
How to Make Ham And Potato Soup
- In a large stock pot combine potatoes, veggies, ham, and chicken broth
- Bring to a boil, lower heat to medium, and let cook until potatoes are tender.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
- In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat.
- Whisk in the flour and continue to stir constantly until the mixture thickens.
- Slowly add the milk to the butter/flour mixture, avoiding getting any lumps. Continue to stir until the mixture thickens once again.
- Add in the cheese to the butter mixture and stir until it’s completely melted.
- Pour the cheese mixture into the stock pot with the vegetables and ham and stir until completely incorporated. It will get thicker as it cools.
Expert Tips
- To thicken the soup, add some more flour or even a little bit of cream cheese or sour cream for a perfectly creamy soup.
- This is a great recipe to use leftover holiday ham for the hearty soup.
- If you want a richer, cheesier soup, swap the whole milk for heavy cream.
- Let the leftover ham and potato soup recipe heat in the slow cooker during the day to develop extra flavor. Just move the soup to the slow cooker after making the butter and flour roux.
- Top the soup with extra cheese and green onions for the final touches.
Storing Tips
Store the room temperature soup in an airtight container and place it in the fridge for up to 5 days. Or, place the leftovers from this great soup into the freezer and use it as an easy freezer meal to heat up in the slow cooker for hot soup to eat on another chilly day.
Explore More Delicious Soup Recipes
Explore our collection of soup recipes made in the stovetop, slow cooker or Instant Pot. For more soup inspiration, check out our full list of soups.
- Beef Lasagna Soup
- Beef Minestrone Soup
- Beef Stroganoff Soup
- Cabbage Roll Soup
- Cheeseburger Soup
- Creamy Ground Beef and Macaroni Tomato Soup
- Disneyland’s Loaded Potato Soup
- Dump and Go Meatball Soup
- Ham and Bean Soup
- Lasagna Soup
Cheesy Ham and Potato Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 8 red potatoes, cubed
- ½ onion, diced
- 3 carrots, sliced
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 2 (8 ounce) cooked diced ham
- 2 (14.5 ounce) chicken broth
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 6 Tablespoon butter
- 6 Tablespoon flour
- 2 cups milk
- 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Instructions
- In a large stock pot combine potatoes, onion, carrots, peas, ham and chicken broth
- Bring to a boil, lower heat to medium, and let cook until potatoes are soft (about 15-20 minutes).
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
- In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat.
- Whisk in the flour and continue to stir constantly until the mixture thickens (about 1-2 minutes).
- Slowly add the milk to the butter/flour mixture, stirring the entire time so that you don't get any lumps. Continue to stir until the mixture thickens once again (takes about 3-5 minutes).
- Add in the cheese to the butter/flour/milk mixture and stir until it's completely melted.
- Pour the cheese mixture into the stock pot with the vegetables and ham and stir until completely incorporated. It will get thicker as it cools.
Notes
Nutrition
Did You Make This Recipe?We’d love to hear your thoughts! Leave a review or a question in the comment section below the post.
I love that this recipe doesn’t have any “cream of” soups and still looks hearty! I can’t wait to make it soon! 🙂
It’s that time of year again when I start craving comfort food. This soup cured the craving. So simple to make but full of flavor. My son rarely comments on the food I make but he asked what was in it and said he really liked it. I will definitely make it again. I followed the recipe with the exception of sneaking in a couple of extra potatoes because we love our taters.
Do you think you could replace the chicken broth with vegetable broth? My husband is allergic to chicken and so many soups use chicken broth. I wasn’t sure if vegetable broth would still be good in the soup.
It will change the taste from the original recipe, but it should still taste great!
Hi.. Can this be crockpot recipe?? I love easy crockpot recipes..
Of course!
I used my homemade bone broth (which is basically leftover chicken & beef bones + vegetables, onions/garlic, etc… and it was wonderful!
I just need to tweek it next time to my liking and not use white flour (something grain free preferably or maybe at least gluten-free) and maybe experiment with other veggies or some celery root, etc… Even so, It was wonderful as is. I just don’t believe in eating white flour. Anyway, for not having added crap, it was very tasty!
I was just wondering if I could use Canadian bacon to replace the ham? I have quite a bit that I bought on sale and would like to find a use for it!
Canadian Bacon would be amazing in this soup!!
I just finished making this and it is fantastic!! The soup has great flavor and is very hearty. Yummy!!
Hey I would love to throw this in he crock pot this morning for dinner tonight. Halloween! How would you suggest doin it in the crock pot?
