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Appalachian Soup Beans Recipe and History (aka Pinto Bean Soup)
Stove top– Slow Cooker – Instant Pot Pressure Cooker Instructions
In the cold winter months, you can find an inviting pot of soup beans simmering on the stove of every Appalachian home almost every day. A bowl of creamy soup beans flavored with smoky ham is considered a taste of comfort.
“If I ate twice what there was, it would’ve been half what I wanted.” Quote from Appalachian musician, Doc Watson on his love for soup beans claiming he could never get his fill.
Television cooking competition, Top Chef season 16,was hosted in the backdrop of Kentucky. One of the contestants was Top Chef finalist and local Kentucky chef, Sara Bradley. Born and raised in Paducah, Kentucky, Chef Sara learned her culinary skills under Michelin star chefs in the east coast and found her way back home to Paducah to open her restaurant, Freight House Food, to highlight Kentucky regional delicacies and agriculture on her menu. Sara did her state proud in the Top Chef competition by taking traditional Kentucky meals to new heights. I found myself routing for her to win. One of the Kentucky staples she wowed the judges with was her take on Soup Beans. For Appalachian mountain folk, a perfect winter meal is a hot bowl of soup beans served with pickled chow chow, corn bread and fried potatoes.
I was intrigued and curious to learn more about soup beans as I was a fan of bean recipes. All around the world you find the most wonderful and homey recipes made with beans. Having cooked and tried many regional recipes that come from humble roots and simple ingredients I couldn’t wait to learn how to transform pinto beans into a bowl of comfort. I was delighted to learn what the homesteaders of Appalachia already knew, that slow cooking pinto beans with fatty bacon and a ham hock resulted in a silky smooth bowlful of smoky goodness.
Try out more of our favorite soup bean recipes such as:
15 Bean Soup
Senate Bean Soup
Hoppin’John Soup
Brazilian Black Bean Soup
Orca Bean and Yellow Rice Soup
Lentil Soup
Split Pea Soup
History of Appalachian Soup Beans:
The Appalachian mountain range stretches from New York all the way down to the Southern states of Alabama and Georgia. It divides the Eastern United States from the Midwest. The Southern portion of the Appalachian region mountain range extends down to the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia and North Carolina. As the lands in the new world to settle in eastern Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas filled up in the 18th century, newer European immigrants were pushed westward into the Appalachian Mountains. The majority of the immigrant population were Scotch-Irish and also included Swedish and German settlers. The discovery of the Cumberland Gap in 1750 lured settlers even deeper into the mountains ranges encompassing upper east Tennessee, northwestern North Carolina, upstate South Carolina and central Kentucky.
Mountain Folk Way of Life
The new settlers learned mountain survival and farming techniques for planting and cultivate crops such as corn and squash from the Native American Cherokee Indians. Homesteaders in the Cumberland Gap were separated from civilization by the high mountain ranges so they lived relatively isolated and learned to live a rugged lifestyle becoming self-sufficient. They were dependent on hunting, foraging and growing their own food to provide for themselves. Seeds from the garden were saved for the next year’s crop and this practice still continues on through the generations. This hearty breed of homesteaders are known amongst themselves and outsiders as “Mountain People” or “Mountain Folk”.
Image from NPR.org
For the mountain folk of the Southern Appalachian Mountain region, farming was a difficult task and nearly impossible. They faced dry and rocky terrain on steep mountains that were shielded from the sunlight by dense forest trees. Settlers brought in cows and sheep but they found the majority of their meat supply by raising hogs and letting them free range in the forest. The entire hog could be put to use for meats and flavoring foods. “It has been said that the only part of the hog that was not used was the squeal!” In addition to raising hogs, they grew their own fruits, vegetables and nuts. The most common foods to grow were black walnuts, chestnuts, corn, pinto beans, apples and wild greens. Corn was abundant and an essential vegetable in the Appalachians. There was no part of the corn that went to waste. It was eaten on the cob, fried, creamed, hominy grits, made into corn meal or moonshine. Even the corn shucks were used for stuffing furniture cushions like bed mattresses.
