Ham Stock from a HoneyBaked Ham Bone
Nobody thinks to make ham stock. And honestly, you can make everything I make with ham stock with chicken stock instead. But why waste a perfectly good ham bone and perfectly good bits of leftover ham?
If you want to try homemade ham stock for your winter beans and soups but don’t want to buy a whole (or half) ham, buy a ham bone. Yes, you really can buy just the bone. This one came from HoneyBaked, on its own, for $11.81 (plus a cookie, because I’m only human). If you’ve ever been to a HoneyBaked, you know they sell sandwiches made in-house from their own spiral-sliced ham. When they get to the end of a ham, they freeze the bone and the meat that’s left on it and sell it. At my HoneyBaked, they keep them in a freezer next to the frozen sides. Periodically, usually after Easter and Thanksgiving, they put them on sale for $5 or $6 each, and I stock up for the chest freezer.
And if you don’t have a HoneyBaked near you but you have a grocery store with an in-house deli, ask at the deli counter. If they sell spiral-sliced hams, they might be willing to sell you just the bone, as well.
The method is the same one I use for my overnight chicken stock, just with a ham bone where the chicken goes. Everything goes into the big 14-quart Hello pot: the bone and all the usual suspects. An onion, a handful of carrots, whatever’s left of a bunch of celery, a couple of bay leaves, and a scatter of peppercorns. There are no real measurements here. Fill it with water, put the lid on, and the pot goes into a 210°F oven overnight.
Here’s the one wrinkle. My oven shuts itself off after 12 hours, which is a safety feature I appreciate right up until I want to sleep in. So the pot goes in after dinner, and right before I go to bed, I turn the oven off and turn it right back on again. That resets the clock and gets me through a Sunday sleep-in.
One ham bone gives me a little over 9 quarts of stock. Whatever meat comes off the bone goes into a batch of beans.
Usually it gets the same treatment as the chicken stock: portioned, vacuum-sealed, frozen flat, and stacked. But my FoodSaver decided this was the week it would die, so this batch went into quart Ziploc freezer bags. Both hold a quart, but the vacuum-seal bags are bigger, with more headroom, so they lie flatter and thinner. The Ziplocs have to be sealed carefully and handled a little gently until they freeze. I’ve never had one come open, but I’m more cautious with them than I am with the heat-sealed ones.
It goes into pinto beans and ham, red beans and rice, and whatever else comes along.
What do y’all do with a ham bone? Let me know in the comments.
Overnight Ham Stock
Ingredients
- 1 HoneyBaked ham bone
- 1 onion
- A handful of baby carrots or a couple of whole carrots, cut into chunks
- Whatever’s left of a bunch of celery the ends and the center
- 2 to 3 bay leaves
- A scatter of black peppercorns
- Water to fill the pot
Instructions
- Put the ham bone, onion, carrots, celery, bay leaves, and peppercorns in a large oven-safe pot (mine’s 14 quarts) and fill it with water. Cover.1 HoneyBaked ham bone, Whatever’s left of a bunch of celery, A handful of baby carrots, 1 onion, 2 to 3 bay leaves, A scatter of black peppercorns, Water
- Put the pot in a 210°F oven after dinner. Right before bed, if your oven shuts off after 12 hours, turn it off and back on to reset the clock. Let it go overnight.
- In the morning, pull the bone and save the meat for beans. Strain the stock and chill it.
- Portion into quart freezer bags (or vacuum-seal), seal carefully, and freeze flat.
Notes
- There’s no salt in the pot on purpose. The ham bone brings its own, so taste the stock before you salt whatever it’s going into.
- If your oven turns itself off after 12 hours, turn it off and back on right before bed to reset the clock.
- No big pot? Any large, oven-safe pot works; you’ll just get less stock. Or if you’re nervous about leaving the oven on all night, use a crock pot. Again, less stock, but more peace of mind.
- Quart freezer bags work fine if you don’t have a vacuum sealer. Seal them carefully, lay them flat, and handle them gently until they’re frozen solid. After that they stack like files.
P.S. This post was promised two weeks running, so if you’ve been waiting on it, thank you for your patience. It’s here.
P.P.S. It was a chocolate chunk cookie, and it was worth every calorie.