We loved this soup. I tweaked it slightly by adding two cloves garlic and cooking the garlic, onion and carrots for a few minutes in olive oil before adding the potatoes, broth, ham. Delicious!
Can this be done in the crockpot?
We have only made this in the big stock pot. So not sure how well it would turn out! Let us know if you give it a try.
p.s Made it again this time using tapioca starch instead of flour — perfection!
We use speck here in Europe. Mmmmmm
I should also add we used some garlic and a heavier, stinkier cheese as good cheese is easy to get where we live in Europe. Next time around I will try using pumpkin and maybe use speck, which is basically cured/smoked bacon here.
Thank you ladies for a great recipe! Made this today to use up the leftover holiday ham and it was delicious! This is a hearty, stick to your bones soup. Followed the directions exactly and it came out perfect. I think maybe at some point this winter I may try adding a little Polish sausage instead of the ham.
I didn’t have any carrots and decided to use the vegetable soup mix from Knorr and leave out the salt and pepper. Very tasty. the seasoning was just right. i added an extra cup potatoes and extra broth. also, i started looking for a recipe after I had already boiled my potatoes. so i just added them to the mix after boiling the ham and onions. worked great!
This soup is super good! For sure making it again!
I made this last night with some leftover brown sugar-pineapple ham I had made last Sunday for dinner in the crockpot. I did what Jessica @ The Mom Creative suggested and sauteed my onions and carrots in a little bit of olive oil and minced garlic – it was delicious. I used closer to 5 cups of potatoes and had to add some water (I ran out of chicken broth), but only a can’s worth. The finished dish was excellent. I didn’t have any peas, so didn’t add those, but I would think a bag (10-12 oz) of frozen peas and carrots could be substituted for the fresh carrots and frozen peas without much harm. I would definitely suggest using fresh shredded sharp cheddar. I asked my son to get a bag of shredded, forgetting it has an anti-caking agent tossed in. The dish was fine, and it melted well, but not as good as it could have. Will definitely be adding this to the rotation!
This sounds lovely. Going to give this a go. thanks for sharing this recipe.
Simon
Had a potato soup contest …..six sisters vs Disney s………you won!!
Easy to make ….less calories ( doesn’t use 4 cups whipping cream)
I did use 1/2 cup of milk with 1/2 cup of half and half I needed to use up …….excellent !!!
Five kids ages 5 to 12…..they all loved it! 3 of them went back for seconds and another asked to take it to school for lunch the next day! The only bad thing was, after my husband packed his lunch for work, there were no leftovers for me.
~I no longer have to search websites to find dinner ideas. Six sisters’ stuff is the only one I need! Thank you!
Thanks Shannon! It’s so nice to hear when a recipe is a hit with the family! Sorry there were no leftovers for the home lunch!
Is there possibly a way to turn this into a crockpot recipe?
You could easily adapt this to a slow cooker recipe. Just cook the first seven ingredients in the slow cooker. Then follow steps 2 through 5 in the directions and add that into the slow cooker at the end of cooking time. Watch closely so the cheese doesn’t curdle.
Would shredded potatoes work instead of diced? I have a bag of shredded that I need to use and ran out of my bagged potatoes.
Shredded potatoes should work. The cook time might need to be reduced since shredded potatoes are not as thick as cubed potato chunks. Stir gently so your potatoes don’t turn to mush. Other than that, you should be good to go!
I am a newlywed and my hard working husband just came home to your ham and potato soup bubbling on the stove, garlic bread in the oven and a bath I drew for him with rose petals I added. First time wife, think I m doing a pretty allright job… the recipe was easy to whip up and so creamy and delicious.. thank you…
Alisa, You are doing an AMAZING job! What a cute little wife and being a newlywed is so fun. Thanks for using our recipes!
Has anyone tried converting this to an electric pressure cooler recipe? I imagine it would be fairly easy; i think the cheese sauce party would be the only part to remain cooked on the stove!
We have a YouTube video on converting recipes to the Instant Pot. Here is the link. https://youtu.be/8DKWGgsKY9s
I made just like the recipie instructed and we loved it. My wife is a soup fanatic and was overjoyed.
Can you cook this in a crockpot?
You could easily adapt this to a slow cooker recipe. Just cook the first seven ingredients in the slow cooker. Then follow steps 2 through 5 in the directions and add that into the slow cooker at the end of cooking time. Watch closely so the cheese doesn’t curdle.