hearty ham, bean & veggie soup

This throw-together rustic hearty ham, bean & veggie soup will warm the coldest of chills & is perfect for using that leftover ham you might have lurking in your fridge or freezer from the holidays. Packed with veggies & creamy great northern beans, take the soup for work-day lunches or make a pot of it for a lazy Sunday dinner, served of course of warm, crusty bread. 

It’s been snowing here all day so this is just the ticket to warm us up & more importantly – I won’t have to cook because I made a big pot of it the other day to freeze. Clever me!

Requiring no special equipment or any sort of culinary prowess, this soup is ridiculously easy to make barring some veggie chopping. 

And what is so wonderfully surprising, is the flavor the soup has considering it contains quite humble ingredients, but it is slightly sweet, smoky & incredibly tasty. It’s moved to number one on my favorite-soups-of-the-season list. 

I opted for the convenience of canned beans, they’re nutritious & because they’re already cooked, require only a quick reheating. 

As with almost all soups, this can be frozen & reheated for a brown bag lunch or when you just don’t feel like cooking. Like me tonight. Now if only I’d got around to making my own bread today as planned. We’ll just have to settle for some buttered toast or maybe I can convince my hubby to make grilled cheese sandwiches like he did last time we ate this. Toodles, Lovoni xo

Oh, PS. I forgot to add, the better the chicken broth, the better the soup, although the stuff in the tetra pack will do in a pinch but I use my own. Here is a link to a recipe for chicken broth in the slow cooker. 

hearty ham, bean & veggie soup

2018-01-03 08:36:08

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Ingredients

1. 1 ham bone, preferably with some ham still on it
2. 1 1/2 cup chopped ham (give or take amounts)
3. 1 large onion, diced
4. 6 garlic cloves, minced
5. 4 carrots, diced
6. 4 parsnips, diced
7. 6 cups (1 1/2 liters) chicken broth
8. 14 oz (398ml) can whole peeled tomatoes, coarsely chopped
9. 2 x 15.5 oz (439g) cans white beans (such as northern beans), rinsed & drained
10. pinch of pepper
11. 4 generous handfuls of baby spinach leaves
12. 1/3 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley

Instructions

1. Place ham bone, chopped ham, onion, garlic, carrot, parsnip, broth & tomatoes, with their juice, in a pot such as a Dutch oven. Cover & bring to a boil then reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer, covered, for 1 hour.
2. Carefully remove ham bone from the soup to a chopping board. Cut ham from bone, chop & add to pot; discard bone.
3. Add beans & a very generous pinch of pepper – I use a good heaping teaspoon or two. Cover & cook for 15 minutes for the beans to get hot.
4. Add spinach & parsley & stir until spinach is just wilted. Ladle soup into warm bowls & sprinkle with parmesan cheese, if desired.

By Lovoni

Fresh Hunger https://freshhunger.com/