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)

Soups & Sauces · American

15 ingredients · 150 minutes · 6 servings

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

Nothing flagged in the ingredient list. The label is still the last word.

Restrictions

Diets

No alcohol

Worked out from the ingredient list. It knows nothing about brands, shared equipment or cross contamination, and it is not a certification — if you have an allergy, you still have to read the label.

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)

Optional

Not counted above. The dish works without them.

1 cup

cornbread (from the catalog, on the side)

Steps

Brine480 min
beans soaked overnight — or quick-soaked in an hour
- white beans
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