Best Bean Soup with Ham Recipe - Easy 15 Bean Soup

Today I want to share with you the best bean with ham soup recipe that's easy to make and delicious. Hi sweet friends, I'm Mary and welcome to Mary's Nest where I teach traditional cooking skills for making nutrient-dense foods like bone broth, ferment, sourdough, and more. So if you enjoy learning about those things consider subscribing to my channel and don't forget to click on the little notification bell below that'll let you know every time I upload a new video. Today for this recipe I'm going to be using the beans that come in this package labeled 15 bean soup. It's very common and you probably see it at your grocery store. Now I'm not going to use the little packet of ham flavor that comes with the beans. That I'm definitely going to set aside. I'm not even quite sure what's in there. Instead I'm going to use a ham hock that's going to give wonderful flavor. Now if you don't have a ham hock don't worry. You can use some cut up ham if you've recently baked a ham and you have some left over. That'll work great. Also if you have a big piece of ham that you've purchased at the deli section, not necessarily a big piece but enough that would be about a pound from your deli, you can cut that up into little cubes and use that. And if you want to forgo the ham you can of course just make this into a bean soup or you can add some variations. You could add cut up hot dogs. You could add sausage. There's so much. This is very flexible and it really comes out delicious every time. Now if you can't find that 15 bean mix don't worry. You can use any type of bean that you like. You just want to make sure that you start with one pound of dried beans. But I love this bean mix because I just think it's so lovely. It's just so colorful and it's so nice to have this variety. But if you want to use all the same beans you can. If you want to make your own mixture you can certainly do that. Now these beans have been soaked and there are different schools of thought on whether people like to soak beans or not soak beans. And these have been soaked actually for 48 hours which I discuss why I do that in another video which I'll link to. But I know there's very different opinions on this. Do you want to soak overnight? Do you want to soak for 24 hours, 48 hours? Do you want to soak in plain water? Do you want to soak in salted water? Do you want to put in a pinch of baking soda? Whatever the case may be, prepare your beans the way that you're most comfortable and the way in which agrees with you. I like to soak my beans for 48 hours in plain water and then I will rinse them during the course of that 48 hours to refresh the water. I've also soaked them in brine in advance of cooking them. And again for 48 hours and rinsing the water and re-brining and then just making sure I give them a good rinse before I get ready to cook them. I don't use any baking soda and I explain that in detail in the other video where I talk about beans. And the reason is, I'll just mention it quickly, is that some scientists have found that baking soda can sometimes leach the B vitamins out of beans. So I just leave it out. But if you have found, which I've learned from in the comments on that other video, that putting in that little bit of baking soda makes the beans more agreeable for you, makes them more digestible, whatever the case may be, feel free to do that. But if you decide that you don't soak beans at all, you can still make this recipe. It's just that the cooking time is a little longer, which I'll go over when we get to that part. So let's go over the rest of the ingredients. So as I said, you're going to need a pound of dry beans that are either dry and ready to be cooked or have been soaked overnight or longer. You're going to want some type of fat to cook your onion and your garlic in. I like to use ghee. I find it works very well and it's unlikely to burn because it doesn't have the milk solids in it. But if you want to, it's a form of clarified butter. If you want to use butter, you certainly can. And you can add a little olive oil to help prevent some of those milk solids from burning. You can use coconut oil, you can use avocado oil, any oil or fat that you like to use that works well in a situation where you're going to be sauteing. Lard would be fabulous. And whatever fat you're going to use, all you're going to need is two tablespoons. And then you're going to want one onion and we're going to dice this up. I'm just using a yellow onion. Use whatever you have. And then I'm going to add two cloves of garlic. By all means, add as much garlic as you want. Next, and this is optional, you can add some type of seasoning base that you like, especially since we're not going to be using that little ham flavored packet that comes with the beans in the package. And this is something you definitely want to keep in mind if you're just using your own dried beans and or making your own mixture. I've got one teaspoon here of chili powder and this is a green ancho chili powder. I just love this. They also have the red ancho chili powder or you could use chipotle that's a smoked jalapeno or you could just use sort of that generic chili powder that it's just labeled chili powder