I like bean soup. Here is my personal recipe. Begin post now…
~giggles~ Just kidding. Y’all know I can’t bring you a recipe without talking your ear off first! Senate Bean soup is a big old tradition in D.C. that has been served in the Senate restaurant every day. By the way, where IS the Senate restaurant and how do I get to eat there on my next trip to D.C.?
So anyway, the recipe is all over the place and several restaurants proudly serve Senate bean soup on their menu. It’ s a famous soup that is flavorful, filling, and comforting. But in my mind, it needed to be made a bit more accessible for folks who don’t have all day to cook their beans or forget to soak them the night before (my most common problem). So I developed my own shortcut recipe and sent it to the ultimate judge: Mama.
Mama loved it. Grandmama loved it. Daddy loved it, and I Loved it. That about sums it up so here we go… (my tangent appears on down in this post)
Normally the recipe calls for dried beans, cooked from scratch. While I’m a huge fan of dried beans, I wanted to re-do this soup so that someone could work all day and then come home and be able to whip it up for supper, so I used canned beans.
You’ll need: 4 cans Navy beans, minced garlic, one onion, stick of butter or margarine, four chicken bullion cubes, 3 stalks celery, and some ham hocks*.
You can use any leftover ham you have, though. I like the smoky flavor the ham hocks give this soup but if I’d had leftover ham I would have used it instead. I love using up leftovers!
*Ham Hocks may be purchased near the hams. They are usually two or three dollars for a couple of them.
You’re also going to need instant mashed potatoes.
Now y’all know my take on these. I didn’t even know such a thing existed until I was sixteen. I was invited to dinner at a friend’s house and her mom sent me into the pantry to get the potatoes. I went in there and looked all over the place trying to find the bag of potatoes and came out empty handed. She walked right in there and came out with a box. A box? I had to have that one explained to me and then went home and explained it to Mama! I love pretty much anything that makes life easier but reserve instant potatoes for use as soup thickeners.
Don’t get me wrong, if instant potatoes are your thing then fly your flag high and I’ll salute it.
Long as no one tries to get me to eat seafood I can easily live in peace with instant potatoes and folks who put sugar in their cornbread.
Whatever cranks yer tractor.
Okie dokie so here’s what I did. I put my ham hocks (which are already smoked) in some water, added my bullion cubes, and turned the eye on to let them simmer and soften up a bit so I can cut the meat off of them. *We only use smoked turkey legs now as we no longer eat pork but the turkey legs work great! Use on in place of these pictured.
The ham hocks turkey legs are also going to add that yummy smoky flavor to the water which will make it richer along with the bullion cubes.
I tend to use bullion cubes a lot because they are so much cheaper than broth. I buy a big old thang of ’em at Sam’s Club when I have a membership (which I do right now) and when I don’t I just go and stand outside the door of Sam’s in a trench coat and fedora and wait until some young and trusting college student comes by and give ’em a whistle “Psst. Hey kid…” ~pulls out a crisp ten dollar bill and waves it enticingly~ “look kid, I need somethin’…reckon you could help a gal out?” This is the part where I either smile sweetly or squint my eyes in a threatening fashion … depending on their response thus far.
I have a bit too vivid of an imagination, I know. So if I need bullion cubes and don’t have a membership at the time, I just ask Mama to get them for me. Sometimes I even break down and pay double at the grocery store. Still cheaper than broth.
So my point is the first thing you need to do is cook your hamhocks.
Put a lid on that pot and let them simmer while you do do everything else, preferably about thirty minutes or so.
Then melt a stick of butter or margarine in a skillet. I’m using real butter, shocking I know.
It was leftover from one of the photo shoots for the cookbook. Y’all aren’t going to believe this but..
~leans in and widens her eyes to tell a story she still can’t believe~
When I signed on for this cookbook deal, I thought I’d have to make every one of the dishes to be photographed. I talked to the photographer and she set shoot dates and such I was thinking “How am I going to make sixty or seventy things in two days and NOT look like death warmed over in these photographs taken on the same days?”. Me and Mama had a time trying to turn that one over and come up with a way because lets face it, at the end of the day when I put supper on the table, I’m not exactly looking my best.
Well guess what? I was introduced to the wonderful world of “food stylists”. ~blinks and nods~
Seriously, I had no idea what that was, either. I pictured my food wearing feather boas and sashaying down some runway amid camera flashes and reporters feverishly scribbling notes about how the gravy glistened but didn’t quite form itself to the biscuits like it did last year…
Okay so if y’all ever write a cookbook here’s what you need to know. A food stylist shows up at your house with boxes and boxes and boxes. Boxes of wonderful things. Plates, ingredients, and…food. Already cooked. Already prepared. It’s kind of like Mary Poppins (which is what we’ll call her as I’m unable to give her real name for fear she will be kidnapped once folks know about her magical powers). Remember when Mary put that bag on the table and then started pulling out lamps and furniture and all of these things out of it?
