This is as good as comfort food gets in a bowl! Using the bacon fat until the last drop to our advantage to flavor the jalapeno peppers and the soup itself. At the end we take an immersion blender to the base of the soup to emulsify the liquids and fats together – creating a velvety, creamy, and delicious mixture that doesn’t separate.
The thyme, celery seed, onion and garlic really work wonders in this soup – so make sure you don’t leave them out! The cumin comes along just toward the end of each bite, giving off its well-known intense and smoky flavor that really accentuates the bacon. Everything works together in harmony, leaving you with a bacon-y, smokey, and mellow heat with each and every bite you take. Not to mention the cheesy goodness that brings the texture of this soup to another level.
Word of warning: If you don’t like your soups to be very spicy, make sure you de-seed the jalapeno peppers. This was quite spicy, which I really enjoyed – but if you’re not much of a heat seeker try de-seeding at least half of the jalapenos.
If you’re looking for another variety of soup for the cold weather we’re having, feel free to check out my:
- Bacon Cheeseburger Soup (an all-time favorite)
- Chicken Enchilada Soup
- Spiced Pumpkin Soup
So, what’s your favorite soup? Got a challenge for me to make your favorite low-carb? Let me know in the comments below!
Yields 5 Sevings of Jalapeno Bacon Cheddar Soup
The Preparation
- 8 ounces bacon
- 4 medium jalapeno pepper
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 8 ounces cheddar cheese
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 3 cups chicken broth
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon celery seed
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
The Execution
1. Slice or cut bacon into 1 inch pieces. Place into a pan and cook until all pieces are crisp.
2. Remove bacon from pan while reserving as much bacon grease as possible in the pan. Place bacon on paper towels to dry and become crisp.
3. Dice 4 jalapeno peppers. Slice in half, then slice the half into half and dice appropriately. If you aren’t much of a heat seeker, you might want to remove the seeds before doing this.
4. Season and sautee the jalapenos in the bacon fat until lightly browned and aromatic.
5. Remove jalapenos and preserve as much bacon fat as you can in the pan. Set jalapenos on bacon to dry off.
6. In a food processor, process 8 oz. cheddar cheese using the grating attachment. Set aside. If you don’t have a food processor that can do it, feel free to check out the one I use – it’s awesome!
7. In a new pot, add bacon fat, butter, broth, and spices. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer for at least 15 minutes.
8. Using an immersion blender, blend together all ingredients well. You want the fat and broth to emulsify so that they don’t separate. Once you’ve done this, add cream and cheese and season again with salt and pepper.
9. Add bacon and jalapeno back into the soup and stir well. Let simmer for 5 minutes before serving.
This makes a total of 5 servings of Jalapeno Bacon Cheddar Soup. Each serving comes out to be 657 calories, 60.4g fats, 4.8g net carbs, and 27.8g protein.
| NUTRITION | CALORIES | FAT | CARBS | FIBER | NET CARBS | PROTEIN |
| 8 ounce bacon | 1209 | 105.9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 60.5 |
| 4 medium jalapeno pepper | 17 | 0.2 | 3.9 | 1.7 | 2.2 | 0.6 |
| — salt and pepper | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 8 ounce cheddar cheese | 916 | 75.6 | 7 | 0 | 7 | 51.9 |
| 4 tablespoon butter | 407 | 46 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.5 |
| 3 cup chicken broth | 45 | 1.6 | 3.3 | 0 | 3.3 | 4.8 |
| 1 teaspoon dried thyme | 3 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.1 |
| 1 teaspoon garlic powder | 10 | 0 | 2.3 | 0.3 | 2 | 0.5 |
| 1 teaspoon onion powder | 8 | 0 | 1.9 | 0.4 | 1.5 | 0.2 |
| 1/2 teaspoon celery seed | 4 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 0.2 |
| 1/2 teaspoon cumin | 4 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 0.2 |
| 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream | 607 | 64.4 | 4.9 | 0 | 4.9 | 5.1 |
| Totals | 3231 | 294.2 | 24.9 | 3 | 21.9 | 124.5 |
| Per Serving (/5) | 646 | 58.8 | 5 | 0.6 | 4.4 | 24.9 |

Jalapeno Bacon Cheddar Soup
Ingredients
- 8 ounce bacon
- 4 medium jalapeno pepper
- salt and pepper to taste
- 8 ounce cheddar cheese
- 4 tablespoon butter
- 3 cup chicken broth
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon celery seed
- ½ teaspoon cumin
- ¾ cup heavy whipping cream
Instructions
- Slice or cut bacon into bite-sized pieces. Heat in a pan and cook until crisp.
