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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How much of the ham broth do you use for the souo?
I made this exactly as written, but used more water to make more broth, and used Great Northern beans since I’ve never heard of white kidney beans. It is so good! What a simple, comforting soup.
I make this as a standard after every ham I bake now! The kids literally get so excited because after the holiday ham comes the soup! It really is damn delicious Thanks for creating a family fave that is now family tradition in our home
Awesome soup. I added smoked sausage and celery. Enjoyed by all. Will make again
Do you think this soup could be made with leftover prime rib?
I’ve made this several times & every time it was a hit! My family loves it!
May this four or five times now it is absolutely delicious we look forward to it as much as we do the ham every time we get a ham my wife loves it
Wonderful recipe. Thank you!!
I just made this. It’s absolutely delicious!!! I followed the instructions accept I didn’t use thyme or bay leaves (didn’t have them). It’s an outstanding recipe and doesn’t take long. You can make the ham stock as you’re cutting the vegetables. Oh, another thing I did differently…instead of adding the ham stock to the vegetables, I removed the ham bone from the stock, scooped out any lose ham from the stock, then added the vegetables (I was already cooking in another pot) to the stock. It worked out perfect!
The soup was extremely good, I added crushed red pepper. I like a previous review of adding celery . Also added Creole seasoning to the already delicious broth from the ham bone. I just need to remember to saved more ham for the future batches .
Definitely a keep of a recipe and my wife and teenager loved it , especially with a fresh load of country bread from Costco!
This was delicious! Even my young children gobbled it up.
After reading other reviews, I did put the hambone in the crockpot all day with an onion and stalk of celery.
Added celery to the chopped veggie as well.
Only thing I would do different next time is increase all amounts some to make a bigger batch.
Thank you for the delicious recipe!
Am I missing something? I boiled my ham bone in water per the directions for over an hour and followed the directions. My soup broth was so bland! To “fix” it i added chicken bouillon, mustard powder, lots of salt and pepper. I took an additional cup of the beans and used the stick mixer to macerate them with some of the broth and I added that to the soup. I had leftover spinach, so I added that too. Oh, and the bag of corn i bought was 12 oz, so I used the whole thing.
The soup is delicious, but i definitely altered the recipe!
Great! After reading reviews, I used a 6 qt. slow cooker. I added BTB (Better Than Bouillon) Chicken to the water for cooking the bone, plus celery and onion. I cooked it about 12 hours on High. I cooked the veggies in bacon grease for about 10 min. Used 2 1/2 carrots, 2 large cloves garlic, and 2 potatoes, plus 1 can Garbanzo beans and 1 can Great Northern. Added sl. over 1 c corn, 1/4 rounded tsp. thyme leaves (dried), and 1/4 rounded tsp. dry mustard, and pepper and salt. Broth was almost tasteless – I needed to add over 1 TBS BTB to make it pretty good. Yield was 6 dinner servings. I cooked it at least another 4 hours in slow cooker in stage 2. Excellent soup and recipe. Thanks.
Why dried mustard? What does it do for the taste?
Fabulous recipe!! So delicious!
Oh my, this is absolutely delicious. Best I’ve ever tried.
Delicious!! I didn’t have fresh thyme so I substituted dried and added it with the veggies. Worked great. Husband loves it too!
Thank you for sharing this lovely recipe. It was quick and easy to make with excellent results. I used the ham bone from Easter’s dinner. The soup was delicious; light, comforting and very satisfying. Made as written wouldn’t change a thing. My husband called dibs on the last bowl. I can’t wait to make this again.
I’m not even normally a fan of soup but this was absolutely delicious! I feel so satisfied. My toddler also loved it, and she is the pickiest person alive. I can’t believe I found something besides french fries and chicken nuggets that she will eat!
Yummy. Great light soup to follow-up a huge dinner yesterday.
This is a delicious easy to make soup I had never done it before and a year or two ago when we had leftover hambone I was sitting around and my wife was out I tried this and we loved it and now whenever we have a bone-in ham we have bone delicious bone soup