Wintertime Survival and Food Preparation
Wintertime in the Appalachian mountains did not match typical mild Southern winters. Instead they faced colder weather conditions similar to the Northeast region of the United States. To survive the chilling winters, families had to be skilled at preserving food. Dried pinto beans and corn were among the essential pantry stock ingredients. Pinto beans were the only pantry essential the Mountaineers did not grow themselves. They were the least expensive protein source available and they probably figured it would cost more money to grow them compared to buying a bag of dried pinto beans. Perhaps that’s how the expression “ain’t worth of hill of beans” came about to describe things of little to no value. It’s still common in mountain markets today to find pinto beans sold in 25 pd and even 40 pound bags in the fall for mountaineers to stock up on winter essentials. End of summer vegetables from the garden were pickled together in a spicy sweet medley and canned. This pickled vegetable menagerie is known to Southerners as Chow Chow which served as an essential flavor enhancer to many meals.
Image from Mother Earth News
Wintertime Meal Staple: Soup Beans
On a cold winter day, a pot of soup beans that are slowly simmered all day with remnants of ham fat results in soft creamy beans in a delicious pot likker. The ham bone and fat is the heart and soul of the flavor. Served up in a bowl with a side of corn bread, soup beans are both an essential source of sustenance and comforting meal. “To a native of Appalachia, soup beans is just a name for a pinto bean soup everyone makes. To outsiders it’s an exotic specialty. Simple traditional and mountain through and through.” Soup beans refer to brown beans (such as pinto beans) that are cooked with pork for flavoring. Other types of beans can also be used such as white beans, butter beans, or black-eyed peas, but it’s the pinto bean that is the favorite of mountain folk. Soup beans are often re-cooked as fried bean cakes, or made into mountain chili the next day. Since beans are known for causing flatulence or excessive gas. One old wives’ tale says, “To prevent this, cook a potato in the beans. The potato absorbs the gas, but be careful when you dispose of the potato because you now have a ‘Hillbilly’ hand grenade.”
A food source that was once eaten as matter of survival is now eaten by choice as a friendly reminder of growing up with family and enjoying familiar smells cooking on the stove.
Appalachian Soup Beans Recipe (aka Pinto Bean Soup)
Prep Time
15 mins
Cook Time
2 hrs
Total Time
2 hrs 15 mins
Traditional soups beans use very basic ingredients such as water, beans, pork fat, salt and pepper. My recipe gets a little “fancier” with onion and garlic added in. It’s the simplicity of this dish that is so delicious. The garnishments added to your individual bowl of soup beans such as onions and chow chow are what add a little acidity and spicy zip.
Servings: 6 people
Ingredients
- 1pounddried pinto beans
- 8cupswater(for stove top and slow cooker instructions)
- 4stripsfatty baconchopped
- 1largeonionchopped
- 3clovesgarlicminced
- 1/2teaspooncayenne pepper or 1 chopped jalepeno*Optional, if you like some spicy heat
- 1 smoked ham hock or ham neck bone
- 32ounceschicken stock
- water
- salt
- black pepper
Garnishment Options
- Chopped raw onions
- Pickled Chow Chow(see recipe below)
Instructions
Stove Top Instructions
Place dried pinto beans in a colander and rinse under cold water. Pick through and discard any shriveled beans or stones. Pour the beans into a large bowl and fill with enough cold water to cover the beans by 2 inches. Let the beans soak for several hours or overnight. By the next day, the beans will have doubled in sized by absorbing most of the water. Drain the beans and rinse.
In a 6 quart Dutch oven over medium-high heat, add chopped bacon and let partially cook for a few minutes on each side. Remove the bacon strips and set aside on a plate. Next add chopped onion to the Dutch oven and saute for a few minutes in the bacon grease until softened, add in the garlic and cayenne (or jalapeno) and saute for an additional 30 seconds until aromatic. Pour in about a cup of chicken stock and use a spatula to scrape up any bits stuck to the bottom of the pot.
