Simple Potato Soup

Mom has a system. Of course she does — Patty Kowalczyk has a system for everything, including the care and feeding of a grieving daughter who won't leave the house. The system is this: she leaves the kitchen stocked with things that are easy to cook. Not meals. Ingredients. A bag of potatoes. A carton of eggs. Butter. An onion. Chicken broth in the pantry. She doesn't say "cook something." She just makes sure the raw materials are there, like she's setting up a classroom activity and waiting for the student to figure it out on her own. I see what she's doing. I love her for it. I also kind of want to scream at her for it, which Dr. Perkins says is normal.

Wednesday I made potato soup. Not Babcia Rose's potato soup — Babcia Rose's involves cream and dill and a process that takes three hours and the spiritual authority of a woman who survived communism. Mine was simpler. I diced an onion and sweated it in butter and added cubed potatoes and enough chicken broth to cover them and let it simmer until the potatoes were soft and then I mashed half of it with a fork and left the rest chunky. Salt, pepper, a little bit of the dried thyme from Mom's spice rack that's probably been there since 2009. I ate a bowl. Then another bowl. It was warm and bland in the way that felt safe, like food for someone whose insides are still bruised.

I made enough for the whole family. Dad had two bowls. Mom said, "This is nice, Amanda," in the careful voice she uses when she's trying not to make too big a deal of something that is, in fact, a big deal. I wanted to tell her: it's just soup. But it wasn't just soup. It was the first time in five weeks I'd made something that wasn't just for the mechanical act of feeding myself. I made it for them. I made it because they have been carrying me and I can't carry anything right now except a pot of potatoes.

Nar-Anon on Saturday. A new person came — a man, maybe fifty, whose daughter is in rehab for the third time. He kept saying, "I don't know what I did wrong." Rita handed him a tissue. I handed him the coffee. The room is full of people who don't know what they did wrong, and the answer is nothing, the answer is always nothing, but that's the hardest sentence in the English language to believe when you're the one saying it about yourself. I know. I say it about Jess every day. I believe it maybe forty percent of the time. Dr. Perkins says forty percent is a start.

Forty percent is a start, and so is a pot of soup. I needed something I could make without thinking too hard—something that would feed people I love without requiring me to be more functional than I currently am. Potato soup has been in my rotation since before I knew what a rough week looked like, and it’s earned its place there: simple, honest, filling in all the right ways. Here’s how I made it.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Servings: 4 to 6

Ingredients

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 lbs (about 4 to 5 medium) Russet or Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch cubes
4 cups chicken broth
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper, plus more to taste

Instructions

Sweat the onion. Melt the butter in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the diced onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 6 to 8 minutes until softened and translucent. Don’t rush this step — the onion is the flavor base.
Add potatoes and liquid. Add the cubed potatoes to the pot. Pour in the chicken broth and water. The liquid should just cover the potatoes; add a splash more broth or water if needed.
Season and simmer. Stir in the thyme, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce to a steady simmer. Cook uncovered for 18 to 22 minutes, until the potatoes are completely tender and break apart easily when pressed with a spoon.
Mash half, leave half chunky. Use a fork or potato masher to mash roughly half the potatoes directly in the pot. This thickens the broth without turning everything into pureée — you get a creamy base with soft chunks throughout.
Taste and finish. Stir to combine, taste, and adjust salt and pepper as needed. Simmer another 2 to 3 minutes to let the texture come together. Serve hot, as-is or with crusty bread on the side.

Nutrition (per serving)

Simple Potato Soup — The Bowl I Made for Them When I Couldn’t Do Anything Else