that you might see at your grocery store. It does add a nice little flavor and a nice little spice, but again, that's optional. Now, since I am using the ham hock and that's salty, I'm not going to add any additional salt at this point. I'll wait till to taste it when it's all finished. But if you decide that you don't want to add any spice like this and you're not using a ham hock, maybe you're using some baked ham or some ham from the deli, you then can add in salt at this point if you want, or again, you can wait till the end to taste. You could also add in some freshly ground pepper. And if you do want to go with pepper, again, you know, start with a quarter to a half teaspoon and then work your way up when you taste it at the end. Then you're going to want one can of chopped tomatoes. Now, if you are buying a can of tomatoes from the grocery store, I believe that the size can that I'm talking about is 14.5 ounces. If you're using your home-canned tomatoes, just a pint jar is perfect. And if you'd like to learn how to home-can tomatoes, maybe ones you grow this summer or ones you get at the farmer's market, I have a video and it's directed at the beginner where I show you how to home-can tomatoes from start to finish, step-by-step. And I'll definitely link to that if that's something that interests you. And then you're going to want a lemon and you're going to want the juice of the lemon. And I also add in the zest for the extra nutrition, but you don't have to do that if you don't want. And if you don't have any lemon, don't worry. You can add maybe about a tablespoon of vinegar, but we don't put this in until the end. So at that point, you know, when you're tasting it, you can see if it needs that little bit of brightness that citrus often brings to a heavy soup like this that has bean and ham in it. Vinegar can serve the same purpose. So when we get to that point and we're cooking the soup and at the end, when you're tasting it and you feel it needs that little bit of brightness, you can start with a tablespoon of vinegar. You can use your homemade apple cider vinegar if you want, or whatever vinegar you have on hand that you like, and just work up from there. And this ham hock is about a pound and a half, but that's obviously taking into consideration the bone. But then it's got all this wonderful smoked meat around it, which is going to leach out into the soup and just make it really scrumptious. But if you are using some baked ham or some ham from the deli, you know, you want about a pound. Well, my ghee has melted nicely, and I'm going to go ahead and put these onions in now. And I just want to mention that. Ooh, hear that nice sizzle. I always like that. Don't throw away your onion scraps. Put them in a bag or a bin, whatever you want to use, and save them in your refrigerator if you think you're going to be cutting up a lot of onions, or save them in your freezer. And when you have enough, you can use them in your bone broth. You can use them to make an onion broth. There's a lot of things that you can do with onion skins. They're very nutritious. They're rich in vitamins and antioxidants, so save those. They're precious. Next, we're going to smash up two garlic cloves while those onions are simmering for a few minutes. And we're just going to chop these up. And again, don't throw these out. I don't tend to put these in bone broth because I'm just not a fan of putting garlic in bone broth. I like to keep a little more neutral flavor. However, save your garlic skins. You can make garlic broth with them. Or if you like them in your bone broth, you can throw them into your bone broth. Then we're just going to go ahead and chop up our garlic until it's nice and fine. So just saute those onions for a few minutes until they're translucent, and then go ahead and add in all your garlic. And we'll saute this for a few more minutes. After I let that garlic simmer up for a little bit, I like to go ahead and sprinkle in my ancho chili powder. And then I'm going to toss that all with the onions and garlic. Oh my goodness, this smells so good. If you're able to find ancho chili powder, I highly recommend it. It really smells wonderful. It smelled great when I just put the garlic in with the onions, but then you add that chili powder. Oh my goodness, this smells wonderful. Well, now I just saute that up for like a minute or so just to kind of bring out all the flavor, you know, since it is a dried spice. And now I'm going to go ahead and add in the crushed tomatoes. And next we're going to go ahead and add in all our beans and then stir them all around with the rest of the ingredients. Now I'm just going to mix all this up to get the tomatoes and the onions and the garlic and the wonderful ancho chili powder all well distributed with the beans. And then, now we'll get ready to put our ham hock in. And what I usually do is I just like make a little, almost looks like a little donut. And then I just put the ham hock right down in the middle. Well, once you get your ham hock down in there, just go ahead and add in eight cups of water. Then I like to just give everything another little swirl around, keeping that ham hock right there in the middle. Now I'm going to bring this up to a boil. And