Note: It is recommended to not add salt at the beginning stages of cooking beans or it will take longer for the beans to soften up. Wait till the last part of cooking beans when they start to feel softened to add the salt. To the Dutch oven, add in the pinto beans, ham hock, onion mixture, and bacon. Pour in the remaining chicken stock and add enough water to make sure the beans are covered by 2 inches of liquid. Stir everything together. Let the bean mixture start to come to a boil and then turn the heat down to medium-low to let simmer. Partially cover the pot with a lid leaving some air space.
This will ensure the beans result in a creamy texture. Let the beans simmer for 45 minutes while stirring occasionally and checking the beans. If the beans appear dry at the top, pour in additional liquid to make sure the beans stay submerged while cooking. Stir in a teaspoon of salt and continue to let the beans simmer for another 30-45 minutes until they are softened. Season with salt and pepper to taste.Serve up in bowls and garnish with chopped raw onions or chow-chow. Enjoy with a side of corn bread to sop up the delicious pot likker.
The flavor is even better the next day when reheated and the beans soften and thicken even more resembling a mountain chili.
Storage: Soup beans can be stored in an airtight container and refrigerated for up to one week.
Slow Cooker Instructions
Place dried pinto beans in a colander and rinse under cold water. Pick through and discard any shriveled beans or stones. Pour the beans into a large bowl and fill with enough cold water to cover the beans by 2 inches. Let the beans soak for several hours or overnight. By the next day, the beans will have doubled in sized by absorbing most of the water. Drain the beans and rinse.
In a medium skillet over medium-high heat, add chopped bacon and let partially cook for a few minutes on each side. Remove the bacon strips and set aside on a plate. Next add chopped onion to the skillet and saute for a few minutes in the bacon grease until softened, add in the garlic and cayenne (or jalapeno) and saute for an additional 30 seconds until aromatic. Pour in about a cup of chicken stock and use a spatula to scrape up any bits stuck to the bottom of the pot.
Note: It is recommended to not add salt at the beginning stages of cooking beans or it will take longer for the beans to soften up. Wait till the last part of cooking beans when they start to feel softened to add the salt. To the Slow cooker, add in the pinto beans, ham hock, onion mixture, and bacon. Pour in the remaining chicken stock and add enough water to make sure the beans are covered by 2 inches of liquid. Stir everything together. Cook on high heat for 4-5 hours or low heat for 8-10 hours until the beans are tender.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve up in bowls and garnish with chopped raw onions or chow-chow. Enjoy with a side of corn bread to sop up the delicious pot likker.
Instant Pot Pressure Cooker Instructions
No pre-soaking required with pressure cooker method Place dried pinto beans in a colander and rinse under cold water. Pick through and discard any shriveled beans or stones.
Turn the Instant pot on to saute mode, high heat setting. add chopped bacon and let partially cook for a few minutes on each side. Remove the bacon strips and set aside on a plate. Next add chopped onion to the skillet and saute for a few minutes in the bacon grease until softened, add in the garlic and cayenne (or jalapeno) and saute for an additional 30 seconds until aromatic. Pour in about a cup of chicken stock and use a spatula to scrape up any bits stuck to the bottom of the pot.
Note: It is recommended to not add salt at the beginning stages of cooking beans or it will take longer for the beans to soften up. Wait till the last part of cooking beans when they start to feel softened to add the salt. Press the Keep Warm/Cancel button to turn off.To the Instant Pot, add in the pinto beans with the onion mixture, ham hock, and bacon. Pour in the remaining chicken stock and add enough water to make sure the beans are covered by 2 inches of liquid. Stir everything together. Cover with the lid and seal. Make sure the pressure valve is set to closed. Press the Manual/Pressure Cook button, at high pressure setting. Set the time to 50 minutes. After the cooking time has completed, let the pressure naturally release for at least 20 minutes. Open the lid and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve up in bowls and garnish with chopped raw onions or chow-chow. Enjoy with a side of corn bread to sop up the delicious pot likker.
The flavor is even better the next day when reheated and the beans soften and thicken even more resembling a mountain chili.
