Slow-Cooker Pinto Beans

The week between Halloween and the start of holiday season — a liminal space in the kitchen calendar, where I'm too far from summer to grill and too early for Christmas cookies and the menu defaults to what I call "the comfort rotation": soups, stews, casseroles, and the occasional ambitious pot roast. It's the time of year when the crockpot earns its rent and the Dutch oven comes out of the cabinet where it's been resting since the last stew and resumes its position of honor on the stove.

I made a white bean and ham soup this week from a ham bone I'd frozen from the Fourth of July ham — yes, I freeze ham bones, yes, I label them, yes, Kevin has commented on the fact that our freezer contains labeled bone inventory, and yes, I told him to mind his business because ham bones are money and you don't waste money. The soup was thick with navy beans soaked overnight, tender with carrots and celery and onion, smoky from the ham that had been holding its flavor in my freezer for four months. Kevin said, "This tastes like July." I said, "It is July. I froze July." He gave me a look that was part admiration and part concern, which is the look he gives me regularly and which I choose to interpret as love.

Thanksgiving planning has started. The turkey is ordered — nineteen pounds this year because we're adding an extra person: Dave Peterson from next door, whose wife Karen is visiting her sister in Colorado and who would otherwise be eating alone. Nobody eats alone on Thanksgiving in the Holloway vicinity. The radius of my Thanksgiving dinner extends to any human within a hundred yards who doesn't have a table to sit at. Kevin said I'm running a soup kitchen. I said I'm running a home and homes have open seats.

Emma asked me to teach her to make soup. She's ten and she wants to learn soup. Specifically, she wants to learn tomato soup, "the kind you make, not the can." I showed her: fresh tomatoes (from the canning), sautéed onion, garlic, broth, basil, a drizzle of cream, blend smooth. She made it herself, start to finish. It was good. It was her soup. She served it to Kevin with grilled cheese sandwiches and he said, "Two cooks in this house now?" I said, "Three. Jack makes salads." Kevin said, "I make reservations." He does not. The man eats what's put in front of him and calls it good and that's his job and he's excellent at it.

That white bean and ham soup this week — the one that tasted like July, made from a bone I’d labeled and frozen in the middle of summer — reminded me that the slow cooker is the truest expression of this whole philosophy: you save what matters, you give it time, and it gives back something better than you started with. If you’ve got a ham bone in your freezer (and you should), these slow-cooker pinto beans are where it belongs. Start them in the morning the way I started that soup, and by dinnertime the house will smell like something warm and generous has been quietly happening all day.

Prep Time: 15 min (plus overnight soak) | Cook Time: 8 hrs | Total Time: 8 hrs 15 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 lb dried pinto beans, soaked overnight and drained
1 meaty ham bone or ham hock (about 1 to 1 1/2 lbs)
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 stalks celery, sliced
2 medium carrots, sliced into coins
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
Salt to taste
Fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped, for serving

Instructions

Soak the beans. Place dried pinto beans in a large bowl and cover with cold water by at least 2 inches. Soak overnight (8 to 12 hours). Drain and rinse well before using.
Load the slow cooker. Add the soaked beans, ham bone, onion, garlic, celery, and carrots to a 6-quart slow cooker. Pour in the chicken broth. Stir in the smoked paprika, cumin, black pepper, and red pepper flakes if using.
Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 to 9 hours, or on HIGH for 4 to 5 hours, until the beans are completely tender and beginning to turn creamy.
Pull the ham. Remove the ham bone from the slow cooker. When cool enough to handle, shred or pull any remaining meat from the bone and stir it back into the beans. Discard the bone.
Adjust and finish. Taste the beans and season with salt as needed. If you prefer a thicker, creamier texture, use the back of a spoon or a potato masher to crush a portion of the beans against the side of the pot and stir through.
Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with fresh parsley. Serve with cornbread, crusty bread, or alongside a grilled cheese sandwich for the full experience.

Nutrition (per serving)

Slow-Cooker Pinto Beans — Because Ham Bones Are Money and You Don’t Waste Money