Loaf and PsalmA journal from an improving homemaker

Sunday Table · Winter

Ham and Bean Soup

Soaked beans and a ham bone, simmered until the beans are creamy. Salt at the end.

Overnight soak, then about 2 and a half hours · Serves 8 · About 10 cups

A bowl of white bean soup with pieces of ham

“You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”

Psalm 145:16

Ingredients

  • 1 lb dried navy or great northern beans
  • 1 ham bone, or a smoked hock, with some meat on it
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 2 carrots, diced
  • 2 celery stalks, diced
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 10 cups water
  • fine salt and black pepper, to taste

Method

Making Ham and Bean Soup: Cover the beans with cold water and soak them overnight. Drain them.
Cover the beans with cold water and soak them overnight. Drain them.
Making Ham and Bean Soup: Simmer, partly covered, 1 and a half to 2 and a half hours, until the beans are creamy all the way…
Simmer, partly covered, 1 and a half to 2 and a half hours, until the beans are creamy all the way…
  1. 1

    Cover the beans with cold water and soak them overnight. Drain them.

  2. 2

    Put the beans, ham bone, onion, carrots, celery, bay, and the 10 cups of water in a large pot. Bring it to a simmer. Skim any foam.

  3. 3

    Simmer, partly covered, 1 and a half to 2 and a half hours, until the beans are creamy all the way through, not chalky in the center. Add water if the soup gets too thick to stir.

  4. 4

    Lift out the bone. Pull off the meat, chop it, and return it to the pot. Discard the bone, the fat you do not want, and the bay. Taste, then salt. Ham can make the pot salty enough already. Pepper it.

From the kitchen

  • Do not salt at the start. Salted water can slow the beans, and the ham is a salt you cannot measure until the end.
  • A bean that will not soften was old. More time helps only so far.

My note

Kept on this device, beside the recipe, for the next time you cook it.

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