Mmmm . . . Navy bean soup.

This is my recipe for Navy bean, sausage, and beer soup. It’s a modification of the Dried Bean Soup recipe from the 1964 edition of “Joy of Cooking” (p. 152). I searched the internet for Navy bean soup recipes and found a couple interesting variations on the general theme. One recipe used smoked pork sausage instead of the usual ham hock, and I adopted that idea. Some recipes also cooked the beans in chicken stock and I used that idea, too. Then, of course, I added beer. I used cheap beer, left over from grilling, but any malty beer would probably work just as well.

I’ve made this soup twice now, once with Navy beans and once with lima beans. Probably any kind of white bean would work. I made both batches using triple the amount of ingredients listed below and yielded about a gallon (~4 L). Soup freezes well, so now I have a ton of leftovers that I can reheat whenever I want.

So, enjoy the recipe and don’t worry – I’ll post something brewing related later today.

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