Creamy Ham Bone Soup With Beans

You’ll love the creamy broth (but no cream!), and how the tender beans absorb the flavour. Leave some of the ham tender and juicy, pan fry some to make it crispy. It’s the best of both worlds!

Leftover Ham Bone Soup!

Ham bones are highly coveted in my circle . Each year, I gather as many as I can and stash them in my deep freezer. The Christmas just gone, I went one step further and gifted several Glazed Hams under the guise of being a thoughtful friend. In truth, those gifts came with the condition that I get the ham bone!! 😂 I’m completely shameless. So hopefully, some of you stashed away your leftover ham bone in the freezer, just waiting for the right time to use it. For those that didn’t, don’t worry – this can be made with a store bought ham bone! 😇 (Here’s a photo comparison of store bought and leftover ham)

Not your usual ham bone soup

You’re probably used to seeing ham bone soups with a clear broth or sometimes, a tomato based broth. I really tried to get excited about those versions (and maybe it’s something that comes with maturity? 🤷🏻‍♀️) but I just wanted something more. Something different. This creamy (yet cream-less) Ham Bone Soup with crispy golden ham bits is my idea of different. 🙂

The leftover ham bone

Here’s one of the ham bones that boomeranged back to me after gifting it. My friend was kind enough to leave plenty of ham on it. It weighed 1.1 kg / 2.2lb. But if yours has been picked clean, don’t worry! You’ll still extract plenty of flavour from the bone and non-edible parts of the ham. Just purchase some extra ham meat to toss into the soup – or bulk up on more veggies instead!

How to make this creamy Ham Bone Soup

This Ham Bone Soup has a few more steps than those “chuck it all in the slow cooker” soups – but the extra steps are worth it: See? I promised this ham bone soup was a step above the usual! More and more incredible flavour in every step!!

Slow cook ham bone with dried beans

The carrot and celery that was used to flavour the ham broth is pretty soft after 8 hours of slow cooking but in the spirit of this leftover recipe, I like to chop it up and throw it back into the soup.

Make soup thickening base & add vegetables

This is the step where we make a cornflour thickened “sludge” which is used to make the ham bone broth nice and creamy. I also like to get more vegetables into the soup by starting off by sautéing onion, carrots and celery.

And here’s what you end up with: ✅ Rich, creamy broth, fully loaded with incredible depth of flavour – and we’ve used no cream! ✅ Crispy ham bits – the crowning glory ✅ Creamy soft beans that have absorbed incredible flavour while slow cooking ✅ Plenty of vegetables so this is a great well rounded one-bowl meal

Now, I know beans are a starch so adding a side of bread for dunking might be considered carb overkill…. but who ever says no to soup dunkers??

Soup Dunkers

The nice thing about this recipe is that you can make it in stages. I made it a few times after Christmas 2018 and kept getting distracted mid-cook by important things like meeting friends at the beach, urgent Yum Cha outings etc. So other than stopping midway through the slow cooking of the ham bone, you can pretty much stop at any point in this recipe, then take it up again when it suits. End result was always just as good!! ~ Nagi x PS The other truly great use of leftover ham bone – Chinese Ham Bone Congee. 3 Ingredient magic!

Slow Cooker Ham Bone Soup

Watch How to Make It

More bean recipes

No boring beans around here!

And more creamy cream-less soups

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