Pasta e Fagioli (aka Ham Bone Soup!)

April 2, 2016November 26, 2025 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 16 Comments

As Dean Martin would croon, “When the stars make you drool, just like pasta fazool, that’s amore.“

From the minute I buy a cooked ham, I start thinking about the soup I’m going to make with the leftover ham bone. The soup I love to make with that ham bone is Pasta e Fagioli, AKA pasta and beans, a classic Italian comfort soup. And, once I start making the soup, forget it, I start humming Dean Martin’s song, That’s Amore. Ad nauseam.

I usually pick up a spiral-cut ham to have in the house for sandwiches during the holidays. This Easter, I didn’t have a full house or a ham, but it is so automatic for me to make (and want) a hearty ham bone soup after a holiday that I drove to our local Honey Baked Ham store Monday morning to see if they had any ham bones for sale in their freezer. I was in luck, they were having one of their post-holiday buy-one-get-one-free sales, and I was able to pick up two meaty bones for seven dollars.

Technique Time: How to Add Layers of Flavor to a Soup
One of the cooking techniques I’ve learned over the years is the benefit of slowly sautéing chopped vegetables and aromatics in olive oil to create a flavorful foundation for soups, sauces, and stews.

Depending on who taught you how to cook, this flavor base is known as a soffritto, a mirepoix, or the “Holy Trinity.” For example, the French flavor base is called a mirepoix and includes two parts onion to one part celery and one part carrot, all of it chopped and sautéed in butter or duck fat. The Italians start with a soffritto that includes carrots, onions, and celery often with the addition of garlic, fennel, and parsley, and all of it sautéed in olive oil. In Cajun cooking, they have the “Holy Trinity” which consists of 3 parts celery, 2 parts onion, and 1 part sweet bell pepper, all of it sautéed in butter or oil. It is helpful to know these ratios as you start to create your own recipes.

When making soups and even tomato sauces, you can add another layer of flavor by being intentional about what you use for the soup’s liquid base; the soup’s medium for flavor and heat. When you add raw or pre-roasted meat bones and simmer for a while, the bones’ marrow is released into the soup, and now you have enriched your soup or sauce even more.

Finally, when making soup, you can add yet another layer of flavor to the vegetables you choose to use, such as the stewed tomatoes, beans, and fresh greens I used in this recipe.

When you use this many layers of flavor, you’ll find you need to add a lot less salt, if any, to your recipe. I didn’t add salt to this soup because there is already plenty of it in the ham and cheese rind.

A few words on the main ingredients used to make Pasta e Fagioli.

The Beans
I start with a 20-ounce package of dried beans. The package comes with a seasoning packet that I have never used. In a pinch, you could use three cans of cooked beans, rinsed and drained.

Take a moment to admire how pretty the beans look as you rinse and inspect them for tiny rocks and dirt. I love the different shapes and textures.

Their color intensifies when rinsed, reminding me of pebbles rolling on the beach with the waves.

You will need to soak the beans for a few hours to soften them, and then partially cook them before you start making this soup.

The Ham Bone
Recently, I happened to be at my favorite meat market, Hampton Meats, in Hopkinsville, KY on the day they were butchering a pig. I’ve been there on days when half of a cow was hanging there, too. There is nothing like seeing an animal carcass hanging on a hook to make you take a moment to reflect on the source of your food. I have a copy of the “Meat Reference Manual” issued in 1942 by the U.S. Army for mess sergeants. I like the graphics of their meat charts and refer to them often.

Have you ever wondered why, when you get to the end of a spiral cut ham, getting the meat off the bone is no longer easy or pretty? It’s because the pig’s bulky ball and socket hip-joint are hidden in there. I dissect so you don’t have to.

The Greens:
Many of the cool weather greens growing in my backyard kitchen garden right now, such as kale, cabbage, chard, and spinach are suitable to use in soup because their leaves are thick and won’t disintegrate in the soup like lettuce would do. In the photo on the left, I’m growing “Alcosa” cabbage, a sweet and tasty variety of cabbage. I use the leaves while they are still young rather than letting them grow into a ball. In the picture on the right, I am growing “Winterbor” and “Red Russian” kale and “Bright Lights” chard. All will work well in this soup. Other choices that would work are spinach, collards, and escarole.

Ingredients:

20-ounce bag of dried beans, picked over and rinsed
5 stalks celery (1/2 pound), finely chopped
4 carrots (1/2 pound), finely chopped
1 large onion (1 pound), finely chopped
1 small head garlic (1 ounce), finely chopped
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cooked and meaty ham bone, trimmed of visible fat
2 cans “Italian Recipe” stewed tomatoes, puréed first
½ of the heel of a wedge of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
2 whole bay leaves
12 cups water (3 quarts)
8 cups greens: cabbage, kale, chard, spinach (greens optional)
1 box ditalini pasta

Mise en Place:

Instructions:
1. To cook dried beans: Place rinsed beans in about 10 cups of water. Do not add salt to the water. Bring to a rapid boil, reduce heat and simmer for 1½ hours. They should still be somewhat firm, but edible. Drain and set aside.

