Here's a tip from my mom. If you are going to use a ham bone for flaver, cook the ham bone in water & make the stock first. Then use it instead of cooking it all together. It will give a lot more room in the pot for veggies & it is a lot easier to remove bone & bits from stock then it is when its in the soup.
With changes below, this warrants five stars. Okay, I am NOT a purist and use whatever tastes best. White Northern beans I find a little boring, so I used a bulk foods 13 bean mix, which had split peas, lentils, pinto, black, black eyed peas, garbanzo and several other types INCLUDING White Northern. This bean mix is cheaper, especially in bulk, and possesses a much more complex flavor than just white beans alone. Second, in the six cups of water I used half chicken broth and half vegetable broth (both Better than Boullion) so that the flavors better complimented the vegetable mix in the soup. Cayenne pepper instead of black, to go with the smoky flavor of half a pack of bacon (as opposed to straight ham, it was all I had on hand). I added 1 teaspoon celery seed to go with the celery stalks, plus three large carrots. Also, though I had diced tomatoes on hand I figured hand-chopped Roma would add more flavor and better texture. The beans were soaked overnight, so the soup only needs three hours on high in the crock pot to combine and reduce properly. Served with homemade cornbread it was PHENOMENAL! One of the best bean soups I have had, with the tweaks. Perhaps it is not Navy Bean anymore, but I think the taste is quite a lot better.
This soup is a keeper. I put all the ingredients except the tomatoes, salt, & pepper in a crockpot before leaving for work. Since the ham and bone were cold, I dissolved the bullion cube in boiling water and poured it over the ingredients. I added the tomatoes and pepper when I got home (the ham dded enough salt to the soup) and it was ready to eat.
Can I give this 6 stars??? Made it yesterday but goofed and bought 2 ham hocks instead of the ham. Threw everything in my stockpot but used chicken broth instead of water. The whole day the aroma drove me crazy. I had soaked the beans overnight so was prepared to have a shorter cooking time but I guess the beans were older. I wound up cooking this for about 5 and a half hours and it was fabulous. All I did was warm up some crusty bread to eat with it. I will be having it again tonight...in fact right now! Great recipe!
I made this today and was surprised how quickly it cooked. I did not pre-soak the beans, and it was done in 3 1/2 hours. I sauted the onions, garlic and ham first with non-fat spray, plus added carrots. Used half vegetable broth and half water, plus the chicken bullion. Did not add salt, bay leaf, or parsley. Did add a little cayanne pepper. I was skeptical of the tomatos since they are not my favorite thing in soup, but they are really good. It does not turn it into a "tomato based soup" if you know what I mean, they are just a nice addition.
This recipe is "SOUPER" FANTASTIC! Wow - it was so much better than anticipated! I added one can of tomato soup with the second addition of water. I used fewer diced tomatoes because of this (don't like tomato chunks too much)! Wow, the flavour was really awesome! I also used just a basic chicken stock all the way, instead of plain water. Even the kids loved this one! Best recipe I've found yet!!!! Thanks!!! :-)))
I made this in the slow cooker. I decreased the amount of beans so that everything would fit. I cooked it on low for about 8 hours and the flavor was tremendous! I also added uncooked bacon in the beginning which gave off lots of flavor as it cooked down. I added carrots also. The result was a very rich and thick soup. The stalk was thick; not too runny. I will definately make this again!
YUM! I made this today and YEEHAAAA! It was GREAT! I made a few subtle changes as follows: I got one of those mongo-sized chicken broth cans (49.5 oz) and for the initial "water" used 4 cups water plus appx 2.5 cups broth. The rest of the broth I dumped in for the second addition of water (and used no water that time at all). I still used the bullion cube initially. I added ham hocks as well as a half lb of chopped up ham and I used an extra celery stick. Oh and it cooked a full 6 hours (which is what it took to get the beans to soften). THOSE ARE THE ONLY CHANGES I made! It really was delicious... SO FULL OF FLAVOR! Needed no second seasoning w/S&P (maybe cause of the broth?). Everyone loved this incl my 7 yr old. I served w/french breat and thats it! THANKS!
What a great recipe! My father used to make very good bean soup but I couldn't remember just what the ingredients were. I think this recipe has them all except for carrots which I added. The one thing I did differently was that I didn't add that last 3 cups of water because we like soups like this to be pretty thick and this came out perfectly with just the initial 6 cups of water. Thanks Angela!
First tip; never add salt to cooking beans, don't know the reason but if you do add salt the beans never get done all the way, could be a reason for your crunch. My mother made the best bean soup ever and she always started with leftover ham bone (flavor is in the bone) also believe it or not at the very end of making the soup ....for a large pot of soup add 3-4 tbl. of cider vinegar. People will have NO idea what's different but it does give the soup more flavor. Good luck. Hope I helped.