Appalachian Chow Chow Recipe
Prep Time
15 mins
Cook Time
30 mins
Total Time
45 mins
This is a small batch recipe for pickled chow chow that is quick to make for garnishment. There are many variations of Chow Chow relish recipes to make large batches for canning.
Servings: 6 people
Ingredients
- 1cupcabbage or 1 green tomatofinely chopped
- 1 red bell pepperchopped with core and seeds removed
- 1mediumonionfinely chopped
- 1smallcucumberfinely chopped
- 1cayenene pepperminced *Optional for spiciness
- 1literwhite vinegardivided
- 1/4cup granulated sugar
- 1teaspoonground mustard
- 1/2teaspoonturmeric
- 1 teaspooncelery seed
- 1/3cup water
Instructions
Placed chopped vegetables in a saucepan. Pour in enough vinegar to cover vegetables and heat over medium-high. Bring the vegetable mixture to a boil until the vegetables become tender. Remove from heat and drain the vegetables and discard the remaining vinegar.
To the saucepan of cooked vegetables, stir in the sugar, ground mustard, turmeric, celery seed, 1/3 cup vinegar and water. Turn the heat back on to medium-high and bring to a boil. Let mixture boil for 5 minutes.
References:
Smokey Mountain Living Celebrating the Southern Appalachians, Appalachina foods: Defining generations by Mary Casey-Sturk,
Appalachia, Wikipedia
Charleston Gazette-Mail, WV Culinary Team: Soup beans -no bean soup – are an Appalachian winter staple by Candace Nelson WV Culinary Team January 18, 2018,
Southern Foodways Alliance, Gravy – A Helping of Gravy: Soup Beans, “A Cake of Cornbread, a Jar of Chow-Chow, and Thou” by Sheri Castle, May 19, 2014,
“Appalachian Home Cooking; History, Culture, and Recipes” by Mark F. Sohn 2005, The University Press of Kentucky
Related Recipes
Categories:
Bean Soup Dried and Canned Bean Recipes Heirloom Recipes Pork Stew and Soups Pressure Cooker Soup Recipes Slow Cooker Soup Recipes Southeast Winter
Comments and Reviews
24 Responses to “Appalachian Soup Beans Recipe and History”
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Emilie McVey
See AlsoStinging Nettle-Ade RecipeI’ve never heard of using chicken broth in a traditional bean soup. I’m sure it’s very tasty, but poor(er) people used water. The ham bone did the seasoning. My mother made the best beans, simmered for hours, mmm good.
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Karen Calanchini
I always use chicken stock in my bean recipes, it adds another layer of flavor. This soup is delicious and I have also made it with Royal Carona Beans. A huge white bean which gets very creamy when done in a slow cooker on low heat.
Great article Linda!Reply
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Rob
Thank you so much for this recipe, will be working on this Sunday.
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AppalachianIron
Let me see if I can straighten out this here soup bean recipe for you. Bacon + chicken stock + ham = wrong/coronary. Traditional soup beans use LIMA beans, ham portions where the meat was cut from the winter stores and the cut place resalted(straight smokehouse hocks, jowls, etc are also acceptable). Anything else is too much salt. Bone broths were a long process and the homemakers took pride in developing their flavors. They didn’t and still don’t use them so flippantly—if it’s true broth, not talking about factory runoff in a cardboard carton or can. Fried cornbread & fresh sliced onions
Source: family has lived in Appalachia over 200 years in the same spot, handed down hand written recipes that’s at least two and a half times older than anyone reading this.
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Sharon Fredrick
Both sets of my grandparents work from the Appalachian Mountains, born and raised, and so were each of them children. My mother was one of eight children and my father, 1 of 6. Puffer Reds using the same things. Beans and taters with fried potatoes and onions or a common meal. Gravy and biscuits for breakfast. Nobody went hungry this way it was good eating at the same time
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Amy Campbell
I tried the Instant Pot version, the beans weren’t done when it was done with the suggested time.
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Whats Cooking America
If your dried beans are older, then they can take longer to soften. Also always make sure to let the pressure naturally release when cooking dried beans.
