Ham and Bean Soup Recipe (2024)

This is a wonderful and warming bowl of tasty beans and ham. Step 1 is poorly written based on the instructions in step 3. I understood "Add the celery, half of the carrots, onion and garlic." to mean add all of the celery and ONLY HALF of the carrots, onion and garlic. In step 3 when finishing the soup one is directed to "Add the cubed ham and remaining carrots", no mention of remaining onion and garlic. Maybe change step 1 to Add the celery, onions, and garlic, and half the carrots?!?

Throw away the ham hock? There's A LOT of meat on it. Don't throw it away.

There can be good meat to pick off the ham hock!

Save the ham hock, dice it and put back in the pot. Ham hocks hold their flavor well unlike ham when ham is used in the cooking.

I make this soup kosher by using a smoked turkey thigh or leg in place of the ham hock, putting the bone and skin in the soup during the simmering process and adding the cubed turkey meat in the final reheating. The recipe works very well in a slow cooker.

I doubled the garlic, added extra thyme sprigs, and used sage instead of bay leaf for extra flavor (southern cook here). Absolutely delicious! Loved by my husband and young kids too. Will be a staple in my house!

I’ve stopped buying ham hocks after using them for years. Last two times I bought them there was almost NO meat whatsoever to chop and shred after cooking. I think they must have invented a machine that strips all the meat - yet they charge five dollars for a couple of small ones. I’ve started buying some of the smoked ham slices they sell for ham biscuits and adding them to the soups like pea and lentil.

It takes more than an hour to really cook a ham hock or shank. Slit the skin several times to expose the tendons and cartilage, this is what provides that rich gelatinous character to the stock. Cook in the water at a simmer at least 2 hours, or even 3, and don't discard the meat! Then use that stock for the best result. I sometimes toss in a trotter (pig foot) for more porky goodness...

I cook the ham hock and soak the beans the day before, allowing me to skim the fat off the broth and use the ham hock and the broth in the soup.

Why discard the ham hock? That meat is far tastier than ham. Skip the cooked ham unless you have some to use up, use one or two ham hocks (preferably smoked), strip their meat when cooked, remove any fatty of fibrous parts, dice, and add back to the soup.

The beans should thicken enough without being mashed or blended. You just need to cook them long enough. Reheated it becomes even thicker. Sometimes I add some pearled barley, which also serves to thicken it.

This is a perfect soup for a fall or winter evening. However, I left out the added salt as there is plenty from diced ham and yes, I too used the ham from the hocks when they'd given their flavor to the soup broth. Serve with warm crusty bread or French rolls. Yummers!

If I don't have ham stock in the freezer, made from leftover Easter or Christmas bone-in hams, I make stock with the ham hock first and then use it and its meat to cook the soup. Lots of lemon juice brightens the flavor so no need to add any salt. Ham hocks take several hours to soften and extract their flavor, longer than the time allowed by the recipe. Add a dollop of sour cream and some cooked bacon as soup toppers when serving.

We cook ham and beans often. We use rinsed but unsoaked pinto beans, vegi or chicken stock, and an extra meaty smoked ham shank, onion and garlic and cook in our pressure cooker on high for 70 minutes and then quick-release the pressure. We do not add salt while cooking because ham shanks vary in saltiness. We then simmer the beans until the liquid reduces to our liking and salt to taste. Add a crisp green salad and crusty bread to make a delicious and satisfying meal.

I’ve got a bag of butter beans … thinking this would work too? Also, no blender, so maybe the old fashioned mash some of the beans in a cup or on the side of the pot to thicken?

Made as written using a small smoked shank (soaked in water while prepping the ingredients). Better than other recipes I've tried, such as the Senate Bean Soup. Probably added close to 2 cups of additional water during the cooking process. Reheated a hearty portion the following day adding about 1/4 cup water to thin out. Decided to remove the ham chunks and really liked it as a bean soup. The smoked hock gave it the flavor needed without the additional processed meat.

No self-respecting cook would throw away a ham hock! Granted, many you buy today don’t have as much meat for some reason. I was just in England where I had the most marvelous ham hock over mashed potatoes I have ever eaten in my life. It was full of flavor!

Add a splash of white vinegar to your bowl when serving instead of the lemon. It's so delicious!

60 minutes in the instant pot was to long for dried Anasazi beans that were soaked for 20 minutes before cooking. Don’t add the carrots until the end or they get too soft and it’s not worth adding them early

On a cold and rainy night in February, the perfect dish. Followed recipe just as written, but did add a parmesan cheese rind to the pot. delicious!

This was very bland. And not appealing to look at or eat. I ended up throwing it out after eating only two servings

Delicious soup. Having made it a couple of times, I double the celery, carrots, and garlic and don't add additional salt. It's still plenty salty for our taste due to the ham hock.

I loved this hearty soup. I used a suggestion from below and made broth with the ham hock - steeping it for several hours. Keeping the ham hock and using the broth I cooked the soup as directed. Delicious and will be a staple for years to come.

Never been much of a bean eater except for Spanish fabada, but I made a 1/2 recipe of this anyway. Delicious! Exceptions were that I used cannellini beans and a whole ham hock and shredded the meat from that in, instead of ham, it was plenty. Finished the soup off 2 days ago, and am starting another for this weekend, it was that good. I will add more carrots (I liked the texture), and after a couple of days maybe buttered rice, greens and hot sauce for variety. Guess I'm a bean eater now.

This is a tasty soup that I really wanted to try, but I am mindful of the cancer risk in eating cured meats. To help mitigate that, I used a smaller hock than in the ingredients and cooked it in water for an hour, then discarded the water and added the hock to the soup for the one hour cooking time. There was plenty of meat to shred for the soup without adding more ham. Also, I seasoned with bay leaves and dried Italian seasoning.

Made largely as written and it was very good, but definitely allow more time for simmering, both in the first step and when adding the carrots and ham at the end. Just because dried beans have softened doesn’t mean they are ready. They will be much creamier with additional cooking time. Similarly, my carrots were still too crunchy after 10 minutes. I used a little more beans and a little less ham, an did pull the meat off the ham hock and added back in with the ham.

Keep the hock meat except the skin. I didn’t blenderize the two cups bc I forgot. Good without but try next time. Just remember to do so adding the hock meat back into the soup.

Loved making and eating this! Thanks for all those advising to use meat from ham hock. Made a difference as did the immersion blender step. Great recipe and preferable to just throwing beans and ham together! Family loved, as well as I! Definitely making again and again.

Ham and bean soup is a New Years Day tradition at our house. I doubled the celery, garlic and carrots to increase the vegetable content of the dish. I usually use left-over ham, but the ham hocks and chopped ham were very tasty and made a prettier presentation. I left the hocks whole, because I didn't want fragments of the skin from the hocks floating in my soup. They remained intact but still imparted lovely flavor. Friends and family gave it rave reviews, so it is now my go-to.

I used a cottage ham. It was great.