Easter is just around the corner. And because it’s our family tradition, I will cook a ham for Easter dinner. After dinner, I’ll slice the ham into sandwich-size portions and freeze them for my boys’ lunches. (They love ham sandwiches.) And I’ll use the hambone the next day to make hambone soup with beans in the slow cooker.
Bone broth is enjoying a resurgence in popularity with the Paleo diet. Called “the staple of a gut-healing diet,” bone broth can be made with any bones: chicken, pork, beef or fish. Bone broth of any kind is rich in the amino acids proline and glycine, nutrients that are critical to joint health.
This recipe features a hambone and adds chicken broth, vegetables and beans. The end result is a soup with a bone broth base, and it is both delicious and nutritious.
Slow cooker hambone soup with beans
Total time
- 1 pound dry navy beans
- 3 carrots, peeled and diced
- 2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
- 2 stalks celery, diced
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 hambone with about 2 cups of meat on the bone
- 2 bay leaves
- Sea salt, to taste
- Pepper, to taste
- Chicken broth (enough to cover all the ingredients in the slow cooker)
- Rinse and sort the beans, discarding any bad ones. Cover with water and soak the beans overnight.
- Drain the beans and rinse. Put them in a large slow cooker.
- Add carrots, potatoes, celery, onion, hambone, bay leaves, sea salt and pepper. Pour in enough chicken broth to cover all the ingredients.
- Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours.
- Remove the hambone from the broth and cut the meat off the bone. Dice the meat and return it to the soup, stirring to mix. Discard the bone, fat and connective tissue.
- Cook on low for another hour or two. The longer the soup cooks, the more flavorful it becomes.
- Once soup is done, you can skim or mop the excess fat off the surface of the soup to make it healthier. Or you can even refrigerate it until the fat congeals and then discard the congealed fat and reheat the soup.
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