- Remove the bacon, leaving as much bacon fat in the pan as possible. Place the bacon on paper towels to dry and crisp up.
- Dice the jalapeño peppers. To do this, slice them in half, then slice into quarters and dice. If desired, deseed the peppers before dicing, for a less spicy soup.
- Season and sauté the jalapeños in the bacon fat until lightly browned and aromatic.
- Remove the jalapeños, leaving as much bacon fat in the pan as possible. Place the jalapeños on top of the bacon to dry off.
- Shred the cheddar cheese using a grater or a food processor with a grating attachment (pictured: Cuisinart Pro).
- In a separate pot, add the bacon fat, butter, broth, and spices. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer for at least 15 minutes.
- Using an immersion blender, blend all of the ingredients together well. The fats and broth need to emulsify to keep them from separating. Once done, add the heavy whipping cream and grated cheese, and season the soup again with salt and pepper.
- Add the bacon and diced jalapeño back into the soup and stir well. Let simmer for 5 minutes before serving.



















Have you tried freezing and reheating? I’m single and on the Keto diet, so I like to make freezer meals for myself.
Lydia, I haven’t tried freezing it because it ran out so quick in this house – but I imagine it would be fine for freezing and re-heating as I’ve done it with soups with similar ingredients.
I really loved the flavor of this when I made it a few months ago. Unfortunately, I think I missed a step and when I added the cheese it all just melted into a clump in the bottom of the pan. I’d love to try it again. Any ideas where I might have gone wrong?
This recipe was incredible. I brought it for lunch every day for a week and couldn’t get enough! Definitely making more soon 🙂 Thanks!
I have to say: THIS IS AWESOME! Just made it and heated up some keto rolls so they get crunchy like croutons and WOW, I’m in love. Thank you!
This is an amazing recipe, and I’ve made it twice so far! I’m a newbie cook, and I would love to add chicken to the soup to get the protein up so I can eat this as a full meal. What’s the best way to do this? Do you recommend adding the shredded chicken at the same time as the jalapenos and bacon? Thank you!
Yep – just make sure the chicken is cooked and shredded up. You can add it all the way at the end if you’d like. As a side note, make sure you have seasoned the chicken with salt and pepper, too.
I made this tonight. I had to use the pickled jalapenos, because it is all I had. OMG, a new favorite. Soooooo goood.
Awesome to hear Katt – glad you liked it!
I loved it, the flavor is great. The only thing I can’t seem to nail down, and never can with cheddar, is the gritty texture it leaves. I even used my immersion blender once the cheese was melted to try to improve the texture a little, but it’s something about cheddar cheese.
Any ideas? Everyone loved the flavor and nobody else seemed bothered by it, but it’s just an odd mouth feel.
Do you shred your own cheddar? Possible the starches that are on pre-shredded cheddar might be the cause. Though with pre-shredded and when I grate my own, I don’t experience much of a problem with grittiness.
I did, with a microplane. Maybe it’s just the brand of cheese, this was Kraft cheddar, in the 2 lb block.
That’s definitely possible, though with a microplane I imagine all of the grittiness would be gone. I did a little bit of reading online and it says that it’s possible you heated the cheese too quickly. This can cause the proteins to bundle up and give a grittiness to the soup. It may be worth adding in small amounts next time, after the heat has been turned off and it is starting to cool down some.
Thanks, that could have been it. I have the same problem with making cheese sauce so it’s not a new concept to have an odd mouth feel. It would certainly make sense since the cheese wasn’t room temperature and the soup was hot. I guess like chocolate, you can bind it up pretty easily. Thank you again for the indepth reply, the flavor of this soup was amazingly good even with my lack of cheese skills.
