Leftover Hambone Soup
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You can use up your leftover hambone to make this cozy, hearty soup loaded with tons of veggies and chunks of sweet ham!
Featured Comment
reasons to make hambone soup
- Repurposes leftover holiday hambone
- Makes for an amazing, flavorful ham stock
- Warm, cozy, hearty, hug-in-a-bowl vibes
- Great clean-out-the-fridge meal, adding in leftover vegetables and extra herbs
tips and tricks for success
- Use a hambone. Not only can you repurpose a leftover hambone, but the hambone will add such luscious flavor, richness and body to the soup.
- Add pasta. Add ditalini, macaroni or a small shape pasta for a heartier soup.
- Add in leafy greens. This is a great recipe to sneak in leafy greens for those picky eaters. Spinach, kale, collard greens, swiss chard, or arugula are all great options.
- Serve with crusty bread. Serve with all the homemade crusty bread for dipping, sopping and dunking!
- Freeze as needed. Hambone soup is a great recipe to freeze, perfect for a quick, cozy weeknight meal in the coming weeks. Always use airtight, resealable freezer bags, label, date and freeze up to 3 months.
what to serve with hambone soup
Tools For This Recipe
Dutch oven
Leftover Hambone Soup: Frequently Asked Questions
This can certainly be made without the hambone. It may not have the exact same flavors or richness than using the bone, but it will still be a great way to use up all that leftover holiday ham.
Absolutely! But because dried herbs are often more potent/concentrated than fresh herbs, you need less when using dry. The correct ratio is 1 tablespoon fresh herbs to 1 teaspoon dried herbs.
Yes! This is a great IP version for an even quicker time stamp.
Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days.
Yes! You can freeze the leftovers in individual freezer bags, thaw overnight, and reheat on the stovetop.
Leftover Hambone Soup
Ingredients
- 1 leftover hambone
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 carrots, peeled and diced
- 1 russet potato, peeled and diced
- 1 cup canned white kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- ¾ cup frozen corn kernels
- ¾ teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
- 2 bay leaves
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 ½ cups leftover diced ham
Equipment
Instructions
- Place leftover hambone in a large stockpot or Dutch oven and add enough water to cover the bone halfway, about 6-7 cups. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until very fragrant, about 30 minutes to 1 hour; set aside ham stock and discard hambone.
- Heat olive oil in the large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add garlic, onion, carrots and potato. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions have become translucent, about 2-3 minutes.
- Stir in ham stock, beans, corn, thyme and bay leaves; season with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are tender, about 10-12 minutes. Stir in ham until heated through, about 1-2 minutes.
- Serve immediately.
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Any idea how to fix overly sweet soup? I used a honey baked ham bone and although the hubs enjoyed dinner immensely, it’s a bit sweet for me
I know exactly what you mean, Jette! It really depends on the type of ham you use so a honey baked ham would definitely yield a more sweet taste than a standard ham without that much sweet seasonings on it, if that makes sense! 🙂
Put in a couple splashes of garlic vinegar to reduce the sweetness, and it also brings out the flavors.
I substituted great northern beans for the kidney beans and added a cup of frozen peas,…so delicious!
Awesome, great substitutions.
Great recipe! My whole family loved it, including my 2 picky toddlers Thanks for sharing!
You’re so welcome! Thanks Amanda.
Love the soup idea as I have TOO MUCH leftover ham.
I cook for a group that has certain dietary restrictions. One person has a carrot allergy; another can’t do corn.
Any suggestions for substitutes? I was thinking either sweet potato/butternut squash and green beans.
That sounds amazing!
Can this be made in a crock pot/slow cooker? I’d prefer a one-stop shop.
Unfortunately, without further recipe testing, I cannot answer with certainty. As always, please use your best judgment regarding substitutions and modifications.
Hi! Do you think this could go in the crockpot?
Yes, of course.
I loves this ham bone soup and added more veggies and just a few potatoes. Down side-both my husband and I were EXTREMELY hungry two hours later! Never felt that way before and was surprised he felt the same way.
Does the ham bone have to come from a baked Ham? I have a ham that isn’t cooked yet and I was just going to cut off slices of it for lunch meat and was going to use the leftover and the bone for soup. I was wondering if it would be more flavorful after baking or if it would be the same just throwing it into the water as it is? Any ideas? Thank you.
