Leftover Hambone Soup
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Use up your leftover hambone to make this cozy, hearty soup loaded with tons of veggies and chunks of sweet ham!
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Why You’ll Love This HamBone Soup Recipe
- 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 for the Best Leftover HamBone Soup
- Use a leftover ham bone from Christmas or Easter dinner. Simmering the hambone in a Dutch oven extracts collagen and creates a flavorful ham stock that makes this soup rich and hearty. It’s the secret to the best hambone soup recipe.
- 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.
Best Sides to Serve with HamBone Soup
Tools For This Recipe
Dutch oven
Leftover Hambone Soup: Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, you can absolutely make ham soup without the hambone. It won’t be quite as rich, but it will still be a great way to use up leftover 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.
Absolutely! We have a recipe for that here.
Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days.
Yes! Leftover hambone soup can be kept in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Leftover Hambone Soup
Video
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.
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @damn_delicious on Instagram and hashtag it #damndelicious!
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.
Thank you for this recipe. I made it today with our Christmas ham and it was so, so good! easy, too!
How many servings does it make?
The amount of servings is listed in the recipe.
I used left over mashed potatoes.
We have soup once a week and my husband said this is top 5! Pleasant surprise !
This was SO good- thanks for the recipe! I found the broth a bit bland at the end, so I added some chicken Better Than Boullion and that zipped it up.
what temperature you put it on for severl hours? 325???
Natacha, this was set on the stovetop so there is no set temperature.
@chungah how do you prepare your whole ham the day before? I’d love to see the recipe.. Unless it’s already here somewhere and I’m just missing it lol
Jill, here is my recipe using a slow cooker.
Thanks for this – great recipe!!
U followed recipe
I changed to white navy beans
Added cabbage maybe 1/3 head
And a pinch of crushed red pepper
Turned out awesome