Fire up the slow cooker to make some delicious ham and bean soup from that leftover ham bone. There is nothing much more traditional than this classic soup. Please enjoy one of the best soups you can make at home.
Introduction
Ham and bean soup has always been a personal favorite of mine. Combine that with what to do with the ham bone leftover from Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas dinner, and most of us need this recipe.
This easy ham and bean soup recipe is my version of traditional Senate Bean Soup. It is a simple soup made with navy beans, ham hocks, and onion. It is always on the menu in the dining room of the United States Senate. There are two versions, one using mashed potatoes to thicken the soup.
I combined about five recipes and methods, so there is no specific inspiration piece other than the Senate recipe. Most recipes use chicken broth for all or part of the liquid. We won't need the chicken broth—we will simmer the ham bone to make our ham broth.
Some of the recipes suggested 8 hour cooking times on low, even with dry beans. It took 10 hours with the overnight soaked beans to be the right consistency.
Lastly, the amount of liquid varied from 6 cups to 12 cups. Many commenters thought the high-end was just too much liquid. I suggest 6 cups. It did not completely cover the ham but was just right. They, like me, want a thicker bean soup.
My Rating
A low five for ham and bean soup lovers—an excellent 4 for everybody else.
🐖 Ham for Ham and Bean Soup
The ham in the recipe is a huge variable. Start with a "meaty" bone. If you stripped it, you would have no meat.
All hams have a considerable amount of salt. Many hams have been coated with honey or other sweet products. Also, you have a large amount of fat, much of it on the surface.
All those things are a problem that could ruin your soup. So the preparation of the ham is critically essential.
Use running water to remove surface sugar. Scrape off any fat that you can. And be careful with adding any sodium.
What if I don't have a ham bone?
This recipe is designed around the ham bone since we use it for the meat and create a broth to make the soup. BUT, it is relatively easy to make it without a ham bone.
You can use about 2 cups of diced ham, and instead of water, use low-sodium chicken broth.
🫘Beans for Ham and Bean Soup
What type of beans to use?
The beans are usually white beans like navy or great northern beans. The navy beans are smaller and more traditional for this soup. They are so common that this soup is frequently called "White Bean and Ham Soup."
Mixtures of various beans are sold like 15 bean mix to make 15 Bean Soup and an excellent substitute. Or use the beans you like.
Precooked vs. Dry beans
Either dry or precooked beans will work fine in this recipe. The cooking time will decrease by a few hours with precooked beans vs. dry beans. d
If you use precooked beans, you will need 48 ounces. You should drain the beans and rinse them well to decrease added salt. Of course, use low sodium products.
This was a great recipe to start using dry beans. And if you're on a budget, it makes this soup very cheap, considering you were going to toss that ham bone.
The 1 pound of dry will equal approximately three cans or one 48 oz jar of precooked beans.
How to use dry beans
You should not just add dry beans and cook, although you will find recipes that don't soak. But, not the wisest answer in my experience.
Generally, dry beans should be soaked before cooking. It was always done in the "good old days." An overnight soak was always done to decrease the gas associated with beans having a non-absorbed carbohydrate. It helps some.
There is a "quick-soak" method to prepare dry beans that may be more effective. Bring the beans to a boil for a few minutes, remove them from heat, and allow them to rest for an hour.
Also, picking through the beans for pebbles and rocks was important. We frequently found them 50 years ago but none since then.
👨🍳How to Cook Ham and Bean Soup
- If using dry beans, presoak the beans.
- Prepare the ham bone by rinsing off any honey coating and trim any large pieces of fat.
- Dice carrots, celery, and onion.
- If using precooked beans, drain and rinse to decrease the sodium.
- Add all the ingredients to a large crock pot. Work the ham to the bottom of the pot.
- Cook on low for a total of 8 hours with precooked beans or 10 hours if dry beans.
- Two hours before the end of cooking, pull out the ham bone. After it cools a bit, strip off the meat, disgard the bone and waste. Return the meat to the crock pot and finish cooking time.
- Serve hot or cool overnight in the refrigerator and skim off fat the following day.
❓FAQs about Ham and Bean Soup
The best way is to add a finely diced potato halfway through cooking. You can also add ¼ to ½ cup of potato flakes near the end of cooking.
The second method is to remove about a cup of beans, run them through a blender and mix them back into the soup.
