Slow Cooker Beans and Ham

Slow cooker beans and ham is the perfect hearty meal that is sheer comfort food for the family. It’s an easy recipe that you can get started in the morning and have ready at dinner time.

Beans and ham are great for those chilly days or busy days when you want to make mealtime simple.

Bean Soup Recipe

I could go on and on about how much I love slow cookers. We stay busy around here and using them makes dinner time easier and we don’t have to race around and grab food on the go.

We received the ham from some sweet friends for the holidays, so we froze it and cooked it a few months later.

The next day, we took the remainder of the ham and the bone and added it to some beans for a fantastic meal that stretched for a couple more days.

Using leftover holiday ham is a great way to make dinner without having to go out and buy more food to make the beans recipe.

What Ingredients Are Needed For Slow Cooker Beans and Ham?

Full printable recipe with measurements and instructions are listed at the end of the post in the recipe card.

• Navy beans (dry beans)
• Minced garlic
• Diced onions
• Salt
• Black pepper
• Parsley
• Cooked ham and ham hock
• Baby carrots
• Chicken broth or chicken stock
• Water

Step-By-Step Instructions

Grab the beans and rinse them off. Look for any rocks or any debris that might be in the package and throw those away.

It seems funny to say look for rocks, but it’s true, they can sometimes get in there.

You do not need to soak the beans the night before. They will cook up nice and soft in the slow cooker.

That’s one of the things I like about this recipe–it’s a great way to get soft beans without all the work.

Next, pour the beans into the slow cooker and add the cooked ham and ham bone.

If you don’t have any leftover ham, you can buy it in the meat department.

Sprinkle the dried parsley, salt, and black pepper over the top.

You can use either fresh parsley if you have it, or dried will work just as well.

Optional seasonings to add to the soup

• Chili powder
• Thyme
• Cumin
• Crushed red peppers
• Bay leaves
• Ranch dried seasoning packet

Add the diced onions and minced garlic to the Crock Pot.

I buy pre-minced garlic in a small jar at the grocery store and keep it in the refrigerator, which helps cut down on prep time.

Pour the chicken broth into the cooker. I try to pour the broth over all of the ingredients to get it all covered.

If you have some carrots or celery, you can add it now.

I used carrots, but I forgot to put them in when I started it. I remembered about an hour into the cooking time and added them.

Lastly, pour the water over the ingredients and give everything a little stir.

Place the lid on the cooker and cook on low heat for eight hours of cooking time.

After the food finishes cooking, give everything a stir. The beans should be nice and soft and the ham should fall right off the bone. It gets super tender during the cooking process.

I used the spoon to find the bone. The meat slid right off the bone and I took it out and threw it away.

If you don’t have bone, that’s ok. Bone just adds quite a bit of flavor to the dish, and it’s so good for you to have it cooking in the ham soup because of all the nutrients.

We made some moist Jiffy homemade cornbread to serve with the soup. This cornbread recipe is one of the reader’s favorite recipes on the blog.

Easy dinner recipes:

• Easy slow cooker chicken and gravy
• One pot copycat Hamburger Helper beef pasta
• Slow cooker ranch pork chops
• Crock Pot sausage and peppers
• Easy slow cooker pulled pork BBQ
• And a fresh and green side dish from Southern Home Express, easy broccoli slaw recipe

How do you thicken ham and beans?

You can easily add some cornstarch to the recipe toward the end of the cooking process and it will help thicken the soup. Add some of the liquid to a bowl, add one to two tablespoons of cornstarch, mix, and add back to the ham and bean soup.

Can great northern beans be substituted for navy beans?

Both types of beans are very similar, so you can use either type in the soup.