An Apey's Kitchen Original: Southwest Loaded Potato Soup in the slow cooker

 When you have a bunch of potatoes that need used before they go bad, what do you do with them? Soup of course! I really wanted a southwestern type of potato soup and could not find anything I liked so I decided to be adventurous and create my own recipe. In this case it was a hit in my opinion. I found a loaded potato soup recipe to get my base started then added my own additions. 

The base:

2lb of russet potatoes cut up, I left the skin on, but you can peel

3 C chicken broth

3 tsp garlic powder

1.5 tsp salt

Combine all in the slow cooker and cook on Hi for 4 hours. Once done, use an immersion blender to blend up the potatoes leaving some chunky parts. This also thickens the soup.

The additions:

1 can of Rotel

1 roll of chorizo or more if desired

1 tsp of taco blend seasoning from Burlap and Barrel (or regular)

1 tsp of black lime seasoning from Burlap and Barrel

1/2 C of spicy cheese pepperjack or I used smoke spicy gouda

Mix all together well and cook for an additional 30 minutes or so until all combined and heated. 

Finish by adding in 2 C of milk or half and half and stirring until combined. I used half and half. Cook for an additional 30 minutes until warmed through.

Add toppings when serving. My favorite are blue corn tortilla chips and fresh cilantro. This really gives the soup some bright color too. You could also add salsa, more shredded cheese, or guacamole. 

This really turned out well. It has the texture of the potato soup but has a spicy kick like a tortilla soup. Good thing since I have leftovers for my lunches this week! I really think it made for a pretty soup too. The taco seasoning gives it a bit of a different color that I like. I also used chicken bone broth which is darker so if you use regular bone broth the color will probably be different. Rotel has really become a favorite ingredient that I use a lot, so I loved being able to use it in this recipe.