I do not suggest corn starch since it may gel some with cooling and change the texture later.
You can also create a roux with flour and butter and add the last hour of cooking.
None other than the onion in the traditional soup. I suggest carrot and celery since they made it more interesting taste-wise.
A diced potato added halfway through cooking will help thicken some. You can also add a half or a full cup of mashed potatoes near the end to thicken.
All ham soups have a lot of animal fats. By refrigerating, the fat will come to the top and be solid. It can be removed, and your soup will be healthier.
I love Cornbread Biscuits or Old Fashioned Cornbread with this soup.
Good refrigerated for 3-4 days. Good in the freezer for 3-4 months.
📖 Other Ham Recipes
Old Fashion Scalloped Potatoes and Ham
Puerto Rican Chuletón Soup AKA Xmas Ham Bone Soup
Ham Bone Vegetable Soup – Crock Pot Edition
This recipe is listed in these categories. See them for more similar recipes.
🖼️Step-by-Step Photo Instructions
A nice meaty ham bone and some simple ingredients are needed. Dry beans are in the picture, but you may use 48 oz. of precooked navy or great northern beans.
Rinse 1 pound of navy or great northern dry beans. Pick through the beans for any stones or pebbles. Cover with water and allow to soak overnight. The quick-soak method is discussed in the post.
Under running water, rinse any coating off a meaty ham bone. Also, scrape off any surface fat that you can. Add to a larger crock pot.
Dice two medium carrots, two celery ribs, and one medium onion. Carrot and celery are options but recommended.
Add the beans, carrots, celery, and onion to the crock pot. Add ½ teaspoon garlic powder, ½ teaspoon black pepper, and one bay leaf. Add 6 cups of water.
Cook on low for 8 hours total if using precooked beans and 10 hours for dry beans. Two hours before the end of cooking, remove the ham bone to a cutting board. Allow the bone to cool for 10-15 minutes. Then remove all meat from the bone. Discard bone and any fat and waste.
Place meat back into the cooker, stir well, and finish cooking. This is a good point to taste test for adding salt if needed.
If you have time, refrigerate overnight and scrape the fat off the top the next day before reheating.
📖Recipe
Crock Pot Ham and Bean Soup
Ingredients
- 1 pound dry navy beans - or great northern; see note about precooked beans
- 1 ham bone - meaty
- 2 carrots - medium - diced - optional
- 2 ribs celery - - diced - optional
- 1 onion - medium - diced
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 bay leaf - optional
- 6 cups water
Instructions
- You may use one pound of dry beans or 48 oz. of pre-cooked beans.
- If using dry beans, rinse 1 pound of navy or great northern dry beans. Pick through the beans for any stones or pebbles. Cover with water and allow to soak overnight.
- Under running water, rinse any coating off a meaty ham bone. Also, scrape off any surface fat that you can. Add to a larger crock pot.
- Dice 2 medium carrots, two ribs celery, and one medium onion. Carrot and celery are options but recommended.
- Add the beans, carrots, celery, and onion to the crock pot. Add ½ teaspoon garlic powder, ½ teaspoon pepper, and one bay leaf. Add 6 cups of water.
- Cook on low for 8 hours total if precooked beans and 10 hours for dry beans. Two hours before the end of cooking, remove ham bone to a cutting board. Allow the bone to cool for 10-15 minutes. Then remove all meat from the bone. Discard bone and any fat and waste.
- Place meat back into the cooker and finish cooking. This is a good point to taste test for adding salt if needed.
- If you have time, refrigerate overnight and scrape the fat off the top the next day before reheating.
My Private Notes
Recipe Notes
Pro Tips:
- Use a large crock pot of 6 quarts or above.
- Hambones (and hams) vary a lot. So this is like many recipes; these are guidelines and not rules.
- If yours is honey-coated or spiced heavily, you need to rinse as much of that off as possible. Also, scrape off surface fat.
- Most hams have LOTS of salt. Don't add any until you're sure you need it, and use low sodium products if possible.
- You can use pre-cooked navy or great northern beans. You will need 48 oz., and they should be drained and rinsed. Use low sodium is possible.
- Dried beans should have an overnight soak in water to decrease gas production.
- It is a good idea to cool this soup in the refrigerator and when cold, remove any fat on top.
- If you don't have a ham bone, you can still make this soup with about two cups of diced ham and use low-sodium chicken broth for the water.