No worries – I might even get the same mouthfeel you’re talking about, though I just don’t realize it. It’s possible you’re just sensitive to it as well. Let me know next time you make a soup if it helped out by adding slowly/keeping temp down.
I figured it out after making a cheese sauce that was low carb. Their instructions said to kill the heat before adding the cheese…so, my best guess is that the heat still being on causes the proteins to bind and makes it have that gritty weird feel like you suggested. I’ve found it’s easiest to add cheese after everything else is in and it’s ready to turn off, which keeps a nice smooth feel. Thanks for the help!
Sure thing – glad it worked out 🙂
Ashley, are you using a really sharp cheddar. I personally like to use a medium cheddar when making soups because it’s creamier, but you do lose some flavor.
Chicken allergy in the house, could I use vegetable broth or beef broth in its place? Thank you
Sure – I see no reason why not. I’d go for vegetable over beef personally, as I feel like the flavor will be better with it. Beef broth can come through a little bit strong.
I tried cutting it into ~a 1/3rd recipe to try it but the mixture didn’t keep enough heat during blending for the cheese to melt after without more heat.
EDIT: Ah I missed the final step to allow to simmer further :0
Hope you liked it!
Last time I made it too salty. This time my cheese went gritty. T-T it’s delicious either way, but I can’t seem to get it right!
Third time is the charm? 🙂
Last time I made it too salty. This time my cheese went gritty. T-T it’s delicious either way, but I can’t seem to get it right!
Seems to be a great recipe. My son is actually making it as I type this. I understand that this makes 5 servings but I couldn’t find anywhere in the recipe where it states how much a serving actually is in terms of measurement. Is each serving 2 cups, a cup, a half cup? I don’t want to have to measure out 5 servings to find out. Maybe you could tell us.
It’s probably about a cup per serving. I would have to cook this and measure it out to know exact cup size, unfortunately.
Hi Laura, please post if or when you measure it out. This soup is A M A Z I N G !
Thanks
If anyone is asking this question today .. it’s 1 cup/serving. The recipe makes about 5 cups
Might have messed this one up. I made a half time recipe with scotch bonnets and red jales disregarding the flavor profiles. Big mistake, also used bouillon instead of already prepared broth and most likely ended up putting too much as it was very salty(kinda just threw it into a cup and a half of water). Added more cream and cheddar and it evened out a bit. I’m sure it’s a wonderful soup but I personally botched this one (and I’m a sauce cook too…). I’ll just try out the burger soup next time….lol
Hahah, Matthew. I went to culinary school and I hate when I mess things up about twice as much now because I should know better lol. Let me know how you like the burger soup!
Just made this and it was soo yummy. Kind of dangerous though, such a fat bomb. Reminds me of our local version of tripe soup (Romania) except .. well, with bacon instead of tripe and 30 mins cook time instead of 4+ hours. Thanks for the recipe 🙂
Hey! This recipe looks fantastic! Question: what broth do you use? I’m having a hard time finding one that has 0 carbs. Thanks so much 🙂
Great soup!
So the bacon all went soggy when i put it in… should I have just cooked it even longer first?
Usually the bacon should still have a little bit of crisp left on it. If you need a crispier texture, just add the bacon at the very end, right before serving.
My cheese did not melt into a creamy yummy soup. It’s GOOEY! It pulls apart all stringy and it’s a gooey clump with all the bacon caught up in it. Yes it was real cheddar. What? Sooooo disappointed.
I’m really sorry to hear. If possible next time, I’d recommend adding it more slowly and stirring frequently so that it can work its way into the liquid.
I just made this for the first time, but I turned it into a Vitamix soup by putting all the ingredients (except for the bacon and half the cooked jalapeño) in and using the soup setting. It came out great. I served with the bacon, cooked jalapeño, and some sour cream. I’ll definitely be making this again. It’s so easy and it makes a great substitute for my favorite potato soup recipe, which is definitely not keto.
Great idea. Glad you enjoyed it, Jess!