Ham & Vegetable Soup is a stick to your ribs soup. Using a leftover ham bone and all the vegetables, this soup is perfect for a cold winter's day!

I can honestly say that before this soup, I had never had ham in a soup. I have never been a huge ham eater but had a real craving for it at Christmas time. Growing up, my family did not make the traditional Christmas Ham. My parents always made my brothers and my favorite foods for Christmas Eve dinner. My choice was always a creamy, buttery Fettuccini Alfredo. This is a tradition I would like to start with my boys!

When hosting Christmas dinner, I decided to go the traditional route and make the classic Christmas Ham. Now this blog post is not about the Christmas Ham, it is about soup. A little teaser, I will be sharing the ham recipe closer to Easter. It was THAT good.

Anyway, in all the chaos of the Christmas kitchen, my mom saved the ham bone. I never would have thought to save it and if she asked me, I would have told her to toss it. But she didn't ask me and I found it in my refrigerator the next morning. I threw the ham bone in the freezer and didn't think anything of it until it snowed a foot, and I realized it was the perfect time for a big, ol' pot of soup!

Let's Cook! Ham & Vegetable Soup

My original plan for this soup was to add pasta and maybe some cheese. I was going to make it a nice, carby soup version of my Ham & Cheese Sammies. Once I got cooking, I realized I wanted to keep the soup healthy (new year, new me) and it was so full of vegetables, there was no room for pasta!

Start by heating a large soup pot to medium heat. Add EVOO. Once EVOO is hot, add the onion, celery, and carrots. Sauté the vegetables until they are soft and the onion is translucent about 5 minutes. Add in minced garlic and stir until garlic is fragrant.

Season vegetables with dried oregano, dried sage and pepper. Stir to combine.

Add the ham bone, chicken broth, water and bay leaf to the soup pot. Turn heat up to high to bring to a boil.

Once boiling, turn heat down to low and place lid on top. Allow soup to simmer on the stove for an hour. If the ham bone is not completely covered by liquid, turn the ham bone to moisten all sides.

After an hour, remove the ham bone from the soup pot.

While the soup is simmering, add frozen peas.

Slice remaining ham off of ham bone and return to soup pot. Stir to combine.

That is it! This soup recipe is basic but provides so much flavor.

Ham Bone Alternatives

I will always save my ham bone after making this soup! I loved using every last bit of the ham.

If you don't have a ham bone on hand, you can purchase ham hocks from your local butcher shop or grocery store. While they have less meat on them, they will still provide great flavor.

You could also use leftover turkey legs. This will give the soup an entirely different flavor. If using turkey, I suggest adding salt to the soup and seasonings based on your flavor preferences.

Looking for a different soup recipe?!

Try one of these!