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?
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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
Really cold yesterday and I wanted a hearty soup for the evening. This was really easy to assemble and cook. My daughter and son in law said it was delicious after coming home from the gym in the evening.
I used 2 smoked pork chops, canned corn, and Mexican oregano because that’s what I had in the house. Definitely making this again.
So Yummy! I love the different textures and that it has a hint of sweetness from the corn to balance out the savory ham. Like a warm hug for the soul! Everyone in my family (even the picky ones) approves. I add a package of diced ham since I typically only have a bone leftover but basically follow the recipe as written other than all dried seasonings.
Excellent with a little doctoring. I didn’t drain the beans and used 2 cans of great northern and/or cannellini the second time I made it and it was better. Used more ham and 1 cup + of corn and liberal salt and pepper. I also added 1/4-1/2 tsp of dry mustard.
Really good, easy and quick recipe to use up that bone and leftover ham!
My son asked me to make soup with his leftover ham with bone. I found your recipe for leftover hambone soup. Made it according to your directions. His wife says, “BEST SOUP EVER” and I make a lot of soups. Thank you kindly for the recipe.
Awesome! Froze our hambone from Christmas. I ended up needing more liquid so added a qt of chicken stock to the ham bone stock. Also had to Texan it up a little- added a chopped poblano and serrano at the time the onion was added. Threw in a can of fire roasted tomatoes b/c it started looking like tortilla soup. Will be trying your other stuff
Soooo satisfying!! Did a little tweaking from other reviews, my personality of experimenting and of course NEVER having all of the proper ingredients . A just healthy enough, warm your soul, comfort food that I needed today and most definitely again. And I have no doubt the leftovers will be even better! A KEEPER!
It sound wonderful and I’m looking forward to making it as I made a ham today for Sunday dinner. I just wish you had included nutrition information. Thanks.
Yum. Single widow guy says thanks.
Quick easy and very tasty. Well done
This came out amazing. I made a few tweaks because I avoid regular potatoes because of my stomach. I subbed fresh diced butternut squash, about a cup give or take for the potatoes, and food processed about two cups of veggies and broth before adding in the diced ham and corn. It took me a little longer, but I had the time. It was so creamy and delightfully fulling. Thank you for an easy delicious recipe!