Ham, Sweet Potato and White Bean Soup with Bacon {Slow Cooker}
Ingredients
- ½ cup diced yellow or white onion
- 2 cloves garlic, finely minced or pressed
- 2 cups cooked, diced ham (see note)
- 1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
- 1 pound dry white beans, like Great Northern, rinsed (see note)
- 1 ½ teaspoons paprika (see note)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 8 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 4-6 slices bacon or turkey bacon, diced
Instructions
- Combine all the ingredients except the bacon in a 5-quart slow cooker and cook on low for 8-9 hours (see the note about presoaking the dry beans).
- Carefully puree 1/2 to 3/4 of the soup in a blender (hot soups like to expand in the blender so only fill the blender halfway and process in batches, if needed). I don't love the idea of pureeing ham, call me crazy, so I tried my best to scoop out ladles of soup to blend that were free of ham. Alternately, you could use an immersion blender and get in there with it and go to town (leaving the soup with as much texture as you desire).
- Add additional salt and pepper to taste, if needed.
- Cook the bacon in a hot skillet until crisp; drain on paper towels. Serve the soup with crumbled bacon on top.
Notes
Smoky Flavor: if you want to up the smoky flavor of this delicious soup, sub in smoked paprika for the regular.
Beans: I've made this soup twice and the dry beans cooked perfectly tender without being presoaked, however, several people commented in this recipe that their beans weren't quite tender (especially those that live at high altitude) after slow cooking all day, so if that concerns you, soak the beans in cool water overnight before using in the recipe.
Ham: a recipe like this yields the perfect style of ham for this recipe; however, if you don't have any leftover ham, your neighborhood deli is a great place to buy - have them slice the ham thick so the dices of ham are chunky rather than thin.
Freezable: this cooked and cooled soup freezes magnificently.