This Slow Cooker Bean and Bacon Soup will hit the spot! Tender beans and bacon slow-cooked to perfection.
I also have a pinto bean and bacon soup that is very similar to this recipe! You should try both and let me know what you think.
The recipe for Slow Cooker Bean and Bacon Soup is very similar to Bean and Ham Soup but with bacon. I thought for a second to leave out the ham hock; could there be too much pork flavor? Nope. I’m glad used a ham hock. It gave the soup a perfect smoky flavor.
I also decided to try fresh tomatoes instead of canned for this soup and those turned out better than canned. The soup has a little prep work like soaking the beans, frying bacon and chopping vegetables. But really not too bad for homemade comforting soup!
I also wanted to mention to not forget cornbread and butter. The sweet cornbread and butter complement the smoky soup just right!
Here are my other favorite bean recipes:
- Slow Cooker Italian Bean Soup
- Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup
- Slow Cooker Taco 15 Bean Soup
- Slow Cooker Ham and Beans
- Slow Cooker Refried Beans
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Slow Cooker Bean and Bacon Soup
Equipment Needed:
- Slow Cooker- 6 quart or larger
Ingredients:
- 1 lb. dried small white beans
- 6 cups water
- 3 chicken bouillon cubes
- 1/2 cup diced white onion
- 3 Roma Tomatoes diced
- 2 carrots peeled and chopped
- 1 garlic clove minced
- 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
- 1/4 tsp. pepper
- 8 slices thick-cut apple wood smoked bacon cooked and chopped
- 1 small ham hock
- salt to taste add when done
Instructions:
- The night before soak the beans. I do this by placing the beans in the slow cooker (sorting any rocks or dirt clumps out). Cover with water (about 4 inches of water above the beans) DON’T TURN ON THE SLOW COOKER YET! Let the beans soak in the water overnight.
- Drain the water off the beans in the morning.
- Add the fresh 5 cups of water, chicken bouillon cubes, onion, tomatoes, carrots, garlic, thyme, pepper, and cooked and chopped bacon. Stir.
- Add the ham hock.
- Cover and cook on LOW for 10 hours, without opening the lid during the cooking time.
- Remove the ham hock. Remove meat from ham hock and put into soup if desired.
- Stir, add salt to taste.
- Serve with cornbread and butter.
I made this with 2 ham hocks because that’s how the grocery store packaged them. This soup was amazingly delicious and rich. I’m making it for guests this weekend. Thanks for this recipe – 5 stars.
Can you recommend something that supplies the pork flavor of the ham hock, but without the hock? Do the think the bacon would give enough ham flavor and add a little liquid smoke if we wanted a Smokey flavor?
You could do diced ham too? Or just bacon and maybe a half teaspoon of liquid smoke.
We are prepping this now to put in the pot in the am so it will be ready when we get home from work. Thank you for sharing and looking forward to the yum!! Woot!
Let me know how you like it Lee!
I don’t like reviews that say it looks good or whatever! I like when they describe the yummyness of it! So here I am, stomach growling telling you how good it sounds and so forth (shame on me…)! I WILL be making this first thing in the morning! I have everything in my pantry and am so happy thinking about the yummy goodness! Thank you for sharing❣
Thank you, Sarah for the wonderful recipe and photography! I was wondering if my church could use the soup photo for our “soup and cornbread supper” announcement slide Sunday morning? It’s perfectly thematic!
That’s fine James. 🙂
Thank you so much!
We made this for tonight–it was great! Plenty of flavor! I sprinkled shaved Parmesan on top when I served it, and I saved a few exta slices of bacon so we could sprinkle that too.
Can you mix low temp and high temp to cook faster? If so, what would you recommend?
I’ve had luck with beans cooking on high for 8 hours. You may be able to get away with 7 hours on high since white beans are so small.
My entire family liked this, which is a rare thing, so it will be added to the meal rotation. The only change I made was that I only used bacon, not a ham hock. Otherwise made it just as written, and it turned out perfect.