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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Dear Chungah
Just made this ham bone soup for lunch and it is fantastic. I used fresh thyme, carrots and potatoes from our garden. The ham bone was cooked a little longer in a slow cooker and the sauteed vegetables and herbs were added to the pot for an hour. Perfect!
Thanks so much
Keith
Damn this is delicious! I never made anything like this before and it exceeded any expectations. I bought a ham steak and cubed that up and threw it in at the end since my ham bone wasn’t terribly meaty. Probably because i made the ham stock and then i reboiled the bone to make more for the soup. I made the stock the night before so i could skim off the fat. Thanks for the recipe!
-LL
Absolutely delicious! I just finished having this for dinner. It got the approval of the boys. 🙂
I thought I knew every soup out there and was racking my brain what I could make with left over ham. This was SO AWESOME!!! Even my 8 and 5 year old boys loved this soup! This is a keeper! I had already simmered the leftover bone/ham in my slow cooker and de-boned. Used chicken broth to boil the carrots and potato, then added the diced up ham, corn, and beans. This was perfect for our North Country rainy spring day! Thank you so much!
I’ve read all the comments, seen all the substitute beans, was hoping someone would say they tried chick peas. The only can in my pantry, other than peaches.
Yes, someone did mention they replaced the potatoes with Garbanzo beans.
Did you use fresh or dried thyme? If fresh, do you know how much dried you would use to get the same taste generally?
I used fresh thyme for this recipe. The ratio for fresh to dry is generally 3 to 1. Hope that helps.
I found your recipe because I had a leftover ham bone and remembered that when I was a kid my dad used to make a soup with ham and kidney beans that I loved. I added cabbage because I had some in the fridge, and a cup of barley. I omitted the corn. It was delicious. BTW, my dad first had this soup when he was a young man in Korea working with the US Army right after the war. He got to eat in the Army’s canteen and that was his introduction to American food. He came to the states knowing how to make several American dishes… most of which involved spam or ham 🙂
Started with your recipe but didn’t have carrots or beans, so used a few more potatoes (small reds), some baby bell peppers and mushrooms. I then saw the post on the angel hair pasta and remembered I had some roasted spaghetti squash left in fridge and added about 2 cups. Boy, did this soup hit the mark! Can’t wait for the next holiday ham.
I ran across this recipe via google since we just had a ham for Easter. I have pretty much kept with your recipe. It is simmering right now. Thanks for the inspiration and keep up the good work.
I had ankle surgery last week and am out of commission in the kitchen for the next month or so. Your soup was the first recipe I had my husband make me, and although he’s not too much of a cook, it turned out perfectly! Thank you for sharing!
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I suspect you will be getting a lot hits to this page after Easter. We had our dinner a week early and cooked this recipe (w/tomatoes & wo/beans). It was simple and plain, but it was very good. I hope I have some Italian Parsley to serve with this next time.
….And I thought you could only make pea soup with leftover ham bone! Will try this tonight and let you know how it turns out. Thank you for this wonderful sounding recipe!!
I just wanted to add a tip for those whose hams and Christmases occur in summer. I freeze my ham bone (as long as it hasn’t been hanging around in the fridge very long) until it’s cool enough for soup weather. You can then make and freeze your soup. It turned out great this year but I would love to have tried your recipe instead.
I am a greatgreat-grand mom, I make”bone soup” all winter long, my grand kids and great grands. Always want some. I never use recipes just through whatever in the pot,it always comes out wonderful? I do look at recipes just to get new ideas, then I go from there. )love this recipe, it sounds wonderful.
I tried this today and it was fantastic! It was comforting, complex and hearty. It made good use of a ham bone I had left over.
I saw an earlier comment about making this in a crockpot; this is how I prepared this and am very pleased with the results. I cooked the ham bone on high for two hours and then tossed in the remaining ingredients for an additional six hours. I used Great Northern rather than white kidney beans because that was what I had on hand. I was pleased with their smooth and buttery texture in this dish.
Served with skillet cornbread, this was an excellent dish for a cold, wintry night.
John, did you remove the ham bone after 2 hours? Did you just add everything else or did you sautée the veggies first?
This is exactly what I’m going to this evening. If you have a crockpot, use it!
It never fails to amaze me how people don’t know how useful bones are in the kitchen (and unfortunately it doesn’t help that the bones are often removed from the meat before selling.) Yes, the ham bone is excellent for soup. The carcass of a roast chicken can be stewed (I use a crockpot) to make a good base for soup, as well. I scour the meat departments for beef bones and I’ve read that many chefs save the bones from fish for stock. Bits and pieces left from chopping vegetables? Vegetable stock for vegetable soup. Waste not, WANT not.
Well, I had a boneless ham to use but no ham bone. I had some salt port in the freezer so I just lightly sautéed it for few minutes and add the same amount of water to the package of salt port and simmered it with an onion for about an hour. The soup was still absolutely delicious. I did add about a cup of milk thickened with heaping tablespoon of flour toward the end to thicken it up a little and make it more of a “white” soup. This was hardy and incorporated different flavor than we typically eat so was a nice change. I did add a little hot sauce and cumin toward the end and a dollop of sour cream on top. Thanks for delicious recipe!
Any idea how many calories, etc?
Unfortunately, as I am not a registered dietician, I am not comfortable sharing nutritional information of my recipes. Please use online resources to obtain such information.
I made this yesterday night, and the hubby really likes it! I sub pinto beans for the kidney beans since I had a ton of those. Everything else was the same.