Apple pie filling with a shortbread crust.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 20 mins |
| Servings: | 50 |
| Yield: | 3 gallons |
Ingredients
- 1 pound bacon, diced
- 3 onions, diced
- 1 bunch celery, diced
- 3 tablespoons minced garlic
- 2 quarts water, divided
- 1 gallon heavy whipping cream
- 1 cup butter
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 18 potatoes, peeled and diced
- 2 (16 ounce) packages frozen corn
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 2 pinches red pepper flakes, or to taste
- 1 pinch salt and ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Place bacon in a large heavy-bottom pot and cook over medium-high heat until crispy, about 10 minutes. Add onions and celery to bacon and stir until coated in bacon grease; add garlic.
- Pour 1 quart water over onion mixture and cover pot; steam vegetables until partially tender, about 5 minutes. Add remaining 1 quart water and cream; reduce heat to medium.
- Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat; stir flour into melted butter and cook until mixture forms a paste. Add potatoes to flour-butter paste and cook until paste is lightly browned and the raw flavor of flour is gone, about 5 minutes. Slowly stir potato mixture into vegetable and cream mixture and cook until soup is smooth, potatoes are tender, and temperature is 170 degrees F (75 degrees C) to 180 degrees F (80 degrees C), 30 to 40 minutes.
- Cook and stir corn and red bell pepper together in a cast iron skillet over medium heat until golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Mix corn mixture into soup and season with red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper.
- Add a few drops of hot sauce if desired.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 408 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 24 g |
| Cholesterol | 117 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 6 g |
| Saturated Fat | 20 g |
| Sodium | 143 mg |
| Sugars | 2 g |
| Fat | 33 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This was a hit with one of my kids and a huge thumbs down for the other (I don’t think he likes anything with flavor) I scaled it down to 10 servings which was enough for 4 of us to eat dinner for 2 nights and send some with my husband to work for lunch one day. I opted to use green chilies in place of the red pepper, next time I think I will use 2 cans. I also cooked the bacon in the oven and then just put the grease into the pot and used the bacon as a topping since I cannot stand soggy cooked down bacon. It is thick so on the second day I added a little milk to thin it out. We topped it with cheddar cheese, bacon, green onion and my husband added raw onion to it. He wants me to make some pico next time as a topping. It will go into the recipe book for sure.
Twenty minutes prep time is an understatement. It took well over an hour to prepare a half batch. I would definitely recommend doubling the bacon and saving half of it for garnish purposes. Also, adding lots of the red pepper, salt, and pepper at the end.
Made this last night, delicious. I did not add the red pepper and added a teaspoon of thyme for more flavor, add a pat or two of butter in the end, it was so good.
I’ve been searching a couple years for a corn chowder recipe, and finally found the one I’ll keep! I did make a couple changes. Instead of strip bacon, I used panchetta and cut it into small cubes. I also used low-sodium chicken broth instead of water (because panchetta is salty). LOVE this recipe! Thanks for sharing!
It was a little difficult to make it on less servings but it was still delicious. I will need to make a few adjustments next time simply because I need to make a lot less than the original recipe. Great recipe though and I recommend it!
Made 4 different soups for a party. This was, by far, the favourite. A very good recipe. One thing, I mistakenly used Half ‘n Half and glad I did. It gave the soup a creamy, but not-too-heavy taste. Making it again for another party. Thank you.
Although delicious, I was a tad confused about the cream sauce and the potato mixture. Maybe you could edit it into two different steps instead of one.
My family and the neighbors LOVE it!!
This was really great!! The recipe was easy enough. I substituted ham in place of the bacon. Excellent and hearty.
Wonderful soup! I didnt have all ingredients but still was great. I fried my bacon .Boiled 8 large potatoes, frozen ears of corn I put into steamer basket above my boiling potatoes. Cut the corn off the ears drained my potatoes. I put two tablesppons of butter,mashed it all up. Then I had a jar of Ragu roasted garlic parmesan sauce, put that in with my potatoes with some can milk. My last onion was gone so I used onion powder. Put some bacon grease in my soup,dumped the corn in with some basil leaves . it was still a little thick like mashed potatoes so I added water, salt and pepper served with some italian herb bread ! Superb if I may say so. With bacon and cheese also on top. I still gonna try with the other ingredients I didn’t have.
I did reduce the servings (down to 10), but I swear I have enough for 50. Tho, I must admit I added more vegetables than the 10 servings called for. Ok more bacon too. But just a wee bit more liquid. I also added better than broth (chicken). My husband is on his second bowl. I really want another bowl but trying to watch how much I eat. Extremely good!!! Gonna have to take some for the gang at work though. Too much for 2 but way too good to waste!!!
This was a pretty good recipe. I set aside the bacon once it was crispy and used the bacon fat to sauté the vegetables. I also used chicken broth instead of just plain water to add a depth of flavor and half n half in place of heavy cream. We topped our bowls of chowder with the crispy bacon and chives. Shrinking the recipe to 10 servings was perfect. Yum!
Great, I used half and half instead of heavy cream. Back flavor is there but not overwhelming. Caution, it makes A LOT. Cut it in half and still had a ton left over
Used milk instead of half & half and water and worked great!
Don’t let the scale of this recipe scare you off. 3 gallons of soup is 50 servings. Use the “Change Servings” feature to scale it back. The one thing I don’t care for is soggy bacon – I would prefer to reserve the crispy bacon and use it as a garnish. Using the bacon drippings adds a lot of flavor and of course you could always add some diced ham if you wanted to.