Instant Pot Navy Bean Soup

The holiday season is upon us! This delicious Instant Pot Navy Bean Soup recipe is a perfect use for leftover holiday ham. Made with just a few pantry staples, it is a hands-off simple soup recipe with tons of yummy flavor.

this recipe

The holiday season is coming, and I am so excited. I’m sure it will come as no surprise that the food is always my favorite part of any holiday gathering. A close second is the leftover food. I love repurposing my holiday leftovers, whether adding some Thanksgiving turkey to a simple creamy vegetable rice soup, or using leftover mashed potatoes atop skillet shepherd’s pie. For leftover ham, instant pot navy bean soup is an easy win.

This cozy soup uses creamy white beans paired with salty leftover ham and dried herbs for a hearty soup that has so much flavor. This delicious soup is the perfect recipe for a lazy cold day, spent in your pajamas with a good book, recovering from the latest holiday festivities. The best part is, thanks to the instant pot, you can make this comforting soup with unsoaked dry beans in about one hour, most of that cooking time being completely hands off. Easy, cozy and hearty, this instant pot bean soup is my favorite thing to make post-holidays.

You Will Love This

• This is the perfect instant pot recipe for leftover holiday ham. With only about 15 minutes of hands-on cooking, it’s a lazy but delicious soup to make when you are cooked-out after the holidays.
• The instant pot is a great way to cook dried beans. Creamy tender beans in less than an hour with no need to overnight soak or quick soak!

Equipment

For this recipe, you will need an Instant Pot. The instant pot is an electric pressure cooker. I have had mine for years, and it is one of my most-used kitchen tools. For busy parents looking for a shortcut to a homemade dinner, the instant pot is a great investment. Pressure cooking is a great way to speed up dishes that would otherwise take all day – like cooking dried beans. Some of my favorite uses for my instant pot are to make rice, one-pot pasta dishes, and instant pot soup recipes. I have many more recipes for the instant pot in the works – so stay tuned!

This recipe also calls for an immersion blender to help blend up some of the beans and give the soup a thick, creamy consistency. This step is optional, and you can certainly make this soup without it.

Ingredients

Gather up your ingredients. For this easy recipe, you will need:

• Olive oil: For sautéing the veggies. Butter or vegetable oil would also work.
• Onion
• Celery
• Carrots: You could also add some chopped red peppers for a little additional color in the soup.
• Garlic: You can use a fresh garlic clove, jarred chopped garlic or garlic powder.
• Dried navy beans: Navy beans are a type of white bean, similar to great northern beans or cannellini beans. These different varieties of beans all have slightly different taste and characteristics, but they will all make a yummy white bean soup. You can use whatever type you have on hand in this recipe.
• Chicken stock
• Ham: You can use any kind of cooked ham for this recipe. I have used chopped ham steak, Canadian bacon, and leftover ham bone in various tests, and they were all delicious. If you use a leftover ham bone, ham shanks or smoked ham hock, use a slotted spoon to remove the bone from the soup after cooking. Carefully shred any meat left on the bone and return it to the soup.
• Dried rosemary: You can also add a bay leaf for some additional depth of flavor. I usually do when I have one, but it’s not essential to the soup.
• Kosher salt and black pepper: I highly recommend waiting until the very end to flavor this soup with any salt. Ham is very salty, and depending on the cut you use, the soup might not need any additional salt at all.

Instructions

Step One: Chop the onion and celery. Peel and chop the carrots. Set your instant pot to sauté mode. Add olive oil, onion, celery, carrots and garlic to the instant pot and sauté until softened and fragrant, about 3-4 minutes. Press cancel on the instant pot to cancel sauté mode.

Step Two: Rinse the dried beans to remove any debris. Add the rinsed navy beans, chicken stock, ham and rosemary to the instant pot. Give the pot a few stirs, making sure to scrape any stuck-on veggies off the bottom. Put the cover on the instant pot, and turn the pressure valve on top to “Sealing.” Cook the soup on high pressure for 45 minutes, then allow the pressure to natural release for 10 minutes. Quick release any remaining pressure.

Step Three: Using an immersion blender, pulse the soup three or four times to blend some of the beans. Don’t pulse too much – you want to leave plenty of beans intact. A few quick pulses is all the soup needs for a little added creaminess. Flavor the soup with Kosher salt and back pepper, to taste.

TIP: If you do not have an immersion blender, you could blend one ladle full of soup in a regular countertop blender and then return it to the soup. Or, leave this step out completely – the soup will be a little more brothy and less creamy, but will still have great flavor!

Storage

This soup is even better the next day! Store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. It will thicken up in the refrigerator, so you may need to add a little water upon reheating to thin it back out.

Bean soup also freezes very well. Add the soup to a glass freezer container, leaving enough space at the top of the jar so that the frozen soup can expand. Store it in the freezer for up to 3-6 months.