Slow Cooker Ham and Bean Soup is the perfect recipe after your holiday ham when you want a cozy warm soup to help you recover from holiday cooking!
This post is the second slow cooker ham soup recipe on the blog. The most popular one (by far) is the Slow Cooker Ham and Potato Soup which has almost 500,000 re-pins on Pinterest! This one uses the leftover ham bone from our Smithfield Spiral Ham (who also generously sponsored this post).
For Thanksgiving each year we make a classic turkey and a spiral sliced ham to serve the large crowd of people. I can’t help it, when I see the holiday table it needs to be overflowing with food and with multiple proteins we are already off to a great start.
You technically don’t have to take that step, but with slow cookers any time you can brown the meat before hand, the more depth of flavor you’ll have in your final dish.
Looking for more slow cooker soups?
- Slow Cooker Ham and Potato Soup
- Slow Cooker Chicken and Rice Soup
- Slow Cooker Broccoli Cheddar Cheese Soup
- Slow Cooker Stuffed Pepper Soup
- Slow Cooker Creamy Minestrone Soup
Tools Used in the making of this Slow Cooker Ham and Potato Soup:
Slow Cooker: Love this slow cooker and how programmable it is, it has been a workhorse for me… until…
My New Slow Cooker: This recipe was made in this slow cooker. For larger roasts I also brown the meat in the insert and not lose a bunch of the flavor by transferring the meat and leaving the browned bits behind. If you’re thinking of a new slow cooker, consider it if your budget is open.
Better Than Bouillon: I almost never buy boxes of broth because I keep the beef, chicken and vegetable version of this Better Than Bouillon.
Spice Rack – I buy spices in bulk and it’s less expensive and significantly higher quality than buying the jars individually but I ended up being left with tons of little bags of spices. Enter the spice rack.
Slow Cooker Ham and Bean Soup (White Beans)
Ingredients
- 1 spiral sliced ham, the leftover bone and 3 cups of diced ham
- 4 cloves garlic , minced
- 1 yellow onion , diced
- 1 1/2 cups carrots , diced
- 1 cup celery , diced
- 3 cans white cannelini beans , drained and rinsed (15 ounce cans)
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
- 2 bay leaves
- 4 cups vegetable stock
- 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- chopped parsley , for garnish
Instructions
In a pot or if your slow cooker like mine has an insert you can brown in, brown the ham bone on high until the sides are caramelized (3-4 minutes on each side).
- Add the bone, chopped ham, garlic, onion, carrots, celery, cannelini beans, thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, vegetable stock, salt and pepper to the slow cooker.
Cook on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 3-4 hours.
- Remove the ham bone and discard.
- Serve with parsley, optional as a garnish
If I were using dried white beans how much soaked overnight?
You’ll need to soak about 1 1/2 heaping cups of dried beans to equal 3 cans of beans.
I just finished making this recipe and it’s very flavorful! I used chicken stock and served with corn bread muffins. Definitely recommend!
Fantastic recipe, made several times. Requires about double the broth recommended above (if made as directed, it is almost more like a stew). I’ve used both chicken broth and vegetable stock, either work well. Usually also add chicken bouillon, onion powder, garlic powder to deepen flavor (probably because I’m adding so much addl broth).
Finally found the best recipe for our left-over spiral ham bone! My wife raved over the flavor. By far the best ham and bean soup we’ve ever made. Followed the recipe to the T!! Thank you for sharing this. It has been saved to my favorites!
I’m so glad you both loved it so much!
Hola, perdon el jamón es un chamorro de cerdo? o de que pieza y que cantidad, gracias
el jamón es cerdo de una pierna cortada
This was the best soup! We added a ham hock as we did not have a ham bone. And we also used chicken stock instead of vegetable. We used our own dried rosemary and thyme. What flavor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much.
You’re welcome, Christine!
Easy, loved the cannellini beans, I would try it again but without or less thyme. It overpowered the soup. Mine doesn’t have any ham taste because of it.
This was a fantastic recipe! For a little added body, we added some berbere (a wonderful Ethiopian spice) and a pinch of cinnamon.
Sounds delicious, Brenda!
Making this today ! Could I use coconut milk instead of creme or regular milk ?
Thanks
I wish I could tell you but I haven’t tested it. My gut says yes?
Made this with a coleslaw salad and sweet cornbread on the side. Nothing says “home cookin” like this ham and bean soup. Delicious.
Now I’m hungry!!
This was really good.