A baked ham would be ideal but I haven’t tried this with an uncooked ham bone so I can’t say with certainty – sorry!
This soup has been a post-Christmas staple since I started making ham for Christmas dinner in 2013. I just made it again today for the 5th year running. We don’t eat a lot of ham outside of the holiday, but I look forward to this soup every year in early January, and I usually make enough so that we can freeze a batch for sometime in Feb or March, too. It’s 9 degrees here in Ohio with negative temps predicted for tomorrow. I made a large pot of the soup so we will have it tonight and tomorrow, at least, then one more time later this winter. I have always made the recipe as written and it is just outstanding. I follow your blog and Pinterest page and have made many of your recipes – never made one I didn’t enjoy, but this one is among my top 3!! Thank you!
Would this be good with black eyed peas?
Yes, absolutely!
Used my leftover ham bone [ham tasted great] and followed recipe exactly . It was very bland. what did I do wrong. Have tried some of your other recipes Great!
It’s hard to say – did you season the soup?
I have making this soup for years! It is one if my favorites. I used to throw away hambones…gasp… because I they were only good for mushy split pea soup. Thank you.
I have ham but no ham bone. Any suggestions on how to make this without the ham bone?
Unfortunately, without further recipe testing, I cannot answer with certainty. As always, please use your best judgment regarding substitutions and modifications.
Another good used of a leftover ham is dumplings. My family like the ham dumplings better than chicken dumplings. I will definitely making this soup!
Great soup. Traded out the kidney beans for navy beans and the corn with ditalini pasta. Because of the pasta addition I added more water when making the stock. Came out great. This soup is very easily adaptable to varied tastes.
Hi, I am making the ham stock ahead of time so I can chill it and remove the excess fat, I want to triple this recipe, to do the ham stock broth would I just add the triple amount of water (18-21 cups) or would you recommend me just doing the 6-7 cups of water and then adding more later on?
Also do you think I could triple the recipe with just one ham bone?
Unfortunately, without further recipe testing, I cannot answer with certainty. As always, please use your best judgment regarding substitutions and modifications.
18 -21 cups of water vs. 6 -7. I would think that would water down you’re broth a bit, 12-14 cups is a lot. Adding that much more water to kool-aid or sun tea would be a huge difference without more teabags or surgar and flavor pack.
But it may not depending on the size of the bone, maybe stopping by the local butcher or grocery store butcher, he may have one…just a thought.
I love cooking at home and finding delicious recipes I can make for my son. My grandma always use to make soups and I am know addicted to making them too! This recipe was really simple but the flavors came together nicely. I followed it to the T, except for the white kidney beans(I used navy beans) and found it to be delightful. I also toasted torn pieces bread with a little olive oil to add as a topping for a little texture. Great recipe to add to the pile-Thanks
I made this today. I found it to be delicious but a tad too sweet from the ham. I used a leftover Honeybaked ham bone. I did add zucchini (needed to see some green and little chopped red bell pepper. It’s very good!
this was damn delicious! i actually said that while telling my sister about the recipe! i didn’t have the
beans, and was still great!
This came out awesome! The only thing I did differently was add peas and about 1 tsp or so ground cloves. The salt from the ham was plenty, it needed no additional salt. Thanks for the great recipe.
This is a wonderful soup! It has become our New Year’s Day soup, using the leftover ham bone from Christmas dinner. Every year since then, our extended family comments on how much they look forward to it and how good it is! This year, going off of some other reviews, I’m trying out slow cooking the ham bone for 18 hours to get a good bone broth. It took 8.5 cups of liquid (including 2.5 c. low sodium veggie broth and the rest was filtered water) to cover the ham bone completely. I added onion powder, garlic powder, pepper, dried rosemary and thyme and set it to low. As for veggies, I plan to follow the recipe with the exception of carrots; I’ll probably add peas instead. Also, I’ll add some extra garlic and onion, and gold potatoes instead of russet. I plan on taste testing before adding any salt to make sure it isn’t too salty. Of course, we still have some leftover pineapple brown sugar glazed ham we will add to it near the end. Hoping this version turns out just as good as the prior years! Happy New Year to All!