Name: Ham and Bean Slow Cooker Soup - Recipe
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 9 h
Total time: 21 h 30 min
Yield: 12
Ingredients: 1 ham steak, diced; 2 cups dried beans, lentils or peas; 2 jars tomato sauce; 1 jar chicken broth; 6 cloves garlic (use as much as you like); 1 onion, diced; 1 tsp salt; 2 tsp pepper; 3 tbsp lovage or parsley; 1 tbsp olive oil

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This hearty Ham and Bean Soup is a tasty and inexpensive recipe that will keep you full and warm through the winter! Flavored with chicken stock and tomato sauce, this is a simple and easy slow cooker soup that yields a perfect result every time!

Ham and bean soup with a buttered roll on a blue and white plate. — This slow cooker soup is the perfect recipe for a cold day when you want to curl up with a hot bowl of comforting soup!

Why You’ll Love this Slow Cooker Soup

When it’s cold outside, we are often making a hearty soup. Soup warms a person up like nothing else can and it’s usually very inexpensive to make. We love this Ham and Bean Slow Cooker Soup!

Many of the ingredients are things you probably have around the house already, or else are things that are great to buy lots of and keep around. With the convenience of making this soup in the slow cooker, you can throw everything together in the morning and have a warm and tasty soup by dinnertime!

A bowl of warm hearty soup with buttered buns. — Serve this ham and bean soup with some buttered buns or rolls for a perfect meal.

January and February are always “low spend months” here for us. A slow cooker full of healthy hearty soup is a perfect way to have a cheap but filling meal.

Ingredients Needed

ham steak – this is the star of this soup, and gives it a deliciously salty and meaty flavor!
dried beans – you can also use lentils or peas, or a combination.
tomato sauce – an inexpensive ingredient that adds a lot of easy flavor.
chicken broth – you can also supplement with water.
garlic – use as much as you want; we used 6 cloves.
onion – optional, but gives this recipe a whole lot of extra flavor!
salt and pepper
parsley
olive oil

How to Make Ham and Bean Soup

There are so many different ways you can make this soup – it’s a great way to use leftover vegetables sitting in the fridge.

Ingredients on counter for ham and bean soup. — Many of these ingredients are inexpensive, or things you’ll already have around the kitchen!

Soak the dried beans in water (to cover) for 12 hours. I put my beans in water after we eat dinner, then set them in the fridge overnight. Then rinse them well and set aside.
Start your soup by dicing the ham steak into pieces. Make them as small or big as you like. Small kids? Cut the pieces small. Just for hungry adults? Dice the pieces larger.
Use your discretion to decide how big you want your pieces of ham to be.
Turn your crock pot (or slow cooker, whatever you call it) onto high. Drizzle a tablespoon or two of olive oil on the bottom. Dice the peeled garlic cloves and toss them in, add the cubed ham, and let it all cook about 30 minutes. If using onion, add it here as well.
The aroma of cooking garlic and ham is heaven!
Add your rinsed and drained beans. You can use premixed soup mix or a 9 bean mix like I got from Costco.
This bean mix provides lots of variety in your soup and is pretty cheap!
Now add 1 quart of chicken broth. Stir well.
In goes 2 pint jars of homemade tomato sauce. This is going to add a wonderful hearty flavour, especially along with the chicken broth.
Adding tomato sauce makes this ham and bean soup so flavorful without too much effort.
Stir well and leave to cook. Heading off to work for the day? Turn your slow cooker down to Low before you go. If you are around, give it a good stir every couple hours. Or not….it doesn’t matter!

Soup cooking in a crockpot. — Slow cooker soup is the perfect kind of recipe for days when you know you won’t want to cook in the evening!

Six or eight hours later, here’s the finished result. If it stays in the crock pot longer, that’s fine. There is nothing finicky about this recipe. Which is what makes it so easy! It’s so nice to come home at the end of the day and dinner is ready, right?

Variations and Serving Suggestions

This recipe serves 6 people easily, along with buns and a side salad.
Have more people to feed? Add water or chicken stock and another can of tomato sauce.
Got leftovers? Transfer the soup into a smaller container and pop in the fridge. Or, put it in a freezer container for a super easy, ready to heat meal for another busy day.
You can add almost anything you like to this soup. Skip the tomato sauce and have the soup with just the chicken broth base. Or don’t add the tomato sauce until after your first meal! When you reheat the leftover soup, then add the tomato sauce. You will be changing up the entire flavour of the meal.
Add diced celery, carrots or any other vegetables you like. The variety is endless and only depends on what you have in your fridge or cupboard at the time.

Comfort Food Suggestions

Our entire Country Living in a Cariboo Valley Recipe Collection can be found here, and here are some more fantastic comfort food recipes hand-picked for you!

This Garlic Scape Pesto Pasta is another quick and easy meal that’s so easy to customize and make your own!
For something sweet, you should check out this Easy Apple Crisp, which is another recipe that’s perfect for cold weather, or to serve in warmer months with some ice cream.
And for another delicious soup that also features ham, look into this Lentil Soup with Ham.