Put the ham in with the beans....it will eventually fall apart but it's the flavor you want....cut the meat up into dice before you add it.
Linda C

Thanks! I was worried the diced ham might get tough if I put it in at the beginning.

I'm with you jc. When I add ham to a soup I cut it up into little pieces and either add at the end, or add a handful to the bottom of the bowl and pour the hot soup over the top -- which seems to heat the ham nicely and everyone gets an equal share.

You could always trim off the fat from your ham pieces and add that at the beginning which would help add flavor without ruining the meat.

If you cook it long enough to cook the beans, the ham will be tender. And the flavor will go into the broth. If you add it at the end you are just adding ham to the soup, not the flavor to the broth.
When I use a real ham bone therea re always bits of ham on the bone....they sure don't get tough.
Linda C

I add it in the beginning too. In fact I throw the
whole ham in and as it comes apart, I'll remove the bone.
If I don't have enough ham for flavor I sometimes throw in a tablespoon of Chicken Soup Base.
Lou

Linda, flavoring the broth is exactly what I want from the ham, I was just not sure the deli ham could stand up to the long cooking, but it did.

Lou, that is what I usually do since I use a ham bone, I leave a generous amount of meat on the bone to shred and put back in the soup as it fall from the bone.

Westelle, as you can see below, adding the diced ham at the beginning worked just fine, and since I bought a deli ham that is strongly smoked it imparted a wonderful flavor. I doubt people will get equal shares of the ham tho, I have seen my son digging out ham bits with the ladle in the past!

Well, the experiment seemed to work fine! I diced up the smoked ham and tossed it in with the beans at the beginning. It tastes delicious and the ham remained tender. The whole house smells wonderful. Unfortunately, my husband called and said he will be late so I will have to wait another 1/2 hour to eat it (well, other than my "tastes"). I'm looking forward to Christmas so I will have a leftover ham bone to make another pot, but this smoked ham was an excellent alternative. Now that I see how well it works, we will be eating Navy Bean Soup more often. Next I think I need to make some Yellow Split Pea Soup!

I keep coming back to this thread.....and wishing I had made a pot of bean soup when it first started....
Got beans, got a ham bone in the freezer....but didn't start it in time for dinner....

Linda I can't remember if you have a pressure cooker. I know we discussed it in one of the dog food threads. If you do, read on and think about this! If not, read on and wish you had one!

Yesterday Brockley let me use his electric pressure cooker to make a late lunch of a bean soup with a meaty ham bone pulled from my freezer. I'm impressed that I made the soup with white beans that I boiled for 3 minutes and then let soak covered, off the heat, while I cut up an onion, some celery, carrots and 3 small potatoes. Added about 2t of Italian herb blend and some red pepper flakes and cooked it all (with the ham bone and with about 5 cups of water and 4 cups of chicken stock)under pressure for 18 minutes and then took out about 2 cups of the veggies and blitzed them with the stick blender to thicken the soup a little. Cut the meat off the ham bone and sprinkled on some fresh parsley and voila, bean soup for lunch in just about an hour starting with unsoaked beans and a frozen ham bone. I was delicious and I have 2 quarts left for a quick meal later in the week.

After lunch I put five pounds of chicken thighs in the PC and a cup of brown basmati, a cup of steel cut oats and two diced sweet potatoes in my rice cooker to start Brockley's food for the week. I added about two pounds of green veggies after the chicken was cooked (I take off 3-4 cups of chicken stock to freeze for us to use later) and cooked his food an addtional four minutes in the PC. Brockley did not leave the kitchen all afternoon.

Lee

PS we had some more of the soup tonight and it was even better than yesterday. I really liked that the quick cooking under pressure left the beans soft and tender but with integrity, that is no popping skins, and that the ham did not have a washed out taste and yet flavored the soup well. I don't think I'll bother to plan for soaking beans the day before anymore - this was perfect.

Wow! Bean soup in 1 hour! Not including soaking time for the beans, I started my soup at noon and served it at 6:45. It really could be done cooking in 4 1/2 hours, but I like mine nice and thick. It sounds like I might need a pressure cooker, although there is something very soothing about a big pot of soup simmering on the stove on a cold winter day.

J, you are so right, it is wonderful to smell a soup pot simmering for hours, but it is also wonderful to be standing in front of your fridge at noon and thinking there is NOTHING you can serve for lunch and then thinking about the PC. And I have to admit that earlier reading of this thread got me thinking about bean soup. And I did spend an additional 5 minutes or so researching the amount of time to cook unsoaked beans, I already knew that it is OK to put frozen meat into the PC.

I use my electric PC, purchased about 4 months ago, every week to ten days for dog food for Brockley, that is why I bought it, but I use it two or three times a month for us also.

L

Curious? Does Brockley like broccoli? Chabby does!
Linda C

LOL Linda, yes Brockley likes broccoli and almost everything else that is green except celery. And you already know that he LOVES romaine.

Lee