Crock Pot Creamy Navy Bean and Ham Soup

Crock Pot Creamy Navy Bean and Ham Soup

We are in the stages of meltdown after a long, cold, and snowy week. Nothing on the scale of the Great Lake Effect snowstorm in New York, but we had enough snow, ice, and snow, thank you very much. What better way to soothe your cold bones than a nice, big bowl of creamy navy bean soup?

I’ve made huge batches of this soup before using a large ham bone, but this version is scaled down. To lend to the creamy factor, I roughly chopped all the veggies in my Ninja food processor. If you have good memory, I used to have a gray one. I now own a red one because the “dishwasher safe” base on my gray one warped from being washed on the bottom rack of the dishwasher, apparently too close to the heating element. I now hand wash my Ninja. I recommend the same if you own one.

I used homemade ham broth for this recipe, as my husband cooked up a large batch of it before our transition to our temporary home. If you don’t have any ham broth, low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth will work just as well, although you may have to taste for the addition of salt.

Crock Pot Creamy Navy Bean and Ham Soup

1 pound dried navy beans
1/2 medium onion
6-8 baby carrots
2 stalks celery
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
Ground black pepper, to taste
Salt to taste, if needed
4 to 5 cups ham broth
1 to 2 cups diced cooked ham
About 1 cup diced tomatoes

Rinse and sort the dried navy beans, then soak overnight in a pot covered an inch over with water.  The next day, reserve 4 cups of the soaked navy beans, and freeze the rest of the beans in a resealable freezer bag for future use. Add the beans to a 3-quart crock pot.

Soaked Beans with the Holy Trinity2

Add the onion, carrots and celery to a food processor, and pulse several times until roughly chopped. (I had to do this in batches.) Scrape the veggies into the crock pot, then add the garlic, seasonings, ham broth, and ham. Cook on low 8 to 10 hours or on high 4 to 5 hours.

Assembled Soup Ready to Cook

About an hour before serving, remove about two cups of the beans and vegetables and puree until smooth in a food processor or blender, then return to the crock pot.

Pureed Soup in my RED Ninja!

Now add the diced tomatoes and cook for the last hour until ready to serve. (I almost forgot this step and took my final photo before adding the tomatoes! I thawed, peeled and chopped some of my tomatoes from the freezer.) Mmmm, mmm, good!

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

Easy Peasy Split Pea Soup with Ham Bone in the Crock Pot

Split Pea Soup with Ham Bone

There was a ham bone with lots of meat on it leftover from New Year’s day dinner screaming at me from the freezer this past weekend, telling me to make something with it before it got freezer burnt and useless like the last one I saved. So I one-track-minded it over to the grocery store and zipped straight over to the bulk bin section to buy dried split peas before I forgot to buy them. I have seriously gone to the store with a written list before and have forgotten the ONE ITEM I really went to the store to buy. I mean, really.

OK, and I confess. I didn’t zip straight over to the peas. I had to go through the produce section to get to the bulk aisle, and grabbed more carrots in case I needed them (I didn’t) and somehow the wonton wrappers caught my eye and it reminded me of another soup I wanted to make, so grabbed those too. And just below the wonton wrappers were the fresh ginger pieces. I was pretty sure the other soup had ginger in it, so picked up a chunk of that too. Then I remembered it called for cabbage. I had to backtrack for that. The cabbages in stock were the size of basketballs! I grabbed one anyways and could barely stuff it into the plastic veggie bag. On my way out of produce, my eye then caught the pre-shredded cole slaw packages. Cheap too. OK, forget the basketball. I backtracked again to put it back to let some other soul wrastle with the beastie. NOW I was on my way to the split peas. I did get them, I really did. Oooh, and I bought fresh parsley too!  I don’t do that often, I usually use the dried flakes.  But it was cheap too. Now I have enough to decorate plates for weeks to come, if it doesn’t turn into a soggy green mush pile in the bottom of my veggie drawer.

On to the recipe. I have made this throughout the years and just wing it, like most things I’ve done that I’ve made for years. A ham bone in the freezer + one pound of split peas + carrots, celery, and onion + chicken broth + seasonings = Split Pea Soup. Easy Peasy, right?

