After the holidays many of us have cooked a ham and can only eat so many sandwiches, me personally love to make soup out of all of my leftover roasts with bones including ham. This way you get to use up your leftovers for something a little lighter on the calories and delicious to the tastebuds 🙂 

Ingredients:

Soup Stock

Your leftover hambone with the extra meat still attached (along with any leftover meat you may still have in the fridge)

• 1 Medium Vidalia Onion Chopped Thick
• 3 Cloves of Garlic Sliced Thick
• 2 Celery Stalks Quartered
• 3 Large Carrots Chopped Thick
• 2 Bay Leaves

 Soup Ingredients

• Soup Stock
• Shredded Ham (you can cut it into chunks, but I like shredded better)
• 1 Small Vidalia Onion Finely Chopped
• 1 LB Bag of Dried Split Peas
• 1 1/2 Cups of Sliced Carrots
• 6 Slices of Crispy Bacon Chopped
• 2 Cloves of Crushed Garlic
• 2 tsp of Ground Black Pepper
• 1 tsp of Rosemary (crush the dried rosemary between your fingers to crush it up)

Directions:

Making Your Soup Stock

1. In a crockpot, put your ham bone, with all the extra meat attached in
2. Put your garlic and onions on top of the ham bone
3. Cover the ham bone with water
4. Add your bay leaves, carrots and celery into the water around the ham bone
5. Cover and cook on low for 10 hours
6. Throughout the cooking down of the bone, stir the ingredients around a few times
7. After the 10 hours, strain your soup stock and return the liquid stock to a soup pot and put your stove top heat on medium
8. Before discarding the bones and everything from your stock, take the meat that came off the ham and put it into a bowl and set aside

 

Putting Your Ham and Split Pea Soup Together

1. Add your onion, carrots, garlic, rosemary and black pepper to your soup stock, mix well
2. Shred your ham in the bowl and then stir it into your soup
3. Add your chopped crispy bacon
4. Add your bag of dried split peas, cover and simmer over low to medium heat for about 2 hours stirring occasionally
5. Season with black pepper to your taste
6. If you want your soup thicker, add more of the dry split peas, if you want it less thick just add more water to your stock

 

This soup is perfect in a fresh bread bowl or with freshly made croutons on top 🙂