- The total cooking time for the dry bean version is 10 hours and 8 hours using pre-cooked beans.
- Stores well refrigerated for 3-4 days. And will freeze well for 3-4 months.
To adjust the recipe size:
You may adjust the number of servings in this recipe card under servings. This does the math for the ingredients for you. BUT it does NOT adjust the text of the instructions. So you need to do that yourself.
Nutrition Estimate
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Editor's Note: Originally Published December 13, 2014. Updated with expanded options, refreshed photos, and a table of contents to help navigation.
Jane Montello
Made the bean soup and it turned out great. My mom (who has passed away and left no written instructions) used her leftover bean soup to make baked beans. I have been unable to find such a recipe on the internet. Do you have one? I am going to try to adapt various baked bean recipes using the leftover soup, but would love to get your take on it. Thank you. Your site is wonderful for cooking for 2.
DrDan
Hi Jane, Thanks for the note. I have not heard of doing that. It seems like the liquid to bean ratio would be off but you could drain some. I guess I would drain the liquid, call the ham as bacon. then add the ketchup/BBQ sauce, onion and other things. Honestly, I have not found a baked bean recipe I really like. I find most of them way too sweet for my taste. The best I have had is at Marlowe's in Memphis but they don't publish their recipe.
Dan
Jennifer Szalach
Delicious! My husband and I absolutely loved this recipe, we will definitely be making this again!
Tammy
This is very good. I will never throw out a ham bone again.
DrDan
Hi Tammy
I grew up never wasting anything so tossing the hambone is just wrong.
Thanks so much for the note.
Dan
Nancy
Great recipe and similar to my own. I add a couple of small potatoes to absorb some of the salt. A jalapeño pepper also adds some great flavor and and little heat. I like my soup a little thicker and creamier, so I take about a half cup of soup, add a little milk and cornstarch and blend it together and return to soup to finish cooking. No salt is ever needed.
Laura
This was an excellent base recipe. I made a few seasoning modifications to suit our tastes and used a few more carrots, celery and onion. Delicious. Thank you. I didn't know where to start and this was perfect.
DrDan
Hi Laura,
Recipes are always just "guidelines" anyway. Great modifications.
Thanks for the note.
Dan
Shelia
this is close to the recipe I always use, but I add a can of tomatoes (and sometimes potato to thicken it some). I'm making this this weekend using my New Years Day hambone. Yum.
DrDan
Hi Shelia,
Thanks for the note. I have done this with the can of tomatoes and it adds a nice touch.
I think I need to keep some instant potatoes around for crockpot thickening emergencies.
Dan
Sarah
My crock pot isn't large enough, how would I adapt it to the stovetop?
DrDan
I haven't done a stovetop version for about 20 years so I'm not much help. I would say a stovetop version will probably cook much faster since low simmer on a stovetop is high plus a little in a crock pot. I would look at some other recipes.
Good luck,
Dan
Brittany
Wanted to give this 5/5 rating, could not find the place to eye it! Excellent recipe!
DrDan
Thanks Brittany,
The rating is by clicking a star in the recipe card area.
Dan
Susan Downey
Hi!
I found your recipe yesterday when I looked up recipes for ham and navy beans soups. I used a smoked pork hock and added 1 TBSP hand crushed Newfoundland Savory to the recipe.
It turned out Awesome! Not too salty and it had a great balance of flavours. I did not need to add any extra water as I have a crock pot with a lock down lid.
My husband enjoyed every bite!
DrDan
Hi Susan,
This is one of those recipes that just works and adapts to individual taste changes.
Thanks for the note.
Dan
Jennifer
On the soak or not-to-soak issue.
Soaking reduces the phytic acid content of the beans. Phytic acid is not denatured by cooking, only by water soak. I always soak oats and beans for this reason. You can look up the problems caused by too much phytic acid - but here is my personal story. We had oats (unsoaked) for breakfast almost every morning to save money one year. My otherwise healthy children (no sodas, no sugar in the house, very health conscious family) had 5 cavities and a ton of precavities by the end of the year. I figured out it was the oatmeal. Or rather, the phytic acid in the oatmeal. We stopped eating it so often, and when we do, I soak it overnight or use it in refrigerator oats with yogurt. My children have had zero cavities in the 4 years since that.
