Using One Ham for Four Meals Part 3 & 4.
DISCLOSURE: As I was starting this post and collecting the images I wanted to use, I realized that having a 12 year old help take pictures is not a good idea. That being said, I apologize for my lack of ‘quality’ photos and honestly, the lack of photos of the process. The kid tried, what can I say!
At this point your ham should be quite a bit slimmer and likely only have a few slices of easily pulled off ham, similar looking to my ham.
This is our remaining ham after making both part 1 and part 2.
MMMM…. these are delicious and a crowd pleaser for sure!! My family LOVES them and we have to make two pans at a time. Visit, The Girl Who Ate Everything for the recipe!
Photo From: The Girl Who Ate Everything.
You have a few choices as to your final meals:
You can freeze the remaining cooked ham in covered airtight containers, heavy-duty freezer bags or tightly wrapped aluminum foil. If you have now cooked ham two days in a row and you are going for your third and fourth day of ham your family is close to being hammed out! Freezing the remainder for another day might be just the trick!
We use our third meal which, sometimes isn’t a dinner, in our breakfast sandwiches omitting the bacon or sausage and replacing with a slice of ham. We also make warm ham and swiss sliders… these little guys are sooo good and a favorite in our family. (See the image on the left for recipe details)
For our forth meal the ham should be free of pre-cut slices and you are left with chunks of ham still on the bone, this is the time for soup. If you have quite a bit of ham left on the bone we love using our slow cooker for ham and potato soup. You can head over to Dinner then Dessert for a recipe. One note, you don’t have to buy the ham cubed as her recipe says. Remove any easily peeled away ham from the bone and cube. You can also slow cook your ham bone overnight allowing any ham chunks to release from the bone making it easy for you to add to this soup. Use the ham broth from the overnight slow cook as your broth for the soup!
Today, we are going to talk about ham and bean soup. The simplest soup we make at our home and the perfect soup when I have minimal ham left on the ham bone.
First, get out that crockpot or Insta-pot.
Place your ham bone and chunks into the pot and then fill the pot three-fourths full with water.
Add dried Great Northern Beans. The amount of beans is up to you. We add the entire 1lb bag. The beans will expand by soaking in the moisture as the cooking process commences.
Seasoning is up to you as are any additional add-ons such as a bag of frozen vegetables or maybe you would like to add fresh celery and carrots. My husband is pretty much a ham and bean guy. No extras outside of a sautéed onion, the ham and the beans. I do add salt/pepper and a bay leaf or two. You can slow cook this overnight or start early in the morning. This will take a full 8 hours or a little more, to cook the beans through and allow the water and beans to soak in all that ham flavor.
After your soup is finished I remove the bone and peel any remaining pieces of ham off and add back to the soup. At this point your ham bone should be pretty much all bone and ready for the discard pile.
We also love to pair this soup with a cast iron cornbread or a baguette. If I could figure out the recipe for Panera’s Whole-Grain baguettes they would go beautifully with this soup.
Before the 8 hour slow cook process begins.
The final product. Also, not our picture but, a duplicate of what our soup looks like when it is done. The recipe at 4 Sons R’ Us is almost a duplicate of ours.
I hope you have enjoyed our last three blogs using a single ham over several meals. Utilizing a single ham or turkey is always a favorite of mine as it gives me easy pre-determined meals for at least 3-4 days. I will be posting recipes using a whole turkey in the near future however, I will be utilizing a lot of our fresh vegetables that are starting to be harvested as future recipes.
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