Skip the can – this Homemade Bean and Bacon Soup is hearty and filling and filled with veggies and chunks of bacon!
Growing up, Sundays were always the same. If we had morning church, we would come home from church, and lunch would be soup and sandwiches. I don’t remember ever having anything but soup and sandwiches for lunch on Sundays.
My mom would heat up several different kinds of canned soup, then make up a bunch of peanut butter sandwiches. We are a family that likes to dip, and peanut butter sandwiches got dipped into the soup. So the majority of the sandwiches were just peanut butter, but there were always some with peanut butter and honey. (And for the record – I must have always loved the sweet and salty combination, because to this day, I love a peanut butter and honey sandwich dipped into my soup!)
One of my favorites on those Sunday afternoons was the bean with bacon soup. I don’t know why I loved it so much, but I would always choose it over the chicken noodle or split pea with ham.
Well, my daughter has this love of soup. She would probably eat homemade soup every day if I made it for her, but since that’s just not possible 🙂 we always have a few cans of chicken noodle soup on hand. That girl can eat an entire can of soup for lunch herself.
One day, at the grocery store, I was letting her choose out a few cans of soup. And there I saw it – the Bean with Bacon soup. I decided to buy a can to have on hand for if I ever wanted to eat it for lunch.
Fast forward a few weeks, and my daughter gets home from school, asking for soup for lunch. I go to the pantry, and not a can of her beloved chicken noodle soup left. She sees my can of Bean and Bacon soup, and asks for it. I begrudgingly say yes.
And then she only eats like 2 bites of the soup. After she left the table, I decide to eat a bowl of it for lunch since it was already open and out.
And I ate about 2 bites of it and was done.
I don’t know if my tastebuds have just grown up, or what, but I did not like it. It tasted overwhelmingly of smoke, and not like real smoke. Like liquid smoke.
I was sad, but only for a minute. Because right then, I decided that I needed to make a homemade bean and bacon soup – with flavor from real smoked bacon.
One eye opener for me when I visited the Culinary Institute of America with Jones Dairy Farm last year was that a lot of companies use liquid smoke to flavor their meats and bacon. I felt duped. When something says smoked, I’m thinking it’s actually spent some time in a smoker, but that isn’t always the case.
For my soup, I knew I wanted actual smoked bacon, not liquid smoke or bacon that had been flavored with liquid smoke. So naturally, I chose my favorite Jones Dairy Farm bacon – their Dry Aged Cherrywood Smoked Bacon. I’ve said it here a thousand times before, but no other bacon compares to this bacon in my eyes.
After choosing the perfect bacon, the rest was pretty easy. Some beans, veggies and chicken broth are cooked together. Half of the mixture is pureed to give you that thick, creamy texture. Add in some tomato sauce and stir in the bacon – it’s the soup that blows that soup of my childhood out of the water. Seriously – this bean and bacon soup was so good – there will be no more cans of soup in my future!
WATCH HOW TO MAKE THIS HOMEMADE BEAN AND BACON SOUP BELOW!
3cans15 oz each Great Northern beans, drained and rinsed
salt and pepper
1can8 oz tomato sauce
Instructions
Cook the bacon in a soup pot or Dutch oven until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon to a paper towel lined plate. Discard all but about 2 tablespoons of the bacon grease.
To the hot bacon grease, add the onions, carrots and celery. Cook over medium heat until they start to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook an additional minute. Stir in the chicken broth and beans. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Bring to a bubble then reduce the heat to low and let the soup simmer for 1 hour.
Remove half of the soup to a blender or food processor. Process until smooth. Return the puree to the soup pot and stir into the remaining soup. Add the tomato sauce and 3/4 of the reserved bacon and stir to combine. Taste and season to taste with salt and pepper. Let the soup simmer until it is heated through, about 5 minutes. Serve topped with the remaining bacon.
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I am in a working relationship with Jones Dairy Farm, and this post has been sponsored. I’m so glad to be able to work with companies and organizations that I truly believe in. Thank you for supporting them, too.
Pureeing half of the beans will make the bean soup thick and creamy. You could also make a cornstarch slurry of cornstarch and broth or water and add a little at a time until the thickness is how you want it.
What's the difference between Soup Beans and bean soup? The differences lie in the ingredients and the texture. Soup beans are beans that are slowly simmered in water for a couple of hours until they're soft and tender. The beans are flavored with ham, onion and garlic.
Rice, lentils, and beans release a lot of starch and naturally thicken soups simply from simmering, but you can also mash half the cooked rice/lentils/beans before adding to the soup for a simple way to thicken your dish. Alternatively, blend half or all of the soup for a smoother texture.
Yes.Incredibly effective?You bet. This trick works because the instant mashed potatoes are naturally starchy and therefore are similar in form to other commonly used thickeners, such as cornstarch, only without the clumps.
You can give your soup more heft as well as a thicker texture by adding one of these starchy ingredients: Add a can of lentils or cannellini beans, mashing about half before you mix it in.
The navy bean, haricot bean, pearl haricot bean, Boston bean, white pea bean, or pea bean is a variety of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) native to the Americas, where it was first domesticated. It is a dry white bean that is smaller than many other types of white beans, and has an oval, slightly flattened shape.
Canned beans that are simply beans (no sodium, sugar, or other harmful ingredients added) are a superbly healthy food choice. And do keep eating your beans, also called legumes, such as garbanzos (chickpeas), pintos, black beans, red beans, lentils, soybeans, and split peas.
"The difference between the two rests primarily with the heartiness of the cannellini over the northern," explains Vince Hayward, the president of Camellia Brand beans. "Because of the thicker skin, and slightly bolder bean taste, the cannellini lends itself better towards soups and stews," Hayward adds.
When cooking with kidney beans, many chefs will go straight from the jar to the pot, keeping the liquid with the beans to cook together. Great Northern and black beans are usually on the other end of the spectrum, with chefs choosing to drain and rinse the majority of the times they cook with them.
Soaking dried beans helps shorten the actually cooking time because it helps break down the complex starches and fibers that dry beans possess. Which is great if it's easy enough for you to remember to cover those beans with water and let them sit overnight while you're sleeping.
If a soup is tasting bland in the bowl, consider adding acid rather than salt. A squeeze of lemon or lime, or a dash of yogurt or sour cream can add brightness to the bowl.
About this method: One of the most common ways to thicken sauces and soups is with a starch-based slurry, and cornstarch is a popular choice. Cornstarch is flavorless, easy to mix up, and versatile, which makes it a go-to pantry ingredient.
One of the simplest ways to thicken up your ham and bean soup is by adding more beans. The beans will naturally release starch as they cook, which will help to thicken the soup. You can either mash a portion of the cooked beans with a fork or blend them in a food processor before adding them back to the soup.
Adding/mixing water in the soup makes the soup less thick. (discrepencies apply. You could use more vegetables/fruits/ingredients with water in them in your soup or just plain ol' pour in water, though ratio applies. Some ingredients have more water than others.
You can add a pinch of flour to thicken the sauce. Drain the cooked beans retaining the liquid. Put the liquid in a separate pot and boil it down to the desired thickness.
Introduction: My name is Corie Satterfield, I am a fancy, perfect, spotless, quaint, fantastic, funny, lucky person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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