Slow Cooker Senate Bean Soup Recipe • 5★

This ultrasimple bean soup has been on the menu at the U.S. Senate Dining Room and served to senators and their staff for more than 100 years. Even as politics have changed, this soup has remained basically the same: navy beans simmered to creamy tenderness with ham hocks, butter and onion. Fittingly, there is no consensus on where exactly the soup came from: Some say it dates back to the early 20th century, when Senator Fred Dubois of Idaho passed a resolution making it a menu staple. This slow-cooker version has updated the classic slightly, with the addition of carrots and smoked paprika. If you’d like more vegetables (how modern!), stir in about 8 ounces of chopped kale before serving. As a nod to Idaho, this version contains a single russet potato, which gets mashed at the end of cooking and thickens the soup beautifully.

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Ingredients

Yield:4 servings

• 1 pound dried navy beans or small white beans, rinsed

• 5 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped

• 3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced

• 2 medium ham hocks (about 1 ½ pounds total)

• 1 small red or yellow onion, finely chopped

• 1 medium russet potato, peeled and quartered

• 1 tablespoon butter

• 1 tablespoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal)

• 1 ½ teaspoons smoked paprika

• 1 teaspoon dried thyme

• Black pepper

• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar

Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

1. Step 1

   In a 6- to 8-quart slow cooker, combine beans, garlic, carrots, ham hocks, onion, potato, butter, salt, smoked paprika and thyme. Top with 8 cups of water and several generous grinds of black pepper. Cook until the beans are very tender and creamy, about 6 hours on high. (Beans need to reach a simmer to be fully cooked and safe to eat, so be sure your soup reaches a vigorous bubble. This shouldn’t be a problem on the slow cooker’s high setting. Additionally, beans vary in cook time by age, so if your beans are older, you may need to cook a bit longer than 6 hours.)

2. Step 2

   Pull out the ham hocks and put them on a cutting board to cool a bit. Using a fork, mash the potato pieces against the side of the slow cooker. Stir well to break down some of the beans, too. Stir in the vinegar. Pull the meat off the bones, add it back into the soup and discard the bones. Taste and add more salt or pepper as needed.