Split Pea Soup with Ham

1 pound dried split peas, rinsed
1 cup carrots, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped,
1 cup onions, chopped
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/8 teaspoon dried crushed thyme
2 bay leaves
Mrs. Dash Seasoning, any kind, or salt to taste
Lots of ground black pepper
1 ham bone with plenty of meat attached, frozen or not
8 to 10 cups of chicken or turkey broth, homemade preferably, or low salt

Chop up all those purdy veggies and parsley first and throw them in the crock pot with the split peas. They make a pretty picture that’s for sure, don’t they?

Split Pea Soup Veggies and Parsley

Next, add all the seasonings, then the ham bone. You really don’t have to defrost it if it’s frozen because it cooks so long. I had a large Tupperware container of turkey broth that measured just at 7 1/2 cups that I had made from my leftover turkey carcass from Thanksgiving in the freezer. You can use chicken broth too, of course. I defrosted that then poured it into the crock pot.  (Oh you will need a 5 to 6 quart crock pot for this.) You want enough broth to cover the ham hock and I was about a half-inch shy, so I just added just enough water to cover so you can do that too, if needed. There’s plenty of tastiness in this dish to not make a difference.  Now is the easy-peasy part. Put the crock pot on low, then fuhgedaboutit for 8 to 10 hours. We left the house later in the day to watch NFL football playoffs at a sports bar, and no, the house did not burn down and we came home to a wonderful aroma of dinner just waiting for us! After 8 or so hours or if you can’t wait to dive into this soup, scoop out about four or five cups of it (oh gosh don’t forget to remove the bay leaves first) and blend it in a blender or food processor until smooth, then return it to the pot. Next, remove the ham bone (the meat will be literally falling off it), shred the meat and discard the bone and any fatty pieces, then return the ham to the pot. Now you can serve in a bowl. Don’t forget to chrunchle (my new fave word) saltine crackers into the soup. That makes it really thick and yummy all over. OH, and hah! When I checked out of the grocery store on that same trip, I had picked up some unsalted Saltine crackers for this too (AFTER getting the split peas, thank you) and the checker picked them up and said, “Really? How can you call a Saltine a Saltine with no salt?” Well that gave me chuckle for the day, I hope it did for you too.

Lentil, Barley, and Ham Bone Soup

Lentil, Barley, and Ham Bone Soup

Yes, I do make a LOT of soup in the fall. It’s such a comfort food to me. I was going through my pantry and came across some red and brown lentils I forgot I had, as well as some pearl barley. I instantly knew I’d be making soup out of them. I then rummaged through the freezer and came across beef rib bones to make beef broth, and I discovered my husband had frozen the ham hock from our last ham. Bingo. Lentil, Barley and Ham Bone Soup. Unfortunately I was all out of homemade broth of any kind, and beef broth takes all day to make. So I did have to substitute low-sodium boxed beef broth I had in the cupboard, but I also decided to make the beef broth from the bones in the freezer. The recipe is here: Homemade Beef Broth.

So my kitchen has been busy today! I made the soup in the crockpot since my large soup pot was being used. I did get to put some of the homemade broth in at the end, because I had overestimated the quantity of lentils and barley to use, and after a few hours my soup was thick enough to stand a spoon up in! I’ve adjusted the recipe below to use less lentils and barley. OH! And I got to use two of my cute little frozen herb cubes I wrote about in my last blog.  I was tickled pink when I put them in the skillet to sauté the veggies. I’m easily amused.

Crockpot of Soup

Lentil, Barley, and Ham Bone Soup

1 frozen basil cube (sub with 1 tablespoon olive oil and chopped basil)
1 frozen tarragon cube (sub with 1 teaspoon olive oil and chopped tarragon)
1 teaspoon fresh chopped rosemary
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped carrots
2 stalks sliced celery
1 tablespoon minced garlic
Black pepper to taste
Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb Seasoning
6 to 7 cups beef broth, low sodium or homemade
1 ham bone
Additional chopped ham, if you have some
3/4 cup lentils, any kind
1/2 cup pearl barley
1 can low-sodium diced tomatoes, with liquid

Sauté the veggies in oil for about 10 minutes, then add the garlic and seasonings. Cook for a few more minutes.  Transfer the veggies to a large crockpot.  Now add the rest of the ingredients except the tomatoes. Heat on high for a couple of hours, then add the tomatoes. Turn down to low and cook for a few more hours or until ready to eat. I plan on making a skillet of cornbread to serve with this.