There is nothing better than putting your hands around a warm bowl of soup and enjoying it with your whole family around the table. Especially a soup that takes little effort, has FOUR ingredients, and tastes amazing (bonus points that the kids ask for seconds and thirds!).
Contributing post from Kayla @ Time Redone
This Ham and Pinto Bean Soup is a recipe my husband’s grandmother has made for years and that every time we eat it, takes my husband back to his grandparents’ ranch in Colorado. I love that food can bring back cherished memories and stories for us to share with our children. They love getting to hear about the ranch and all of the adventures their daddy had visiting there while growing up.
Since we found ourselves making this recipe often, we adapted it for the crockpot instead of the stovetop for simplicity while we were at work or out on our own adventures with our kids. When I say this is an easy recipe, I’m not exaggerating one bit. In fact, our 6 year old has mastered the prep of this recipe by this point.
I hope this Crockpot Ham and Pinto Bean Soup is one that you can share your own stories over!
Crockpot Ham and Pinto Bean Soup
Yield: 6 servings 1x
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Serve with crusty bread, a salad, and stories from the adventures of your days.
Ingredients
- 1 pound dried pinto beans
- 1.5 pound bone-in ham shank
- 3/4 cup ketchup
- Water
- Salt, to taste
Directions
- The night before cooking, place beans in the crockpot and cover with about 8 cups of water. Let sit overnight. (Do not turn the crockpot on.)
- In the morning, add ham shank. Add additional water to cover the ham shank, if necessary.
- Cover and cook on “high” for 5-6 hours, “low” for 8 hours, or until beans split.
- Remove ham, shred off of bone, and return shredded meat to crockpot.
- Stir in ketchup and add salt to taste (The amount of salt needed depends on the cut of ham. The last time I made this, I added 1/2 teaspoon.).
Thoughts or questions? Please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you.
Hi! I’m Kayla. I’m wife to a time traveling superhero (aka an airline pilot) and mom to three amazing, adventuring little girls. I am a coffee loving runner, a wannabe baker, and a passionate maternal health advocate. I am a creative doer, a lover of the great outdoors, and always game for a new adventure. I am passionate about saving time and helping others do the same! Come and visit me at TimeRedone.
I make a version of this as well with a ham hock and serve it over cornbread! Its so easy and so filling! Cant wait to try it with the ham shank!
Do you drain the water from the beans in the morning? If you don’t, do the beans make you ‘gassy’?
Never heard of adding the ketchup. I will try next time.
You don’t drain them. From what I’ve read online, draining the water will make the soup much more bland. I don’t think it affects digestion, but I’m not an expert.
You should drain the water and add clean water before cooking. I’ve done this for the last 20 years when cooking beans.
My uncle always put chunks of canned pineapple in his beans when cooking. He took the pineapple chunks out before he served the beans. He said that it made the beans less “gassy”. I’ve always added pineapple. It doesn’t really affect the taste either.
lol – My grandmother use to say she put pineapple in her bean soup so she would her the sound of Hawaiian music. lol.
I’ve also heard it helps to add a couple chunks of potato in it to help with making the beans less gassy. But make sure and take out the potato before you serve!! Lol
Never heard of that before but, worth a try. It doesn’t take potatoes long to cook. The potatoes will be mush before the beans are finished cooking. Would you remove the potatoes before they fall apart?
I try to keep Beano around and take before I eat my beans.
SO GOOD!!! I just made a batch today, just ate a bowl, using the bone from our New Year’s ham. I was doubtful about the ketchup, but it WORKED. Keeper of a recipe. I put cornbread in my soup like a good Alabama girl but the family will eat theirs on the side 🙂
Has anyone used a honey cinnamon ham in their beans? I’m in the process of cooking now and not sure if I like it. Ideas to cut the sweet and cinnamon?
Kelly, you could try tomato sauce instead of the ketchup…that way you wouldn’t be ADDING any sugar to the honey cinnamon ham…just a thought.
This bean eater does not care for sugar cured for beans. Smoked is only way to go. The sugar makes the bead sweet….
Yuck!
I have some in the crock pot now. They’ve been cooking for at lease 5 hours and they’re just now beginning to soften a bit (and they’re on HIGH). I just added some ham we had left over from New Years Day. Not a shank just chucks my husband cut off. How long I gotta cook these bad boys?
If the ham is already cooked, you really just need to warm it up.
How differently did your beans taste with the ketchup added? I will try this. I am the only one eating beans anyway.
My mother put a teaspoon of baking soda in a pot of beans takes the gas out and makes broth deep rich looking color.
My grandmother and mother and I have always added baking soda to our beans also. Whether it decreases the amount of gas we get from the beans, I don’t know. It doesn’t make a difference in taste. But, we’ve also added some chopped up onions once they’re on the stove, served with Jiffy cornbread, more sliced onions, and sometimes some fried potatoes. We’ve pretty much cut out the fried potatoes lately, but the cornbread remains a sure staple. I can’t wait to try the addition of ketchup. Looking forward to tasting it. One of my very favorite meals all year… Read more »
My mother in law always brought her beans to a boil first. Then she added 1 tablespoon of baking soda to the boiling beans and cooked for about 5 minutes. Gas bubbles and greenish color emerged . She then drained and rinsed them off and proceeded to cook the beans. She never soaked them over night.
Question: Cooking her beans this way, did they stop making you gassy?