POOF there’s a cake! Poof! There’s caramel corn. POOF! There’s my grandmother’s chocolate pie! (Wait til I tell you what a Prop Stylist does!)
My eyes just about bugged right out of my head and I was trying to be all nonchalant – like people walked in my house everyday and produced perfectly presented pies and cakes and such right there in the middle of my kitchen.
Meanwhile my husband and kids kept coming in and whispering “Are we gonna get to eat that? Do you think they’ll let us have some?” Their eyes were every bit as big as mine but they hadn’t gotten the memo on how we were going to try to pretend we weren’t the Beverly Hillbillies and Mary Poppins hadn’t just unveiled our new cement pond.
And let me tell ya (by the way, on Southern Plate, it is perfectly acceptable to begin a sentence with “and”), when I say they were whispering, I want you to know that I have failed miserably in teaching a single person in my household the correct volume of a whisper. My husband has one of those voices that sounds to me like he is yelling all of the time and so as a result my kids inside voices SOUND LIKE THIS EVERY TIME THEY TALK.
~blinks~
I had a point here…
Oh yeah, Mary Poppins also brought all sorts of yummy ingredients in case she needed them during the course of the shoot. You know, sometimes you just wanna whip up a meringue or make a custard on a whim and while I truly believe (after what I’ve seen) that she could do so with just a snap of her fingers, she needed to have the proper ingredients to put on the counter so she could wiggle her nose and make them poof into whatever it was she desired at the moment.
Sidenote: Yes, my family did get to eat all of that food.
So…when she left, everything hopped back into her magic bag EXCEPT…
FOUR BOXES OF REAL BUTTER.
When I opened my fridge I was kind of surprised. You see, butter is expensive. It’s like…$3.00 a box! I almost turned tail and ran out into the road to call for her on the off chance that she wasn’t already halfway to Birmingham. But they had left long ago (by the way, on Southern Plate, it is perfectly acceptable to begin a sentence with “but” as well) and I knew it was too late.
So I closed the fridge. I left the kitchen. I thought about all of that butter.
I lasted all of one hour before pulling out two sticks and baking something.
I baked and baked and baked and baked. I even softened a stick and smeared some on Saltine crackers for me and the kids. My husband turned up his nose at the saltine but I explained to him “it’s real butter…you’ve got to try it.” and he ate it, not quite getting the significance but knowing it would shut me up – one of his primary motivations for doing most things, I think.
We ate butter, y’all. ~sighs~ and it was sublime.
And after a while, I only had one stick left.
And so I put it in this soup. For y’all. Because I love you and I want you to eat butter, too.
But you know..the thing that gets me is that…~sighs heavily and hangs her head~ Margarine is currently .60 a box and butter is about $3.00.
I know, I know, I know.
How about I compromise and buy butter on occasion? I just can’t bring myself to do it every day.
So chop your celery and onions and add that to your melted butter (or margarine) along with the minced garlic.
and cook it until it is browned a bit.
Then take your turkey legs out of the pot and let them cool a bit before cutting off the meat and chopping it into little bits.
Now we’re gonna use those instant taters…
Add a cup of instant potatoes to the broth you cooked the ham hocks in.
Stir that up. This is going to give your soup lots of body.
Add your cans of beans, liquid included.
Stir that up, too.
Add your veggies, butter and all.
~lip quivers as she thinks on her last stick of butter~
Stirry stirry.
Add your ham.
(pretend you see a picture of me adding ham)
Add your salt.
Add your pepper.
Stir all of that up and simmer for about half an hour or so.
BUT if you want, you can just cook it until its heated all the way and then serve it.
Ain’t no food police here.
Serve with Jordan rolls.
This freezes VERY well. I took my leftovers and put them in a mason jar, leaving plenty of head space, and froze it to eat later.
“Later” ended up being the very next day but still…
Ingredients
- 4 cans Navy Beans undrained
- 3 stalks celery chopped
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 1 onion chopped
- 4 bullion cubes
- 1 smoked turkey leg
- 1 C instant mashed potato flakes
- Stick margarine or butter 1/2 C
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
Instructions
- Place bullion cubes in pot with six cups water. Add turkey leg. Cover and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer thirty minutes.