2. Pull some of the meat off the ham bone to use to sauté the soffritto. Set aside.

3. Add olive oil to a large frying pan and get it started heating up. Next, add the soffritto, the carrots, onions, celery and garlic and pieces of ham. Sauté over medium-high heat for 15 minutes, frequently stirring, while vegetables become translucent and very lightly browned.

In a large soup pot add the sautéed soffritto, the partially cooked beans, the ham bone, the 12 cups of water, the puréed stewed tomatoes, the cheese rind, and the bay leaves. Bring to a boil over high heat. Once the soup comes to a boil, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer for one hour, stirring occasionally. Test the beans to make sure they are cooked before adding the greens.

Add the greens.

Cook for five more minutes. Turn heat off and remove soup pot from the hot burner.

Pull the ham bone out of the pot and place it on a cutting board. Pull the meat off the bone, cut it into bite-sized pieces, and return the meat to the pot.

Cook the pasta:
Put a pot of salted water on the stove top to cook the pasta according to the directions on the box. I never cook pasta directly in the soup because it drinks up all the soup’s liquid. Store the cooked pasta in a separate container from the soup, so the noodles do not become mushy.

To serve soup, put a scoopful of ditalini in each bowl, top with soup, and pass the grated Reggiano cheese!

Or, serve it without pasta.

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Bruce’s Turkey and Sausage Gumbo

February 2, 2015November 20, 2023 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 16 Comments

I raised my hand and said to the chef, “I’m just not getting this. What is a roux? What does it DO?” I was sitting in a class at The New Orleans School of Cooking while my husband attended a meeting. The chef was big and hilarious, so when he suddenly got serious and answered, “A roux is the difference between bread and toast,” I felt like Confucius had just spoken. I smiled. I nodded. I had not a clue what he was talking about. But some mystical voodoo thing was happening in his kitchen, and I didn’t get it. I sat in my seat and continued to take notes, but I knew a roux was not in my future, so neither would gumbo or étouffée ever be either.

Fifteen years later, I found myself cooking regularly with Bruce Dobie and Ann Shayne in The Nashville Food Project kitchen, where we were volunteer chefs. Bruce is from Lafayette, Louisiana, also known as South Louisiana. Every fall, Bruce started talking about the gumbo he would make with the turkey carcass as it got closer to Thanksgiving. When Bruce was growing up, it was a South Louisiana tradition to have turkey dinner on Thursday and gumbo several days later. Bruce said his brother would say to the turkey at the end of the Thanksgiving meal, “Bye. See you Saturday.” Fridays were reserved for making stock and pulling meat from the bones.

Ann and I asked Bruce if he would show us how to make gumbo. He was happy to oblige. We were told to save our T-day turkey carcasses in the freezer until we could figure out a time to cook. He would start by teaching us how to make a roux.

Bruce arrived in my kitchen one Sunday afternoon with three boxes of groceries and cooking utensils. Ann and I were instructed to make turkey stock and pick out meat from the strained stock. Noted. We arrived with our part of the gumbo. Bruce is an enthusiastic guy by nature, and his enthusiasm is contagious; thus, he was pumped and we were pumped. He started waxing eloquently about the mystery that was about to unfold. I thought he was discussing the mystery of making a roux, but he said the roux was just the “foundation of something miraculous.” Bruce’s miracle had to do with what happened in the stockpot once we put all the ingredients together and let them simmer for the day. He repeatedly used three M words: miraculous, magical, and mysterious. Ann and I were in for a good ride.

Just so we are all on the same page, a roux (pronounced “roo”) is a thickening agent for soups and sauces. It is made by cooking equal parts of flour and fat in a thick-bottomed pan until the flour is brown and toasted. A properly cooked roux is silky-smooth and adds an intense nutty flavor while doing its core job of thickening soups, sauces, and gravy. The longer you cook it, the darker it becomes and the more intense the flavor; you might cook it until light in color for gravy, darker for an étouffée, or to chocolate brown for gumbo. Bruce is a newspaperman, so he would say, “Cook until it’s the color of Ronald Reagan’s brown suit.”

You don’t want to burn it, so you must constantly watch it and whisk it. I remember our instructor in New Orleans telling us that when his mother was making her roux, that was the time children would get into mischief by doing things like jumping on beds. They knew their mother would never leave the roux.

Yield: Four gallons. Divide the ingredient list in half for the amount you would prepare if using one large turkey carcass.

Ingredients:
2 turkey carcasses should yield 8 quarts of gelatinous broth and about 2 pounds of turkey meat.

