Soup Recipes – Ham soup that’s easy, simple and delicious

Ham soup from Thanksgiving holiday leftovers is a great way to use that delicious bone in ham. Add your favorite vegetables and dinner is served.

In making your leftover ham soup, the first step is to make your soup broth from the leftover ham bone and get the flavors from the ham bone and the meat still attached. If you don’t have much of the ham meat on the bone or leftover ham meat, you can still use the bone to make the broth. You can add another type of meat after you make the soup broth.

Pork belly or bacon meat works great in this recipe, it’s the fat flavor from the ham bone and the bacon that adds to this dish. The easiest method to do this; is to use your deep stew pot and saute some onions and garlic in olive oil along with the bacon or pork belly.

Put your ham bone into the pot and fill the pot with either water or stock, enough to cover the ham bone. Let the ham bone cook for about 45 minutes. You know your soup stock is ready when the ham meat falls off the bone; remove the ham bone from the pot . Now you can start adding in your vegetables; carrots, celery, potatoes and beans into the ham stock and let every simmer.

Cooking Tips

• If you add your vegetables into the beginning soup stock, they will get soft and dissolve into the stock. It won’t make a difference in the finished taste, but you do want bite size vegetables in your finished soup.
• Another tip, if you want a creamy broth, you can add a can of cream of mushroom soup to the broth. Or you can add milk or cream into the ham broth before you add the vegetables.
• You can also add different meats to the ham soup. Just be sure brown the meat first and set it aside until you are ready to add it into the finished broth soup liquid.

Ingredients:

• One 16 oz. can Great Northern white beans
• ¼ lb. Pork belly- chopped rough
• 1 Onion – chopped
• 2-3 Garlic cloves – chopped
• 3-4 Carrots – chopped
• 3-4 Celery stalks – chopped
• 3-4 Potatoes – chopped
• 1 tsp. of each – parsley, thyme, rosemary
• 2 bay leaves

Preparation:

In a stew pot, cover the bottom with olive oil, put in the garlic and onions and let them soften. Add in your ham bone and cover the bone with water or stock. Add in the herbs parsley, thyme, rosemary and bay leaf, salt and pepper. Let this mixture come to a boil and cook for about 45 minutes. The meat should fall off the bone and you can remove the bone from the liquid.

Next add in the vegetables and beans into the ham soup broth and let it cook until the vegetables are tender.

Serve:

This is a hearty dish so you don’t need much more than a bowl and a spoon.

Enjoy!