Crockpot Ham and Bean Soup

Ingredients:

• 10 cups water
• 2 cups dry beans (soaked overnight in water to cover them- drained)
• 1 ham bone (I used one from Honey Baked Ham)
• 1/2 sweet onion or 1 small yellow onion, diced
• 4 bay leaves
• 1/2 t. pepper
• 1 t. thyme
• 2 T. Herb Ox no salt Chicken Buillon (if you use chicken broth, you will have to recalculate sodium)
• 1-2 pinches dried pepper flakes1 Idaho potato, peeled and diced
• 3 carrots, peeled and diced
• 3 ribs celery, diced

Directions:

To a 6 quart Crockpot, add the first 9sk ingredients and cook on High for 6 hours.

After 6 hours, remove the ham bone and all the ham pieces. Discard the bones and fat.  Chop all the ham and return to the pot.

Now add the potato, carrots and celery. Cook another 2 hours or so on High, until the vegetables are tender.

Remove the bay leaves and carefully mash some of the the beans and vegetables with a potato masher. Or, being very careful of the hot soup, use an immersion blender to blend some of the bean and vegetables, leaving some whole for texture.

Serve hot.

Makes  13 –  1 cup servings   127mg sodium each.serving.

The total sodium is 1646mg when using exact ingredients listed.

Freezes well.

Cooking time is 8 hours.

Original recipe