This slow-cooker ham bone soup is a great way to use up any leftover ham from Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or any time! The meat and veggie combo offers a main course loaded with nutrition, too!
Ham is a traditional meat served at many holidays. It’s also great for any family dinner, especially when you have a guests — so several mouths to feed!
We really like to have our Slow Cooker Apple Cider Hamevery now and then. It is delicious and can be served with so many sides, like our Crock Pot Mac and Cheeseor Crock Pot Green Bean Casserole. Plus, it leaves everyone at the table feeling satisfied.
I especially like it when leftovers from dinner lend themselves to a new recipe. We usually have a bit of ham leftover when I serve it, so it’s easy to make this slow cooker ham bone soup to serve for the next few lunches or dinners.
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 6 hours
Serves: 16
Ingredients
1 meaty ham bone
3 potatoes, diced
2 cups carrots, sliced
2 small onions, diced
2 (15 oz) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
8 cups chicken broth or water
2 bay leaves
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp thyme leaves
½ tsp black pepper
Instructions
Combine all of the ingredients in a large slow cooker.
Stir everything around the ham bone to combine.
Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 9-10 hours or cook on the high setting for 4-6 hours.
Before serving, remove the ham bone and bay leaves. Remove the meat from the bone, cut the meat into bite size pieces, and return to the soup.
Variations
As with most soups and stews of this nature, you can add/remove/substitute any ingredient you like. The ingredients I have listed here work well for my family but you can adjust to suit you and yours however you like. Some popular items to add include pasta (bow-tie would work well here), kale or collard greens, cabbage, corn (frozen corn kernels), or rice. Most of these additions can go into the pot with 30 minutes left but check up on them regularly to ensure you don’t overcook them.
Yep. In a large pot, saute the vegetables for several minutes, then add everything else. Bring it to a boil then turn it down and let simmer for a couple of hours. That’s basically it. For the finer details, adapt the steps from the recipe above.
How can I thicken the soup?
You can mash a couple of potatoes and add it to the soup. Rice will work similarly. You can also puree some vegetables and add to the soup. You can also add cornstarch (mix it with cold water first) or mix flour (2 tbsp), melted butter (2 tbsp), and 1 cup of the soup broth together, then add it to the pot.
How To Store Slow-Cooker Ham Bone Soup
Cool the cooked soup and place in freezer safe bags or airtight containers for up to 3 months. To prepare from the freezer: For best results, thaw the soup in the refrigerator overnight. Warm in a stockpot over medium heat on the stovetop or in the microwave.
Slow-Cooker Ham Bone Soup
About a Mom
This slow cooker ham bone soup recipe is a great way to use up any leftover ham from Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or anytime! The meat and veggie combo offers a healthy main course loaded with nutrition too!
Combine all of the ingredients in a large slow cooker. Stir everything around the hambone to combine.
Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 9 to 10 hours or cook on the high setting for 4 to 6 hours.
Before serving, remove the hambone and bay leaves. Remove the meat from the bone, cut the meat into bite size pieces, and return to the soup.
Notes
Freezer Tip:Cool the cooked soup and place in freezer safe bags or airtight containers for up to 3 months.To prepare: For best results, thaw the soup in the refrigerator overnight. Warm in a stockpot over medium heat on the stovetop or in the microwave.
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Instead, freeze the ham bone so you can use it later to add flavor to a soup or make homemade ham broth or stock. A ham bone will keep in the freezer for at least a few months. That buys you some time to make full use of it and you have a few days to properly prepare it for long-term storage.
You can use flour, cornstarch, arrowroot or potato starch as a thickening agent; whisk up to 4 tablespoons with a cup of hot broth and add it to the pot. You can use a slurry in conjunction with a roux but in that case, choose a starch for the slurry other than flour.
Of course there are many options, but one thing you should not do is let it sit too long in the refrigerator. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, ham is good for three to five days in the refrigerator after it is cooked.
Simmering animal bones in water releases collagen and other proteins into the broth that may have health benefits, although more research is needed to validate these claims. Now, a new study has shown that ham bones contain peptides that could have cardioprotective effects.
If the ham is a half ham weighing five to seven pounds, it should heat at 325°F for 22-25 minutes per pound. If it is a whole ham weighing between 10 to 14 pounds, heat the ham at 325°F for 18-20 minutes per pound. The internal temperature should be 140°F.
Cornstarch, or corn flour, can be used to thicken soup through its high starch content. Cornstarch is a great thickener for soup because only a little bit is needed to significantly thicken a soup, and it will not affect the flavor profile of the soup.
Foods like rice, bread, potatoes and beans are naturally high in starches, which, when broken down, act as a thickening agent. With rice, the grains will break down into the soup as it's simmered and stirred, releasing the starches and thickening the soup.
Most appliances will automatically shut off after 20 or so hours on this setting, but you shouldn't leave food in a slow cooker for an extended length of time. The general rule of thumb is that 2-4 hours is the maximum length of time you can leave food in a slow cooker on warm.
Due to the nature of a slow cooker, there is no need to stir the food unless it specifically says to in your recipe. In fact, taking the lid off to stir food causes the slow cooker to lose a significant amount of heat, extending the cooking time required. Therefore, it is best not to remove the lid for stirring.
That varies by what's inside the slow cooker and also by the appliance's setting and model, the experts say. Most recipes for all-day cooking call for 6 to 8 hours on low. Quality- (and safety-) wise, another 1 to 2 hours in 'keep warm' mode won't mess things up.
Turns out cooking dried red kidney beans and cannellini beans in your slow cooker can make you sick. Find out how to eliminate the toxin that can make you ill and how to safely prepare and cook these commonly used legumes.
Each package contains 20 oz. of dry beans with one seasoning packet. Hydrolyzed soy protein, maltodextrin, salt, natural and artificial flavors (includes vanillin).
Do You Have to Soak Pinto Beans Before Cooking in the Crock Pot? No you do not! It was important to me that this recipe be as convenient as possible (we are already receiving mega kitchen points for cooking our own beans from dry, so why complicate our lives further?).
Spiral-cut hams and leftovers from consumer-cooked hams may be stored in the refrigerator three to five days or frozen one to two months. Keep your refrigerator at 40 °F or less and your freezer at or near 0 °F. See also Ham and Food Safety.
Do Whole Hams Last Longer? Whole cured hams last in the refrigerator for up to a week. However, fresh ham only lasts a few days in the refrigerator, about three or four once you've cooked it. It doesn't matter if the ham is whole or sliced; the lack of preservatives allows it to spoil more quickly.
How long does homemade bone broth last in fridge? If you follow a typical recipe, then bone broth will last around 5 days in the fridge and up to 12 months if stored in the freezer. However, there are some things you can do to extend the best-buy date to 7-8 days in the fridge and 24 months in your freezer.
Although you may be able to use a ham bone again for soup, if not all of the meat comes off of the bone, most of the flavor you can get from the bone will be used up the first time you use it to make soup. If you want to try to reuse the bone, refrigerate it and use it again within a couple of days.
Introduction: My name is Horacio Brakus JD, I am a lively, splendid, jolly, vivacious, vast, cheerful, agreeable person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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