- Place butter in large skillet over medium heat. Add onion, celery, and garlic. Saute until lightly browned.
- Remove turkey leg from broth and dice up when cool. Add instant potatoes to broth and stir. Add onion mixture, beans, and diced turkey. Stir in salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, and reduce heat to simmer for thirty minutes before serving.
Write your sorrows in sand and your your blessings in stone.
Submitted by Mary. Submit your quote here.
Yum 
CHRISTY
I MAKE A BEAN SOUP LIKE THIS ONE AND I PUT CARROTS IN MY SOUP AND I USE DRIED LIMA BEAN THE LITTLE ONES. WE CALL THEM DRIED BUTTERBEANS THOUGH. I USE BAKED LEFTOVER HAM AND IT IS SOO GOOD ON A COLD MISSISSIPPI NIGHT. I WILL TRY THIS. I HAVE THE TIME TO SOAK MY BEANS OVERNIGHT WHEN I REMEMBER LOL.
THERESA
I am so happy for you about your book. I can’t wait until I can get my own copy. Get off cloud 1 and go up where you belong.
I love my butter too but I have it all the time. In 1980 I had to have stomach surgery and for 3 VERY LONG years I lived almost only on soup. The first year was only broth. Then my stomach could handle easy to digest things like noodles, bread, and crackers. And then I found I could handle butter. Couldn’t handle veggies yet but I could enjoy noodle soup. So I would put butter on bread and saltines. I decided that if I could have so few things I would get the most flavorful. That’s when butter entered the picture. I don’t always cook with it unless you can really taste the difference. But, (and yes, I agree it is ok to start a sentence with) I love it on toast, rolls, and saltines. Still can’t eat many things but I can enjoy a lot more than in those first years.
By the way, I do still love soup even though I thought I would hate it forever.
Christy,I love this soup and your story as well! Think I’ll have to go borrow the Mary Poppins movie from the library…have not watched it in ages!
Have to say..love me some butter!
Bountiful Blessings!
LOVE THIS POST! And (heehee)I can’t wait to try this bean soup!The Jordan Rolls ingredients are on my grocery list…..get ready YEAST..i’ma comin’for ya!I ain’t skeered no more!
I thought I was the only one who ate crackers and butter. They gave me the girlish figure I have today…..lol.
You are a funny and amazing woman….Thank you for all you do!
It sounds delicious. I had it with my mom in the basement of the Senate when she took me and my sister to Washington D.C. I do have to say that “Ham Hocks” ingredient scares me.
Girrrrl, you gotta try beans with ham hocks cooked in ’em!
The best best best best beans always have a hambone cooked in the water with them for flavor. ham hocks are an inexpensive way to get that smoky flavor in the broth and then have the bits of ham you can pull off of them.
yummmmm!
P.S. If you come to my house to eat this, I’ll just hide the ham hock bones before you get here and we’ll pretend I didn’t use them 🙂
I took part of my Christmas hambone (which I froze), threw it in the slow cooker with a bag o’ Navy beans (washed and picked out the bad ones, of course) and 2 teaspoons of salt. Turned the “low” and left for the day. Returned 8 hours later, made cornbread with bacon grease…sliced with a pat of real butter…all delicious and oh-so-easy. I did mash some beans to make it a tiny bit thicker.
I was reading the comments on a myrecipes.com recipe and someone wrote “You still use hydrogenated transfats (AKA shortening)? I only use butter.” Snooty. But I have to have real butter on my cornbread and toast. Buy it on sale and keep it in the freezer. (wink)
check out walmart brand butter- we’re only paying $1.50 a box- and it’s JUST FINE!!!
i grew up with butter for baking and cooking, and i’ll shortcut sometimes, but it does make a difference in some recipes!
This recipe sounds soooooo good…now hash up and pass me some of them beans…! 😉
Which one of you southern gals has the recipe for panfried gravy, like Crackerbarrel makes? I love it. I don’t want any sausage drippings in it. In West Virginia, they made it with water, not milk. We don’t drink or use cow’s milk, but use rice milk. And can it be made with whole wheat flour instead of white? Have any of you experimented to get a good, healthy gravy? I eat meat, but don’t want it in my gravy. Can anyone help?
I’m afraid “healthy gravy” may be an oxymoron.
We drive old cars, buy store-brand of most products, eat out a couple of times a year, even buy some of our clothes at GoodWill, but I always use real butter. Some things are just required!
Made the bean soup tonight and it was absolutly de-vine……It made so much I’m sharing w/sis and her family and enough for me to eat it again…of course had to make cornbread and thats a meal..fit for a king or queen. Love you posts and share your recipes w/everyone…
LOL@ your husband who can’t whisper!! That is my husband to a “T”!
