Soups & Salads · American

Ham and Bean Soup

Name: Ham and Bean Soup
Total time: 150 min
Yield: 6
Ingredients: 1 lb white beans (dried — great northern or navy, picked over); 2 lb smoked ham hock (or the bone from a glazed ham, meat attached); 1 tbsp olive oil; 1 unit onion (diced); 2 unit carrots (coins); 2 unit celery (sliced); 3 clove garlic (minced); 6 cup chicken stock; 2 cup water; 2 unit bay leaves; 1 tsp thyme (dried); ½ tsp black pepper; 1 tsp salt (late, to taste — the pork decides); ¼ cup parsley (chopped); 1 tbsp vinegar (cider, at the end)

15 ingredients · 150 minutes · 6 servings

Cook Now

593kcal42.5g protein25g fat52.9g carbs~$2.03/ serving*

No alcohol

Ingredients

Servings:

1 lb	white beans (dried — great northern or navy, picked over)
2 lb	smoked ham hock (or the bone from a glazed ham, meat attached)
1 tbsp	olive oil
1 unit	onion (diced)
2 unit	carrots (coins)
2 unit	celery (sliced)
3 clove	garlic (minced)
6 cup	chicken stock
2 cup	water
2 unit	bay leaves
1 tsp	thyme (dried)
½ tsp	black pepper
1 tsp	salt (late, to taste — the pork decides)
¼ cup	parsley (chopped)
1 tbsp	vinegar (cider, at the end)
1 cup	cornbread (from the catalog, on the side)optional

Method

brine480 min
beans soaked overnight — or quick-soaked in an hour
covered by three inches of water — the overnight soak cooks evener; the quick-soak (boil 2 minutes, rest covered 1 hour) is the sanctioned shortcut. Skipping both works and adds an hour of simmering, which every source admits and none prefers
sweat7 min
medium, the aromatics
onion + carrot + celery in the oil until softening, garlic the last minute — the quiet base under a soup whose flavor arrives mostly from a bone
simmer100 min
beans + hock + stock + water + bay + thyme, lid ajar, NO salt yet
everything at a lazy bubble until the beans are fully creamy inside — the hock spends the entire simmer surrendering smoke, salt, and collagen into the broth, which is why added salt waits: the pork seasons first and the cook adjusts after. Old beans take longer; taste five, not one
prep8 min
the hock out, stripped, meat back in
the hock lifted out to a board, its meat shredded off and returned, bone and skin retired with honors — a glazed-ham bone gives up more meat than a hock and carries the glaze's sweetness into the pot, which is the holiday version's quiet upgrade
mash2 min
a cup of beans against the pot wall
the body move every bean soup shares in this catalog — creamy from its own starch, no cream in sight
season3 min
salt to taste, pepper, the vinegar last
+ parsley + the spoon of cider vinegar — the finishing acid that a long pork-and-bean simmer always needs and rarely gets; it is the difference between hearty and heavy, and it is why the pot tastes brighter than the ingredient list reads