This Slow Cooker Ham Bone Soup recipe is the perfect way to use up any leftover holiday ham you have. Be sure to save the leftover ham bone from that ham because you’ll need it for this soup.
For more ideas, check out all of our soup recipes.
Next time you make a whole ham, save the ham bone.
It’s so easy to carve a ham, take all the meat off the bone, and throw the bone in the trash. But what a travesty that is. Because the ham bone is filled with so much flavor that you can infuse into soup or homemade broth.
So save the bone.
And, if you don’t want to make soup the same week you made the ham, you can actually save the ham bone in the freezer. Then, take it out whenever you’re in the mood for a delicious soup for dinner.
This Slow Cooker Ham Bone Soup is delicious. It’s a light, chicken broth based soup filled with vegetables. And ham. You can cut off the ham from the bone and add it to the soup. But, if you’re like us and cut the ham bone almost bare, so there’s only a little bit of meat on the bone when you’re done carving the ham, you can cut up some leftover ham (about two cups, but really, you can use whatever you have left) and add that to the soup.
Making homemade soups in the slow cooker is so easy and we do it all the time. If you want to as well, check out The Best Slow Cooker Soup Recipes for more ideas.
Slow Cooker Ham Bone Soup Recipe
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Slow Cooker Ham Bone Soup Ingredients:
- 1 ham bone
- 3 carrots
- 2 stalks of celery
- 2 medium Russet potatoes
- 1 medium onion
- 1 can corn
- 7 cups chicken broth
- 2 cups leftover ham
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 bay leaf
How To Make Slow Cooker Ham Bone Soup:
Put the ham bone in the slow cooker.
Chop the carrots, celery, potatoes, and onion. Add them all to the slow cooker.
Drain the can of corn. Add it to the slow cooker.
Add the chicken broth.
Cook on high for 6.5 hours.
Remove the ham bone. Cut off any ham that’s left on the bone and add it back to the slow cooker.
Quick note: Cooking the ham bone for this long can cause it to break into pieces. That’s fine. Just make sure that you’re removing all of the ham bone pieces now so that they don’t end up in anyone’s bowls when you’re serving dinner.
If there isn’t much meat on the bone, that’s fine. Just discard the bone.
Finely chop two cups of leftover ham (less if you had a meaty ham bone).
Add the chopped ham to the slow cooker.
Add the salt, garlic powder, and bay leaf. Cook for an additional 30 minutes.
Quick note: Yes, you don’t season until basically the end of cooking. The ham bone will add a salty flavor to the soup and adding additional salt while it’s cooking will make the soup too salty. You are also adding salt and other flavors to the soup when you add the chopped ham in. So even though it feels like you’re not adding a lot of additional seasoning, this soup does have a ton of flavor.
Slow Cooker Ham Bone Soup: Frequently Asked Questions
I love using my Dutch oven to make soup. I don’t do that for this recipe, though, only because I think cooking this for more time adds a depth of flavor that you miss out on if you make it on the stove.
However, if that’s all the time you have, you could change this to a stove top recipe. Cook the carrots, celery, potatoes, and onion for a little bit in Dutch oven to soften them. Then, add the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil over high heat, then simmer over low heat for about two hours (I’m approximating the cook time because I only use the slow cooker for this soup) until the vegetables are soft and cooked through.
If you freeze the ham bone, you can keep it for about three months before it starts to lose some flavor. Fun fact: If you do freeze the ham bone, you don’t need to defrost it before adding it to the slow cooker.
If you keep it in the fridge, you’ll want to use it within a week.
If you’re making a ham shank, that comes precooked from the grocery store but not pre-seasoned. You can season that however you want and still save the leftover ham bone and extra ham for this recipe. That will just add more flavor to the soup.
We usually make a Slow Cooker Brown Sugar And Cola Glazed Ham and use the leftovers from that for this soup.
If you buy a pre-seasoned ham, like a packaged spiral ham, you can still use that in this recipe since a spiral ham in a bone-in ham.
If you want to make this soup, but you don’t have a leftover ham bone, you can purchase country ham seasoning bones or a whole ham hock at your local grocery store. You can also purchase a ham bone from the Honey Baked Ham store, if you have one of those locally.
I like beans in soup, but this soup already has so much flavor that I don’t feel like adding beans would add to it.
If you wanted, you could swap the potatoes for white beans (like cannellini beans) or great northern beans, if you really wanted to add beans to this. Just make sure that you are draining and rinsing the canned beans before adding them to your soup.
If you wanted to use dry beans, you could do that too. You don’t have to soak them before adding them to the slow cooker. They’ll be in liquid long enough to soften.
Let the soup cool to room temperature, then put it in an airtight container in the fridge. It will last about a week in the fridge.
If you’re not going to eat it within the week, you can freeze it for up to three months.
More Leftover Ham Recipes:
This Ham Bone Soup is a great way to use any leftover from Easter or Christmas dinner. If you still have leftover ham after making it, and want a delicious recipe that doesn’t need a ham bone (since you used it in this soup), go with our Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup with ham.
That is a really hearty soup with lots of flavor and delicious ham crumbles on top as a garnish. Those crumbles are the best part, honestly. Pete says it’s one of my best recipes and asks me to make it any time we have ham (even if it’s the middle of summer and not really soup weather).
Slow Cooker Ham Bone Soup
This Slow Cooker Ham Bone Soup recipe is the perfect way to use up any leftover holiday ham you have. Be sure to save the leftover ham bone from that ham because you’ll need it for this soup.
Ingredients
- 1 ham bone
- 3 carrots
- 2 stalks of celery
- 2 medium Russet potatoes
- 1 medium onion
- 1 can corn
- 7 cups chicken broth
- 2 cups leftover ham
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 bay leaf
Instructions
- Put the ham bone in the slow cooker.
- Chop the carrots, celery, potatoes, and onion. Add them all to the slow cooker.
- Drain the can of corn. Add it to the slow cooker.
- Add the chicken broth.
- Cook on high for 6.5 hours.
- Remove the ham bone. Cut off any ham that’s left on the bone and add it back to the slow cooker.
- If there isn’t much meat on the bone, that’s fine. Just discard the bone.
- Finely chop two cups of leftover ham (less if you had a meaty ham bone). Add the chopped ham to the slow cooker.
- Add the salt, garlic powder, and bay leaf. Cook for an additional 30 minutes.
Nutrition Information
Yield
6Serving Size
1Amount Per Serving Calories 214Total Fat 5gSaturated Fat 1gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 2gCholesterol 49mgSodium 2031mgCarbohydrates 25gFiber 3gSugar 6gProtein 20g
Have you made this Slow Cooker Ham Bone Soup recipe? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.