once we get it up to a boil, then I'm going to turn it down to a simmer and I'm going to let it simmer for about an hour and a half to two hours. Now this 15 bean mix has a variety of beans in it. And some are going to cook before that hour and a half or two hours and others are going to need the whole two hours, but that's okay because this is a combination of sort of chunky and creamy at the very end product. And you can even go and take it one step further and puree the whole thing. But so some of your beans will more or less disintegrate, but that's okay because that's exactly what you're looking for. It's going to give it kind of a nice bit of thickness and then there'll be some chunkiness from the beans that don't disintegrate. And then all the bits of ham are going to come off of that ham hock. Now, if you're using cooked meat, like some leftovers from a baked ham or ham from the deli, cooked ham from the deli, you want to wait to the end to put that in because that doesn't need to be cooked. All you're going to do is put it in maybe the last 10 minutes or so just to warm it through. And if you want to use sausage instead of ham, you can definitely do that. And if it is raw sausage, you're going to want to put that in at this phase, like what I'm doing with the ham hock. Now, if you want to use dried beans right from the beginning, the steps are a little different. You'll want to cook your beans first at a boil for about an hour or an hour and a half at a full rolling boil. And given that you're going to be boiling your beans for that time, you will want to use 10 cups of water instead of eight cups of water. Now, don't worry about writing any of this down because I will have a link in the description below. It's just under, you have to open up the description underneath this video, and there'll be a link that'll take you over to my website, same name, Mary's Nest, and you'll be able to print out the recipe or read it online or print it out over there. And I'll have all the directions, whether you're starting with soaked beans or starting with dried beans. And getting back to the dried beans, after they've boiled for an hour and a half or two hours, and they're pretty much close to being cooked, at that point, you can add in your other ingredients. Now, you can just go ahead and add in your chopped onion, your chopped garlic, and your tomatoes and your seasoning at that point. Or if you want, and you just add them in raw, or you can saute them up separately in a pan and then add them in. That's totally up to you. I find the sauteing like I did in this version adds a nice depth of flavor. Also at that point is when you can put in your raw meats. So you can put in your ham hock or your sausage, whatever you may be using, because then you're going to simmer your soup for another 35 to 40 minutes until everything is cooked through. And again, yes, some of your beans are going to disintegrate, others are going to keep their shape, but that's the whole point. Because those that disintegrate help give this bean soup a little bit of nice thickness, where the ones that keep their shape, give it some little chunkiness. Well, this is starting to come up to a boil. And once it's at a rolling boil, I'm going to turn it down to a simmer, a medium simmer, and I'm going to put the lid on and let that go for about an hour and a half to two hours. But I'll check it at an hour and a half. Well, this soup looks wonderful. I'll overlay a picture for you so that you can see how it looks. And the meat is just falling off of this ham hock. So I'm just going to transfer this to my board and shred that meat and add it back into the soup. Well, I shredded all of the meat that I could get off of the ham hock, and it's a wonderful amount. Now, if you want to puree your soup, I would recommend doing it now and then adding in your ham. So you could have like a nice creamy bean soup with little pieces of ham throughout. Now, before we go ahead and add in our ham, I just want to mention, don't throw out the remnants of the ham hock, the bone, the skin, the few little scraps that I have here. I'm going to wrap this up. I'm going to put this in my freezer and I'm going to save this for the next time I make a bean soup. Now, granted, I'm not going to get all this beautiful meat. However, I believe there's still a lot of flavor and nutrition in here that can really add a lot of value to one more bean soup. Let me get this ham into here. I'll stir everything up and then we'll taste it for seasonings and see if we need to add any salt, pepper, so on and so forth. Well, this looks so good. I stirred it all around once I added in the ham and I've just got a little bit in a bowl here. I'm just going to give it a taste to see what extra seasonings we may need. Oh, that's really good. Maybe just a pinch of salt. Well, I added a quarter teaspoon of salt to the soup and now it's perfect. And look at this glorious soup. I'll take a picture so that you can see this up close, but this is just going to make a wonderful dinner. Now, if you would like more ideas for making meals with things from your pantry, be sure to click on this video over here and I'll see you over there in my Texas Hill Country Kitchen. Love and God bless.