Rosemary White Bean Soup with Veggies and Ham

I set out to make this a vegetarian dish for a work Fall Harvest Soup Potluck, but after finding I didn’t have enough veggie broth for it and used chicken broth instead, I said “what the heck” and added some ham chunks I had in the freezer. But feel free to sub veggie broth and omit the ham. I was gone again for four days from Friday through Monday, then had this soup potluck to prepare for after we drove four hours back from the coast. (No Big Fish, AGAIN! We did come back with more Dungeness crab for the freezer. MMMM.) I made this AFTER fixing a dinner of chicken tenders, baked potatoes and broccoli, so wasn’t exactly in the mood to dash out to the store to buy more veggie broth. But that’s OK. From the ingredients you can see that it’s easily adapted to a vegetarian meal. No gluten either! We had nine large pots of different soups show up at the potluck, plus a full salad bar for whatever you wanted with three different greens and all manners of veggies. Oh and real bacon bits. We do have our bacon lovers in the office, too. Full bellies, happy workers.

Rosemary White Bean Soup with Veggies and Ham

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup sliced baby carrots
1 cup sliced celery
1 cup chopped sweet onion
1 tablespoon minced garlic
Lots of black pepper, to taste
Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb, to taste
6 to 7 cups of chicken or veggie broth
3 or 4 cans of Canellinni beans (or any other white beans), drained and rinsed
1 can of diced petite tomatoes, drained
1 cup of diced ham, optional
1 tablespoon fresh minced rosemary
1 teaspoon fresh minced tarragon

In a large soup pot or dutch oven, sauté the carrots, celery, and onion over medium heat, about 10 minutes. Add the minced garlic and sauté another two minutes or so. Add black pepper and Mrs. Dash to taste. Pour in the broth, and bring to a simmer for about another half hour until the veggies are tender. Add all but one can of the white beans. Take the other can of rinsed and drained beans and add to a blender with about a cup of the broth and puree until smooth, then add to the soup. Now add the can of tomatoes. One interesting factoid I’ve learned in the past is that the acidic properties of tomatoes will hinder your veggies from getting “more tender” after adding the tomatoes, so wait until you are happy with the softness of them before adding. Next, add the ham if you want. Lastly, add your fresh minced herbs. Feel free to exchange for different fresh herbs, such as parsley, cilantro, thyme, etc. These are just the ones I had fresh, but I made sure the rosemary was the overriding herb of this soup. Feel free to add some salt to taste, but I really didn’t think it needed it with the ham, but you might want to if making this vegetarian. Bring back to a simmer for a bit now to let the herbs meld. I then transferred the soup to the crockpot then refrigerated overnight to heat up when I got to work. Soup’s On!

p.s. Just a photo note, I took the main photo BEFORE I added the rosemary. Only had the tarragon in at that point. I added the rosemary the next day, as it was a true Duh moment for me. I was tired and cranky, lol. But the rosemary shined through in the end.