Good Southern cornbread is the simplest thing to make and pairs well with eggs and country ham. Replace the honey in this recipe with sorghum molasses if you can locate it.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 15 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
Ingredients
- 1 pound dry navy beans, soaked overnight
- 4 quarts water
- 1 pound leftover ham bone with meat attached
- 1 onion, finely diced
- 2 carrots, sliced
- 2 stalks celery, diced
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ½ teaspoon paprika
Instructions
- In a large stockpot, add water, ham bone, and pre-soaked beans. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until beans are nearly soft.
- Remove bone and cut off remaining meat. Remove 1/3 of the beans and mash with a potato masher or food processor.
- Return ham and beans to the stockpot; add onion, carrots, celery, garlic powder, pepper, and paprika. If you are using dripping from a previously cooked ham add those now. Simmer until vegetables are tender and serve.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 459 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 51 g |
| Cholesterol | 47 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 20 g |
| Protein | 34 g |
| Saturated Fat | 5 g |
| Sodium | 949 mg |
| Sugars | 5 g |
| Fat | 14 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Well, I lost my taste/smell to Covid last December. But my husband said this was very good, tasted like my mom’s. It’s hard cooking when you can’t taste, but I relied on the recipe to guide me. The only thing I changed was…I used 1 qt. chicken broth, 1 qt. turkey stock and 1 qt. water because that’s what I had. I didn’t have to mash my beans because they cooked long enough to break them down.
Four quarts of water makes it too…watery. Use three. I tend to use chicken stock instead of water. You can also be more liberal with the spices.
So good!!! Added chicken stock to it. Otherwise stayed with the recipe. I am not a bean soup fan, but this one is amazingly delicious!
very good. I used turkey ham. I loved it!
I had never made ham and bean soup before. This was so easy and so delicious!!
SO GOOD!! used smoked ham hawks! Delicious
Delicious for a cold winter soup! I subbed sliced ham and halved the recipe for two; we have it often!
After some adjustment to the recipe I made a delicious rich thick yummy bowl of this bean soup: The recipe is twice as much water/chicken broth as needed for half a batch, only use 2 quarts of water/chicken broth for an entire recipe amount. I used a 1/2 recipe batch and only used four or five cups of chicken broth: 2 Cups of chopped onion, one prepackaged carrots and celery already cut short to fit the pint container, an entire pound of Navy beans for 1/2 recipe, drippings if any, 2 teaspoons of black pepper (entire recipe), no bone in the second batch, and a large quantity of smaller strips of ham. The original recipe is too thin and is twice as much water as is needed. I also used a slow cooker and it takes about 8 hours checking for softening of the beans once in a while, then bringing the remainder of the recipe together. The black pepper makes the dish, it does not need any salt, just black pepper. Yum.
This is my go-to ham and bean recipe! So delicious and cook a couple times a year.
this is just the way my dad and grandpa made it…..love it.
I used this recipe as a base and loved it. I didn’t have a ham bone, but had some ham and cut it into pieces. Instead of using all water, I used half water/half chicken stock and added fresh garlic to that in the first step. All is good. Thx for this recipe.
Super easy and everyone loved it!
Excellent … only swapped 2 quarts of chicken stock for half the water. Very tasty! And, easy!
reduced the liquid to 2 1/2 quarts using half water and half chicken broth. Double the veggies just because I’m looking to get more in my diet. Added 4 lg potatoes and after they cooked, I smashed 1/2 of them to thicken the liquid. Most important for flavor, I used a good amount of drippings from a previously cooked ham. all said, a very good recipe, but needs a lot of personalization to make it great.
I doubled the spices and also added brown sugar and chili powder. Didn’t have hambone but I had smoked neck bones and bought a ham steak which I cut up and added about an hour before serving. It was very tasty and I made a quick cornbread to go along with dinner. Simmered soup for about 4 hours! Very good soup for a cold and snowy New York day!
I had a bag of 17 beans so I used it instead, it turned out great
I did not use left over ham but a small bone in ham. It was delicious and reminded me of my mothers.. serve it with cider vinegar on the side for those you like to add it.. makes the whole meal different.. LOVE IT.
Loved it will make again
Extremely good! Almost as good as my brother-in-law’s, so I’ll keep tweaking. Adding the ham hock really helps, too!!
This was lovely! I took it to a meeting of friends Saturday night and everyone loved it. ok, my secret ingredient – I had cooked a ham a few days previously and along with the ham bone, I saved all the liquids that cooked out of it. They jelled up nicely in the fridge so I added half a cup of the ham jelly to the soup pot. I also added half a teaspoon of smoked paprika. This was easily the best ham and bean soup I’ve ever made. I had some for lunch today as well, just dumped the leftover veggies from Sunday dinner in with it…I love the way soup morphs over its lifetime. Looking forward to finishing it up for tomorrow’s lunch.
I originally did not add salt due to ham hock, (worried it would taste too salty), but once I did, the recipe tasted terrific! Leftovers froze and defrosted well too. Yum!