8 quarts turkey stock
2 large onions, chopped
2 sweet bell peppers, chopped
6 stalks celery, chopped
1 head of garlic, minced
¼ cup olive oil
40 okra pods, sliced
2 bunches of parsley, chopped
2 bunches of green onion tops, sliced
2 15-ounce cans of whole tomatoes, diced, save juices
2 pounds Veron Andouille Sausage
1 pound Conecuh Original Smoked Sausage “Spicy & Hot”
1 pound Conecuh Hickory Smoked Sausage
5 pounds turkey breast, cooked and cut into bite-sized pieces
2 pounds turkey meat pulled from the carcasses (1 pound per carcass)
1⅓ cups all-purpose flour, sifted to get rid of lumps
1⅓ cups canola oil
50 drops Tabasco Sauce
2 tablespoons Louisiana Hot Sauce
2 teaspoons red pepper powder (cayenne)
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 tablespoon gumbo file (a sassafras thickener)
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
Salt to taste, to be added after it has cooked. I added 1½ tablespoons

Prep the Stock:
It all starts with a roasted turkey. Throwing an uncooked turkey in boiling water will not yield the same richly-flavored results. Roasting the turkey first will. It is okay to freeze the carcass until you are ready to use it.

Simmer the turkey carcasses, complete with skin, innards, and any leftover meat, in a large stockpot of water for a minimum of five hours. There is no need to add any seasonings as the turkeys were well-seasoned when roasted.

Strain stock. Set bones and meat aside and refrigerate liquid until fat rises and hardens. Remove fat. The stock should have the consistency of Jell-O.

Spread meat and bones on a baking sheet and allow to cool. Once cool, pull meat off, including little pieces. Discard bones and skin. Below is a picture of Ann’s two pots of broth with the hardened yellow fat on top.

This photo is of the meat we picked, about one pound per carcass.

Game Day:
We’ve got all our ingredients out and are discussing our game plan.

Prep the Vegetables and Meat:
Our mise en place: Turkey, sausage, parsley, garlic, green onion tops, okra, bowl of the trinity (onion, sweet bell pepper, celery), and, turning the corner, chopped tomatoes.

Chop the onions, celery, and green peppers. This is known as the trinity. Add minced garlic, and you have added “the pope.” Add the pope.

Slice the okra, including the short stem. Bring a pot of water to a boil and blanch okra for 5 minutes. Drain. This helps keep okra from becoming too gooey in the gumbo. Set aside.

Pierce sausage in multiple spots with a fork and place in a shallow pan with boiling water for 5 minutes to release fat. Alternatively, Bruce grills the pierced sausage. Cut into bite-sized slices. Set aside.

Chop turkey into bite-sized pieces. Set aside.

Chop parsley, green onion tops, and tomatoes. Set aside.

Make the Soup:
Into a 20-quart stockpot, add olive oil and the chopped onions, celery, sweet peppers, and garlic mixture. Sauté on low heat for 15″ until vegetables are softened. Add the turkey stock, chicken, sausage, okra, parsley, green onion tops, and tomatoes. Turn the heat to medium and let it cook while making the roux.

Making the Roux

A roux is made with flour and a fat (cooking oil or butter). Use equal parts of fat to flour. There can’t be any lumps, so run the flour through a sieve.

You cannot rush making a roux; it will take at least 30 minutes on medium-low heat. You cannot leave it; you will need to whisk it for the whole time it cooks. Finally, it is ready when as Bruce says, “It becomes the color of Ronald Reagan’s brown suit,” a nice chocolatey brown.

***Be careful; the mixture is boiling and can cause severe bubbling-type burns on your skin should it spill on you. I never cook it when children are in the vicinity.

Pour the roux into the gumbo pot. It will sizzle when it touches the soup.

The Seasonings:
Cajun seasonings, take a bow! We used every heat spice except Tony’s Chachere’s Creole Seasoning. I’m not sure how that got in the photo.

Realizing that adding spices to a dish when unfamiliar with them is daunting, I will show you how much of each seasoning Bruce said.
50 drops of Tabasco sauce and 2 tablespoons of Louisiana Hot Sauce.

1 teaspoon each of cayenne red pepper and crushed red pepper flakes, and 2 tablespoons ground black pepper!

1 tablespoon of gumbo file (ground sassafras used as a thickener)

Stir it all together, simmer until bedtime, and wait for the magic to happen.

Here’s Ann cheering the magic on.

About 5 hours later. After giving all the flavors time to meld, add salt to taste.

I turned the stove off, put the lid on, and put the gumbo to bed. First thing in the morning, I put the gumbo into containers and stored some in the refrigerator and some in the freezer.

To Serve:
-Serve over rice (not too much– should still be soupy).
-Add fresh chopped green onion or parsley on top.
-Bruce likes to heat it up and add shrimp just before serving.
-Have these three seasonings available for people to season their gumbo per their personal taste: Tabasco (for heat), Louisiana Hot Sauce (for flavor), and red pepper (more heat).
-Gumbo freezes well.

Thanks, Bruce and Ann! It was epic!

P.S. “And I helped!”

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Italian style meals, sustainable gardening tips, and lots of segues in between

Holy Trinity

Pasta e Fagioli (aka Ham Bone Soup!)

Bruce’s Turkey and Sausage Gumbo

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