He is so loud because he grew up living with his mamam and grandparents who were ALL hard of hearing. I tell him he doesn’t know how to whisper, but bless his heart, he is trying to learn! 😉
And I love me some real butter too. I do still buy margarine – in a tub – but I only use it when I need butter to be SPREADABLE. So it gets used for grilled cheese or toast, but that’s pretty much it. I grew up on margarine, and didn’t think real butter was “all that” until I was grown. I always buy the store brand though, except the rare occassion when the name brand is on sale for cheaper. But I will heartily agree with you on the instant potato thing! 🙂
I’m eagerly awaiting your cookbook too! I’ve tried several of your recipes, but having a cookbook in hand to use, I’d probably try dang near every one of ’em! Oh, and I added the cream of chicken soup to my chicken and dumplings last week, which I’d never done before, and I really did like the difference it made! Our recipes were pretty much identical except for that. Now, they will be the same! 🙂
I made this Sunday night, and had just enough for leftovers last night. It sure was good! 🙂 My oldest went on and on about it, and wanted me to make it again tonight. LOL!
I, too, wouldn’t mind adding some finely chopped carrots to this. And I love ham hocks in beans, but I wouldn’t be adverse to a hambone with a bit of meat left on it for the meat in here, and a couple of hocks just for flavor. ‘Cause you just can’t get much meat off of ’em! I’ve always put them in my crock pot beans and the meat just falls off, but it was quite a lot of work to cut them up!
Thanks for another great recipe Christy!
Hey Christy, Got a easy recipe for you that, you will love instant mashed potato. Buy the kind that are flavored I find in a bag there are different flavors like four cheese and garlic flavor that I can think of. What you do is get pieces of chicken like drumsticks and thigh put on a baking sheet put a few spices and then sprinkle with the potato flakes I coat the chicken with the stuff. Then just bake till crispy and brown. It’s a favorite at our house. (*:
HI CHRISTY,
I HAVE BEEN LOOKING AT SOUTHERN PLATE NOW FOR SEVERAL MONTHS AND HAVE ENJOYED YOUR HUMOR AND RECIPES. I TRIED SENATE BEAN SOUP THIS WEEKEND, BUT WITH JUST A FEW CHANGES —I USED DRIED, BUT WELCOME THE CHANCE TO MAKE SENATE BEAN SOUP WITH CANNED BEANS- I ALSO JUST USED A HAM BONE THAT HAD A FAIR AMOUNT OF HAM STILL LEFT ON IT INSTEAD OF HAM HOCKS—IT WAS WONDERFUL.
MY WHOLE FAMILY LOVED IT. THANKS. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
BEST SOUP I EVER MADE!! Made some Mexican cornbread to go with it! Everyone loved it! It went especially wonderful with this past weekend’s cold weather. Thanks, keep those recipes coming! Can’t wait for the new cookbook. The back of my SP cookbook is full of recipes I have printed off my computer.
You’re so comical!! I love it! Thanks for the recipe…I plan on using it soon! By the way…crazy about your site.
Haven’t tried the bean soup yet, but it looks delish, and I will. I just wanted to tell you that I tell everyone I get a chance about your site and give them the address. Sometimes it is a complete stranger–well, several times–it makes me feel good to be able to share something I know is southern and wonderful. Thank you for the posts and the recipes. By the way, I made the Elvis Presley cake–didn’t have vanilla pudding mix so I used lemon flavored which I did have. Later I made one with vanilla pudding mix and found the lemon flavor made a big difference–much better.(my taste tester) Hope you have a great day.
Made the soup and my husband says it’s a keeper, very good and easy. I also added carrots, this time I used leftover carrots from a roast I had on Sunday night before serving so they’d get hot. I try not to waste leftovers. Kroger didn’t have any ham hocks, neither did Ingles, Publix did but they were pricey $8.79 for 4, wouldn’t go that route so I purchased a package of smoked cubed ham for $2.29 at Kroger’s (it was on the way home, 2 min.from Publix).I thought I was the only one that did the instant potato thing.haha
I’ve been cooking since I was 9, 57 years, but I still love learning new tricks and recipes. You have a multitude of talents and I always look forward to your emails. God bless you and your family!
Love the new makeover for SouthernPlate Christy *high five* and love the sound of this recipe I got so hungry just reading about it!
I just couldnt leave your web site prior to saying that I really enjoyed the high quality data you offer for your visitors. Will be back often to check up on new stuff in you post!
This is a really good recipe and I have made it often. I how ever add a diced or shredded carrot and it adds a little color and flavor.
