Bean Soup

navy beans

water

ham bone

onion

salt

black pepper

bay leaf

carrots

celery

Place rinsed beans into a large stock pot.  Add water and bring to a boil.  Boil gently for 2 minutes; remove from heat, cover and let stand for 1 hour.


Add ham bone, cubed ham, onion, salt, pepper and bay leaves.  Bring to a boil; reduce heat, cover and simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until beans are soft.  Occasionally skim surface of soup while it is cooking.


Add carrots and celery, cook until tender.  Remove ham bone, scrape any meat from bone and place back into soup and serve.


I am an Appalachian "kid" and bean soup was a staple in our family. Here is a little trick I learned.  Cover your beans, nothing else added, with cold water, and bring to a solid boil for about 10 minutes. Remove the pan DON'T DRAIN and SET THE PAN IN YOUR SINK. Throw in about 1/4 cup baking soda, (in the hills it's a handful) and stir like crazy until the foam that will appear disappears, (don't worry if the foam looks green). Drain and rinse very well in cold water to remove all the soda flavor, then start recooking according to the directions.  Doing this, you won't have to soak the beans, it cuts your cooking time, and removes maybe not all, but most of the "gas".  More soda, less gas.  The reason for setting the pan in the sink is that it will foam quite a bit and could go over the sides of your pan.  BTW, never used a bay leaf in my life for bean soup.

I boil the beans in enough water just to cover them 2x, discarding the water both times.  It gets rid of the "gas" without adding extra sodium that using baking soda provides.  Then I add enough water for the recipe, bring the beans to a boil, and add the ham bone, or ham hocks, or fried & crumbled bacon if I have no ham.  Simmer until beans are just tender.  Add the carrots and celery, and also try adding a coarsely diced green pepper; cook about 20 minutes more.  Meanwhile, I dice the onion as finely as I have patience to do, and fry it up in bacon grease.  When it's tender, I add a mixture of flour (about 1/4 cup), paprika (about 3 TBLS) and lots of black pepper. Add this to the soup, and stir and stir - the flour will just barely thicken the soup. This soup gets raves.  Contact me for canning instructions.

I really liked this dish, but I did change a few things.  As suggested by other reviewers, I used about 5 cups of chicken broth and 2 cups of water (I omitted the salt altogether).  I followed the recipe directions for the beans and they turned out great.  I increased the amount of vegetables though and would probably increase to about a cup of each in the future.  Once the soup was done, I removed about 1.5 cups of soup and pureed it with my hand blender, added about 1/4 cup ketchp and added that back to the soup.  The ketchup added really great flavour and the puree gave the soup a really nice consistency.  Apart from adding more vegetables, I will increase the liquid for this soup next time as we did find it a bit more "stew" (rather than soup) like.  Great recipe, thanks!

I soaked my beans overnight like I always do. I put all the ingredients into a slowcooker set it on low and at dinnertime we had bean soup like I remembered! I grew up putting ketchup in my soup and eating it ladled over thick slices of homemade bread! YUM

Very good recipe. I thought it was missing something so I did add what my father made when I was young. He used to add ketchup much like a couple of the other reviewers mentioned. Instead I added a large can of whole tomatoes. Also I added about four diced potatoes right near the last 40 minutes. Potatoes make it thicker which I prefer. I also omitted the salt. Very good with cornbread.

I will adjust my review in a few days after I have made this but first I must respond to the reviewer who claims that adding baking soda to the beans will reduce the amount of gas they will cause. That is NOT true. Adding baking soda (aka sodium bicarbonate) reduce the amount of time beans need to soak but no more so than plain old table salt (sodium chloride). The gas from beans occurs when bacteria in your intestine consumes the naturally occurring sugars in the bean. The only thing you can do to minimize that while cooking is to be sure to thoroughly drain and rinse the beans after their initial soaking in hot water to remove any sugars that may have leached out of the beans into the cooking water. If that's not enough, then take some Beano before or with the first bite of the meal. That will stop the bacteria from breaking down the sugars. I know this because I'm a pharmacist.

This is very similar to my recipe for bean soup and it's excellent! The only thing I do differently, is that I cook everything together, rather than adding the veggies later and cook on low for 5-6 hours.  Just before serving, I add 1/4 cup of instant potato flakes to slightly thicken the stock. Don't forget to remove the bay leaf before serving!

Right after cooking, the soup is pretty bland. Much better after it sits in the refrigerator overnight. I think adding chicken broth, garlic and/or liquid smoke would help make recipe more flavorful.

I've always made my ham and navy bean soup this way with the addition of a can of diced tomatoes or of plain tomato sauce (if the kids didn't want tomato chunks). Season to taste. sometimes I add a bit of thyme as well. Kids always like it and it's a nice hearty soup for the winter.

bean soup

Servings: 8

Cost: $3.80 /serving

Author : Pat Keene

Ingredients

Instructions

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