Holiday meals are creeping up on us, believe it or not! Last weekend I baked a Smithfield Brown sugar glazed ham (it’s one of the best I’ve ever bought!). After I sliced all the meat off, I tucked the bone into a freezer bag and put it in the fridge. I knew that bone had all kinds of possibilities! I usually always make Senate Bean Soup with our Christmas ham bone, but I wanted to venture out and try a new recipe.

I found this a recipe for Creamy Ham and Potato Soup and it sounded savory and delicious. It also didn’t take hours to make! The recipe suggested making ham stock with the bone and using that as the base of the soup. That’s exactly what I did. All that took was popping the bone into a stock pot with water to cover and simmering it for an hour. Easy peasy.

Here’s the simple recipe with my slight changes:

Creamy Ham and Potato Soup

NGREDIENTS

• 1/3 cup unsalted butter
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 cup large carrot peeled and diced
• 1/2 cup diced celery
• 3 cups peeled and diced potatoes
• 4 cloves garlic minced
• 1 1/2 cups cooked ham, diced
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour (plain flour)
• 2 cups Ham Stock or chicken broth
• 2 teaspoons chicken Bouillon
• 3 cups milk 
• 1 pinch of salt, if needed 
• fresh cracked black pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

• Heat the butter in a pot over medium heat. Sauté the onion, carrots, celery until beginning to soften (about 4 minutes).
• Add the potatoes, cook for 2 minutes, then add the garlic and sauté until fragrant (about 30 seconds).
• Mix the flour through and cook for 2 minutes.
• Stir in stock and bouillon and ham, mixing all ingredients together. Increase heat and bring to a boil until potatoes are ‘just’ fork tender, about 10-12 minutes.
• Reduce heat to medium-low, add the milk and stir over the heat until thickened (about 5 minutes).
• Add more and salt and pepper, as needed
• Serve warm.

This was so savory! I was so happy to make such good use of that flavorful ham bone! It made a whole pot of ham stock, so now I also have more frozen for a couple more recipes of this wonderful soup!

To make your own ham stock, place the ham bone in a stock pot and cover with water. Bring it to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for one hour. Discard bone. How easy is that?!

If you don’t have a ham bone on hand, you can purchase a bone at Honey Bake Ham! But I’d also encourage you to save this for those holiday hams in your future!

Here are a couple of our other favorite savory soups:
Sausage Corn Chowder
Chicken Gnocchi

Happy ham bone season!