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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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!
Ok. Hilarious to use Kosher salt in hambone soup.
What’s “hilarious” about it? Kosher salt is a name, the product itself isn’t usually “kosher” in the Jewish sense (although it is possible for there to be kosher kosher salt). There’s no irony in using kosher salt in a recipe containing pork.
Loved it. Made a couple of changes – used acorn squash instead of potatoes, used garbanzos (chick peas) instead of kidney beans and added leftover green beans (w/ bacon).
Hi Chungha , Your soup looks very good. I always make soup from ham bones and will be making it from my turkey carcass again to. I love making soups, I find it very relaxing and satisfying. I make Potatoes, Clam Chowder, Veg Beef, Beef n’ barley, Italian sausage, kale and white bean, lemon rice, wonton soup, ….love making soup….so healthy and cleans out the fridge to..lol. Happy New Year everyone.
Would this taste OK using the hambone from a honeybaked ham?
Yes, absolutely!
That is a fantastic way to use leftover ham. Nice work (:
Looks so yummy and healthy. Thanks for sharing. Happy New Year!
This soup looks so good. I just made some stock from my ham bone and I’m going to make the soup tomorrow. What do you think about substituting butternut squash for the potato? Would it completely change the taste?
Not at all!
I made this last night and it was very good. First of all, to answer Gina’s question, you can use a pressure cooker. I used a 6 quart pressure cooker and a large very meaty ham bone. I added water to cover the bone and cooked it for an hour. I opened it up and added the veggies and then cooked for 45 more minutes. I used two cans of Great Northern white beans in lieu of a potato. I left out the corn. I did not add any additional ham since mine had so much meat on it which just fell off the bone. I used a gravy separator to reduce the amount of fat in the broth. The outcome was all that I hoped for. Served it with home made corn bread and it made for a great dinner! I recommend this recipe with or without the minor variations mentioned.
Do I use all the water I cooked the hambone in as the stock?
Yes, absolutely.
The first time I made this, I forgot the corn. It was so incredibly good that I haven’t had the heart to add the corn on the 2 more times I’ve made it since then. My children are bean haters so they of course were not fans but picky-ness is frowned upon in our home so they ate it anyway(someday their taste buds will grow up and they’ll thank me for all the times I made them “enjoy” beans). But my mama, with a palate so picky it makes me cuh-RAZY!! absolutely LOVES this and so do my husband & I!
PS- I found out my daughter had ham on her menu and I begged her for the bone JUST so I could make this soup again. Shameless I know but it’s that good!
Hello! Excited and anxious to try your recipe! Quick question, my ham stock ended up not yielding what I think will be enough liquid when I boiled it last night. As I am throwing it together today, can you recommend what I should add if I need to increase the liquid? Thank you for your help!
You can add more water as needed.
We made this last week and served with buttermilk biscuits and it was so so so good. My husband had three bowls! It was amazing! Curious if it would be as good as a creamy soup? Have you tried?
Hey Lindsey – are you maybe referring to a different recipe than this one here?
The only thing I would add to the instructions is to chill the broth and skim the fat. We had SO much fat in our ham and I’m glad we didn’t end up eating it. Make it a longer process, but worth it I think.
This was AMAZING!!!! I made corn bread muffins and crumbled one up in the soup and it was REDICULOUSLY delicious!!!!
Thanks everyone. Gonna try but I’m gonna add a bit of sauerkraut as well typo earlier
Great recipe! Tweaked what I had to because of what was available in my pantry but will definitely make this my go to over split pea soup
I have frozen butter-beans and corn from the garden (blanched), what are your thoughts on that substitution? Anyone used butterbeans or lima beans in it??
That sounds like a great idea! Yum!
Made this with black beans instead of white beans because that’s what we had in the pantry. Served it with corn bread and it was delicious! Great recipe, very easy.
How much stock do you put in? My family and I are a fan of every recipe we’ve tried from you, can’t wait for this!
Alissa, you want to add enough water to cover the bone halfway, about 6-7 cups.