Will have to make this and I use instant potatoes for just thickening too!
You know my dear MIl who was a fabulous cook used to keep a box of potato flakes on hand for the same reason, to use an emergency thickening.
this is the way I have been making my bean soup for years – exception
I add a bay leave (which I take out before serving) and 1 of the cans of beans has jalapenos in it. Or just add a bit of jalapeno to the pot. I also shred up a couple of carrots to add flavor and color. Plus if you have people who won’t eat their carrots, then they don’t even know they are in the soup.
Does that can of beans with the jalapeno peppers it it, make it really “hot” or just so that “it has a bit of Kick to it?” I make good bean soup but start with dry northern beans that get soaked overnight or at least 4 hrs. washed after that several time, use a 46 oz. can of tomato juice, chopped onion and let it cook down till the beans are tender. Before ready t to serve, I chopped up several hard boiled eggs in it about 15 min. before and it not only thickens the soup but adds a wonderful flavor. One thing to note, don’t keep heating over with the egg white in it, as it will taste like rubber after heated over and over. I will add in piece of left over cooked ham to the bean soup as it cooks for flavor. Also add salt and pepper but watch the salt! You may not have to add any salt, depending on the saltiness of the ham.
Made these tonight and they were the best I have ever had! Hubby agreed even though I only had 2 cans of beans.. lol It was a little heavy on the ham and soup side! Next time I want to try it with 15bean mix. But then again, why mess with a good thing! Thank you for sharing this!
Christy, great recipe, I just made this last night and it was wonderful. And for all the folks who like doing things the easy way. Most grocery stores have a frozen chopped veggie mix called Mirepoix mix (its celery onions and carrots) that makes this recipe even easier!
Chris, I buy this also or else take a slow Sunday afternoon and using the food processor, chop up my mix and freeze it in plastic screw on top containers or double freezer bags, I’m like Christy… whatever is on hand. I haven’t chopped celery per recipe in don’t know when!
Sounds terrific! We’re going to make it at work for election day! How many servings does this recipe make?
I’m a little shocked here…you just know you could buy 4 bags of dried beans for what you just spent on those canned beans…LoL. I almost died when I saw that canned black eyed peas here are over $2 a can!
I love butter and we have to have it in the house all the time. I’ll give up anything but real butter…especially on toast or biscuits where the high water content in margarine makes the toast soggy. Now my significant other loves Brummel and Brown and will choose that over good butter for anything. I’m not sure whats wrong with him :0)
I normally go for the cheap but the canned is my shortcut here, allowing you to have this soup kinda last minute rather than having to plan. It’s one of those “I’m tired but I still want real food so I’ll spend two dollars more” meals. 🙂
I’ve had brummel and brown and it is pretty good. I like that Land O Lakes spreadable butter in a tub, too. I don’t usually eat toast because I try to stick to protein in the mornings so when I go for carbs I hit a whole wheat bagel with a hefty smear of cream cheese, yum! Back in my younger days I would have happily lived in buttered toast, with a little jelly from time to time for good measure 🙂
Ok now I’m hungry…
My husband and I worry about the salt and beans have a lot of salt as does ham. We can buy lower sodium ham at the meat counter and we usually drain the juice from beans. Might just cook beans from scratch. I sure wouldn’t add the extra salt with beans and ham as they would provide a lot of salt. I love soups and particularly bean soups. Thanks for the recipe. I have never used instant potatoes for thickening. Sounds good to me. Sure have trouble with husband’s food though as he is on dialysis and beans and potatoes have too much potassium for him. That is the pitts as he likes beans too. I may try it anyway with lower sodium items like the low sodium broth instead of bouillon. Do you use chicken or beef boullion? I really look for the low sodium broth or no salt added in beans, etc.
Yes, I found that the canned Navy beans were .89 a can!!! I bought dried, am cooking them now.
I just made this and it was delicious. When my husband and I got married, his granny gave the recipe for ham/bean soup that is very similiar to this. However, I loved the flavor of this. But my honey’s granny was a true lady(beautiful inside and out) and I enjoyed every moment I got to spend with her before she passed away. Thanks for bringing me good thoughts tonight!
I am so glad to hear that you liked it and that it brought you happy memories and thoughts to make you smile!
Such sweet thoughts. Was his granny’s recipe thickened with potato? I had tried some shrimp and corn chowder and I thought the broth tasted like it had some potato in it. It was delicious. I wondered how the broth was so good and I think I now know – potato soup and some squares of potato too.
I wonder if frozen corn is as good as fresh cut right off the cob.