DrDan
The doctor in me says that you had calcium issues due to a large amount of chronic phytic acid intake. The occasional intake would not be much of an issue, but the ongoing phosphorous intake could well be the cause of a lot of calcium issues. You did excellent in figuring that one out. I have read more recipes recently suggesting not to soak but still I would. The old ways are the best ways some times.
Thanks for the note and reminding me of biochemistry from 40 yrs ago.
DrDan
Erica
Can't figure out why you would rinse off any honey coating or spices. The sweetness makes ham and bean soup good.
DrDan
To me, there is way too much sugar on many hams and anything you can do to get the salt decreased here is a good thing.
Dan
Goose
Here's my take: We like BIG beans in our soups, so I used a pound of dried Limas in your recipe. However, by the time that all the ham cooks off the bones (and I used TWO), much of those original dry beans cook down into gravy, so I add a can or two of prepared Great Northerns at the end. I also left out the carrots this time.
Also, by the time the soup has finished, I have added nearly double the cups of liquid, as it cooks down and concentrates. I started with 4 cups water and 1 cup chicken broth, and probably ended up with 4 cups of each, for a nicely savory and concentrated soup.
I pack the extra finished soup into freezer cartons, as there are just the two of us (as the blog is so titled!), so we can enjoy it later. What soup I keep fresh, and what I thaw out later, will be cut with more chicken broth (or perhaps vegetable broth … to avoid losing that great ham flavor!) and perhaps another can of prepared beans, as needed, since the finished soup is well-concentrated.
I agree with you that salt must be added exceedingly sparingly, only as required … and I did end up adding it again and again … as it was bland at first, as you mentioned … right up until the end. The salt was added only ¼ tsp at a time. I used both large crystal kosher-type salt, and also Lawry’s Seasoned Salt. This really did the trick, without wildly missing the mark, and going overly salty.
I also added Liquid Smoke, ⅛ tsp at a time, until the combination of the added salt and Liquid Smoke began to make the near-finished soup savory. I perhaps ended up using ½ tsp total. But, work up to it! The dry beans being cooked down into gravy also adds to the soup’s savory-ness.
Based on my result, I give your recipe a solid 5 out of 5! But, one’s got to have the patience to cook down those ham bones and those dry beans, sparingly adding flavor along the way! Mine easily cooked for 10 hours, and probably more than 12, until the ham was cooked completely off the bone.
DrDan
Hi Goose
Thanks for the comments. As you well know, recipes are just "guidelines" and should be modified according to taste and things like ham bones. Your hard work has paid off with a ton of great soup.
And thanks for the rating.
Dan
Hope
Does cooking it on high make a difference? I didn't have 10 hours to wait only 8. It's on hour 5 right now
DrDan
I suspect high is ok for a shorter time of course. Make sure the beans are done.
DrDan
Hope
My soup is turning out very watery. Any advice?
DrDan
Hi Hope,
You're right this can be a bit watery so here are some options. 1) less water.... A lot of recipes use 10 cups and I only do 6. Plus you need to cover the ham mostly. 2) More beans... A fairly good solution and use a potato masher a little near the end of cooking...Just a little. 3) add potatoes diced at the beginning as one other commenter suggests. The starch will help thick some. 4) Along the same line as #3 add some mashed potato flacks near the end. 5) something like tapioca can be used.
Notice I did not include flour. I have never had any luck thicken in a crock pot with flour even when cooked on high. Flour needs a higher temp to thicken and I believe none of my three crock pots run that hot. I will say that arrowroot and cornstarch are not my favorite choices above because on reheating they do not do very well.
So numbers 2,3 or 4
DrDan
Shelia
try instant potato flakes.
Keith C
Just made recipie as is but also added some fresh oregano I had lying around. Fantastic! Finally a great outlet for all that left over ham!
Leslie
Followed your recipe, only I used pinto beans (that's all I had at home), tasted great and not bland. Thankyou
Leslie
I plan on making your lunch lady rolls in my new kitchen aid mixer and this soup, however the only dried bean I have is pinto, can I use them is this recipe? Thank you
DrDan
I believe pinto will be similar to the navy beans but I'm not positive.
Dan
Pauk
I already knew how to make this soup but I did not have a hambone planning of him though so I came here looking for ideas on how to thicken it up one of the other people left the comment that they took some of the ham and beans and put in a blender to help thicken it that is a good idea