Ham and bean soup

Heat the olive oil in a large pan or casserole dish over a medium heat. Once hot, add the chopped carrots, celery, and onion, and season with salt and pepper as desired. Leave to cook for around 10 minutes, until the vegetables are tender.

Add the minced garlic cloves and thyme, and leave to cook until fragrant, for roughly 2 minutes. Add the all-purpose flour and cook for a further minute.

Slowly add the chicken stock whilst continuously stirring to combine. Repeat this step until all of the chicken stock has been added, then turn the heat up to bring to the boil. Once boiling, add the beans and diced ham steak. Reduce the heat and cook covered, leaving to simmer for around 20 minutes.

Once the ham is tender remove from the heat and serve warm, with a plate of fresh crusty bread to the side.

Tips & tricks

In this baked bean soup with ham recipe we’ve shared above, we’ve suggested using great northern beans, for a creamy flavor. You could also use cannellini beans, however, which are larger but still have the same creamy flavor to bring to the soup or even navy beans, as a smaller alternative. There are many different types of beans to experiment with, depending on your taste preferences, but our top pick for this recipe is certainly the great northern variety. Whichever you choose, make sure you drain and rinse the beans before adding to the soup.

When it comes to the meat, some chefs will actually add a leftover ham bone to their soup to make a bean and ham bone soup recipe. This does help to enhance the flavor, but is certainly optional and not required. If you’re unable to find ham steak for any reason, you can vary the ingredients with different meats like salted pork or cooked bacon. For any leftover ham, there’s no end of recipes to choose from to make the most of these offcuts and minimize food waste. If you want additional protein, you can serve with a sprinkling of cooked, salty bacon on the top of the soup as a croutons substitute.

In our recipe, we’ve kept the cooking time fairly short in case you want to make this soup midweek to serve the family, but some recipes do call for a much longer, slow cooking time of two hours. If you have the time, this will help to draw out the richness of the flavors, but it does reach a tasty point after just 20 minutes if you need to plate up faster.

How to serve it

The fantastic thing about soup is that it can be very simply enjoyed alongside a fresh serving of crusty bread or a delicious bread roll. If your hunger levels are higher, though, a classic combination of a soup and half sandwich, or toastie, on the side is an appetizing lunchtime dish. Or for a lighter alternative, enjoy with a side plate of salad.

Storage

Leftover ham and bean soup can be stored for up to three days in the fridge, in an airtight container. It can easily be reheated on the stove in a pan when you’re ready to enjoy another portion.