Mom's Simple Navy Bean Soup

rockinred's Note:

My mother has made this very simple soup for years. It's just delicious!

• Total Time: 4 hrs 30 mins
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 4 hrs

Ingredients:

Servings: 6

• 1 (1 lb) bag dried navy beans
• 1 -2 chopped onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 -3 smoked ham hocks (Best results if you tie them into a large piece of cheesecloth)

Directions:

1. Pick over the beans, removing any small stones or beans that just don't look "right".
2. Cover the beans with water in a crockpot (this is usually 2-3 cups of water).
3. Now put the remaining ingredients in a soup pot or crockpot and simmer for another few hours.
4. Mom usually mashes a cup or two of the beans to thicken the soup, but you don't need to do this if you prefer a clear broth.
5. Remove the ham hocks and carefully pick apart, removing the tiny bits of meat from the bones.
6. Return the meat to the soup.
7. Throw out the bones, gristle and skin from the ham hocks.
8. If you've put the hocks in cheesecloth, it helps to keep the little bones that can resemble beans from making their way into the soup as the hocks tend to disintegrate during cooking.
9. If the soup has cooled considerably, get the heat back up and serve.

Reviews

[Time2Eat]

This is the one. My Mom also made this soup; usually for Sunday supper during the winter. We ate it with home baked bread. The only change I made to this was to add some celery and a bay leaf. I have been unable to find Navy beans in San Diego so I use Northern Beans. Thanks for posting this recipe.