After making a pot of white bean soup with ham, I offered to share some with a friend whose husband had been sick. Completely unprepared for the rave reviews that followed and questions about how to make it, I realized they haven’t been reading my blog. LOL.
When I told her I didn’t follow a recipe, she asked how I could ever make it exactly the same way again. Is that necessary? I’m sure I don’t often make anything exactly the same way twice. And unless I was running a restaurant where the same dish was expected to be served to the masses on daily repeat, I can’t imagine why I would want to.
As I began to explain my concept of intuitive cooking, she told me she wasn’t any good at that. I maintain that it can be learned. What you need to learn are concepts and principles, not exact measurements and ingredients. For example, a good soup starts with a good base. While you can always open a carton of stock, why not save money and make your own flavorful stock? Any time you’re cooking, and you trim the ends of vegetables that don’t make it into your finished dish, don’t throw them away. Put them into a sealable bag in the freezer. Same goes for bones/carcass. Unless you have time to immediately make stock with them, put them into the freezer for later as well. When the freezer bag is full of veggie scraps and maybe a couple of bones, you have free stock waiting to happen!
How to Make White Bean Soup from Scratch
Having soaked the white beans overnight and thawed the ham in the refrigerator that I had bought on clearance and frozen some time ago, I was in go-position for a delicious and satisfying white bean soup with ham. Dumping my freezer bag full of scraps into a stock pot and filling it with water, I put it on to boil. A couple of parmesan rinds lurking in the freezer joined the party. Whenever I’m making stock, my husband likes to peek into the kitchen and ask, “What are you cooking? Our laundry?” That always cracks me up. Yes, it looks like a big mess, but you’re going to strain it in the end, and it will taste amazing.
Meanwhile, put the softened white beans into another big pot with water and boil for 30 minutes. Drain and reserve. Chop an onion and mince some garlic. Chop some celery and the ham. How much? Depends on what you have going on in your stock pot. I knew that the lamb bones I was simmering along with onion ends, celery ends, carrot ends, snow pea ends, zucchini ends, lettuce ends, chard stems etc. would yield a very flavorful stock. So, for a pound of beans, I used:
- 7 ounces of ham, diced
- half an onion, chopped
- 4 cloves of garlic, minced
- 3 stalks of celery, chopped
- dried sage
- dried thyme
Heat some olive oil in a big pot and start cooking your onion. Let it start to get a little golden before adding the garlic, then the celery and ham. After cooking for a couple of minutes, pour some of the stock you’ve started through a strainer into the soup pot. Add the beans and be sure you have enough liquid to get them simmering without burning. You can continue to cook the stock and strain into the soup as time goes on. Cook the beans for another hour or so and then puree a cup or so of them to add some body to the soup. Test the beans and simmer until they are tender enough for your liking, perhaps 2 hours of total cooking time is a ballpark figure. Season with salt to taste.
In this case, I minced some additional garlic and parsley and stirred into the soup before serving. It adds an unexpected vibrant finish. How will you make a delicious white bean soup?
In case you hadn’t realized, beans are nutritious and full of fiber, while being easy on the pocketbook in these times of skyrocketing food prices. Experiment with pinto beans and others to enjoy a variety of flavorful, family-friendly meals.