Description
Hearty White Bean and Ham Soup brings rustic Italian countryside comfort to your kitchen, blending rich smoky ham with creamy cannellini beans. Each spoonful delivers warmth and deep flavors you’ll savor down to the last delicious bite.
Ingredients
Scale
Protein Ingredients:
- 2 cups diced cooked ham
- 20 ounces (567 grams) dried Great Northern beans
Vegetable Ingredients:
- 1 medium sweet onion, diced
- 3 stalks celery, diced
- 2 carrots, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
Liquid and Seasoning Ingredients:
- 8 cups (1.9 liters) water
- 1 tablespoon (15 milliliters) olive oil
- 1 tablespoon (15 grams) salt
- 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- 2 teaspoons ground pepper
Instructions
- Meticulously inspect dried Great Northern beans, removing any foreign particles or imperfections.
- Finely chop onions, celery, and carrots into uniform pieces. Crush garlic cloves into fine fragments.
- Warm olive oil in a robust Dutch oven over medium temperature. Sauté vegetable medley until they soften and become translucent, approximately 6 minutes. Introduce minced garlic, allowing aromatic notes to develop for an additional 90 seconds.
- Incorporate water into the vegetable mixture. Add Italian seasoning and thoroughly rinsed beans, stirring to combine ingredients evenly.
- Elevate heat to generate a rolling boil, then immediately reduce to a gentle simmer. Allow liquid to bubble slowly for 120 minutes, ensuring beans become tender and creamy.
- Integrate diced ham, complementing with salt and ground pepper. Continue simmering for 45 minutes, enabling flavors to harmonize and intensify.
- Evaluate soup’s viscosity, carefully adjusting with additional liquid if necessary. Taste critically and refine seasonings to achieve balanced flavor profile.
- Transfer steaming soup into serving vessels. Present immediately, offering a nourishing and robust culinary experience.
Notes
- Swap dried beans for canned beans to reduce cooking time, ensuring they’re low-sodium and rinsed thoroughly.
- Soak beans overnight to minimize cooking duration and improve digestibility, making the soup easier on sensitive stomachs.
- Include smoked ham hock for deeper, richer flavor profile if traditional diced ham seems too mild.
- Create gluten-free version by verifying Italian seasoning blend contains no wheat-based additives and using certified gluten-free ingredients.
- Prep Time: 15-20 minutes
- Cook Time: 2 hours 35 minutes to 3 hours 7 minutes
- Category: Lunch, Dinner, Appetizer
- Method: Simmering
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 6
- Calories: 247 kcal
- Sugar: 2 g
- Sodium: 1343 mg
- Fat: 5 g
- Saturated Fat: 1.5 g
- Unsaturated Fat: 3.5 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 35 g
- Fiber: 9 g
- Protein: 18 g
- Cholesterol: 38 mg