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This delicious Ham and Vegetable Soup is the perfect way to cook with a leftover ham bone that you might have on hand from a special Sunday supper or a holiday meal!
Among the many things that my husband Jack and I have in common – we were both taught by our parents to never waste food. So, considering how much food we cook for A Family Feast, we either share leftovers with family and neighbors, or sometimes we freeze some ingredients to use in a future recipe. Such is the case with this Ham and Vegetable Soup recipe!
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been on a mission to cook as much as possible with food from our freezer and pantry. In the bottom of our freezer drawer was a bag of ham stock that Jack had made a couple of months ago from the bone of our leftover holiday ham. We also had a variety of vegetables on hand – onions, celery, carrots, leeks, potatoes, kale – and even a bag of frozen corn kernels in the bottom of the freezer drawer, as well as some Parmesan cheese rinds (which we always save and freeze because they add great flavor to soups)!
So while this creamy Ham and Vegetable Soup started out for us as a way to use up some leftovers – it was so delicious, we had to share it here today!
This soup has a wonderful depth of flavor, and it is loaded with lots of hearty and healthy ingredients. Don’t worry – even if you don’t have some leftover ham stock on hand in your own freezer, we give you the recipe below to make your own delicious ham stock from scratch.
After making this Ham and Vegetable Soup last week, we brought some to share with friends who invited us to visit them for a few days down on Cape Cod. Everyone loved it (and asked for the recipe), and we think you’ll love it too!
We love seeing what you made! Tag us on Instagram at @afamilyfeast or hashtag #afamilyfeast so we can see your creations!
Ham and Vegetable Soup
Ingredients
Ham Stock
- 4 pound bone-in smoked picnic shoulder or a large meaty ham bone
- 4 cups yellow onion, large dice (about 4 medium onions)
- 4 cups celery, large dice (about 3-4 stalks)
- 4 cups carrot, large dice (about 4-5 medium carrots)
- 4 sprigs fresh parsley with stems
- 2 whole crushed garlic cloves
- 2 bay leaves
- 4 whole peppercorns
- 4 quarts water
Soup
- Ham stock from above, about 2 quarts
- 1 quart vegetable stock
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 8 slices bacon, diced
- 1 1/2 cups leeks, white only, cleaned of sand and diced
- 1 cup celery, small dice, about two large stalks
- 2 1/2 cups carrots, bite sized pieces
- 2 tablespoons fresh garlic, minced
- 2 teaspoons dry thyme
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 Roma tomato, seeded and diced
- 8 ounces Parmesan cheese rinds, optional (If you do not have any Parmesan rinds, add a cup of grated Parmesan cheese instead as the soup cooks))
- 1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and diced into bite sized pieces
- 1 head Tuscan kale, cleaned from ribs and cut up (about four cups)
- 2 cups frozen kernel corn, thawed
- 1 15.5–ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
- 2 pounds leftover ham from smoked shoulder (or purchase a deli ham steak and dice if you started stock with a meaty ham bone instead of a smoked shoulder)
- 1 cup light cream, or half and half if light cream is not available
Instructions
- Start by making the stock. Place the smoked shoulder into an 8-12 quart pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Discard water then add smoked shoulder back in with all stock ingredients and bring to a boil again. (This first step will remove any excess salt)
- Reduce to a simmer and cook uncovered for three hours. Strain stock and pick meat from bone. Discard the rest. Skim fat from top of stock and discard) This step can be done in advance and the stock frozen until needed. Cool and freeze in zip lock gallon bags. You should be left with two quarts of stock and two pounds of meat.
- Mix ham stock with vegetable stock and heat. Taste and adjust seasoning, but salt only if needed.
- In a large Dutch oven or heavy bottomed soup pot, heat oil over medium high heat and add bacon. Cook for 7-8 minutes until just short of crispy.
- Add leeks, celery and carrots and cook for five minutes.
- Add garlic and cook one minute.
- Add stock, thyme, bay leaves, tomato and Parmesan rinds or grated Parmesan cheese. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.
- Simmer uncovered for about 15 minutes or until vegetables are just short of tender.
- Add potatoes and kale and bring back to a boil then simmer until tender, about five minutes.
- Add corn, beans and diced ham and simmer five minutes.
- Stir in cream and remove from heat.
- Pick out bay leaves and Parmesan rinds and discard. Serve immediately.
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You may also like:
Crustless Ham and Cheddar Quiche
Ham and Cheese Breakfast Casserole
Can I freeze this recipe?
Hi Michelle – This soup has some cream in it so it might separate after it is thawed. If you want to freeze some of it – ideally – I’d suggest freezing a portion of the soup before adding the cream. Then when you thaw and reheat it, add the cream at that point. Hope that helps!
This was really good! Thanks for the great recipe. I took it it my sisters house and her husband ate 3 bowls of it!
Thanks Lee Ann! So glad you all enjoyed the recipe!
Hello! What if the ham is not on the bone anymore? Skip the ham stock? Thank you!
Hi Ana – The ham stock is fairly important to the overall flavor of the soup. You could ask the butcher at the supermarket if they have a ham bone to sell. Otherwise, you can swap in a different kind of stock (vegetable or chicken) but the end result really won’t be the same.
could you do this in a crockpot?
Hi Nadia – You can definitely make the ham stock in a slow cooker. Once you’ve done that, the rest of the soup doesn’t take long to make so I would just make that on the stove. Hope that helps!
I shopped for this today, made it from scratch this afternoon, even the ham stock from scratch in crock pot on high for 3 hours, ate some for dinner with hubby, and it was AWESOME! We’re going to share the rest of this with family in Alabama for Thanksgiving…..they’re gonna love it too!
Thank you so much Joyce! We’re very glad you enjoyed the recipe! Have a wonderful holiday!
Love this site, I saw it for the first time today and printed some of the recipes, starting with the ham and vegie soup will make it this week.
Thanks Ursula! We’re glad you found us and we hope you love the recipes. 🙂
have you ever done this as a crock pot soup? I’m curious if I can just add all ingredients and let it cook throughout the day.
Hi Kristin – We’ve only made this soup as written. The bulk of the cooking time is making the ham stock – I’m sure you could do that in the slow cooker. For the rest – it doesn’t take long for the diced potatoes and other veggies to cook so they may get mushy cooking all day in a slow cooker. Hope that helps!
This looks delicious. What do you mean by light cream?
Hi Marla – At our local supermarket, they sell a variety of cream – heavy or whipping cream, light cream (which has less milk fat) and half and half (which is half milk and half light cream) – you should be able to find it in the dairy aisle. Hope that helps!
Thank you Martha for the speedy reply. Can’t wait to try this recipe.
When making the ham stock, do you leave any ham you remove from the bone in the stock? This is a great alternative to split pea or ham and bean soup.
Hi Patricia – You can if you’d like. In this recipe, we added the ham back in at the end so it stayed intact – if you leave it in while the broth cooks it will disintegrate a bit. (But I does add flavor for sure!)