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Roger Mullins
My family has been in Southeastern Ky for many generations and we never used chicken stock in our soup beans. Any beans other than pinto will make bean soup (a different beast entirely) that would require chicken stock for flavoring. Soup beans only need smoked pork. Then there is chow chow… The poor mountain folk never even heard of a garnishment, let alone spoil a perfectly good bowl of soup beans over fried tators with it. Pass the corn bread and freahly churned butter, please!
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Timothy Barry
Delicious as it is! I simmered it for 4 hours, again Delicious! What to do with the ham hock skin?
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Tom Amyx
Pinto beans simmered for hours, with just a ham bone for flavoring, corn bread and fried potatoes… the simple pleasures are all you really need. Why try to improve on everything???
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Mitzi Lilleeng
I grew up with a French Mother making soup beans and my Father made sure they were made right: beans, hamhock or ham bone, bacon and slow cooked with water. Side dishes included fried potatoes, cast iron skillet cornbread and pork chops or sausage. Dad always quartered an onion biting off pieces as he ate the beans.
I make it but the grandkids started calling it Grampy beans bc nobody they knew made it but him. Living in California, I love Mexican chili’s and usually add one to the pot. I also serve it with chopped tomatoes and chopped onions which we just throw on top.
When you have “a good thing” you can add your own tweaks that just enhance it a little bit. Yum!
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Chris Stapleton
Overall, not the worst article I’ve read. But as an actual Scots-Irish Hillbilly, let review a few things for you. First, the dish is way older than the pinto bean. True, once pintos were cheaply available, they became the staple, but the dish was developed with what my mamaw called “October beans”. These were the descendants of the native beans that the settlers got from the Indians. Second. While chow chow is technically the proper name for the relish, old mountain folks called it chow. Third, just how much ham do you think Mountain families had??? A pig only has two hams, and a rich family had 2 pigs. Most soup beans had fatback or salt pork or other smoked pork in the. And yes, if it was after a holiday and you had a ham bone, that bad boy went in the bean pot! But that was the exception. True soup beans have beans, water, smoked pork, and salt. That’s it! Slow cook and serve with onions and corn bread. Final note, the instant pot doesnt make soup beans, it makes garbage. Use a pot or crock pot, there is no fast way to good soup beans.
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Denise White
You sir are absolutely correct. I came from Virginia mountain folk and soup beans with corn bread …(made in cast iron)…was the best simple meal ever made. Four ingredients.. that’s it. If we were lucky we got sliced sweet onions and fresh tomatoes off the vine served on the side.
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TW
I love this article & recipe. It’s bookmarked and I return to it every time I make soup beans.
Thank you very much!
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Robbie
Well I just used the leftover Christmas hambone for my slow cooker beans. With that much ham, I didn’t need the bacon but I completely agree with you on chicken broth. Maybe not authentic, but the flavor is worth the extra expense. What I don’t do is soak the beans . They just get a quick rinse and go in the ninja (crockpot) on low with everything else for 10 hours.
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Fran
Don’t add salt in the cooking water with dried beans at the start! I learned that the hard way. Thanks for confirming this fact. Why isn’t this a know truism?
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Lauri
I made this. I followed the recipe pretty much. I did add a little extra garlic. I used non fat chicken stock and salt pork, and neck bone. It was so much better than I ever expected! So so good and filling. Great recipe!
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Lauri
Oh, I also soaked the beans overnight and cooked the beans on the stove top for about 5 hours with the lid slightly ajar. I didn’t add the salt until halfway through.
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CD
It is interesting to read so many defend their variations. It speaks to the isolated nature of communities in Appalachia. My experience is this:
* Traditional Eastern Kentucky employed no additional accoutrements. Pinto beans, water, salt, and whatever pork product that was available; for the more affluent, this would be ham pieces, smoked hock, or shank and for the middle to lower class, this could be salt pork, bacon, or simply drippings. I think chicken stock imparts a great flavor to soup beans, but it is not traditional.
* In general, soup beans would be as much “soup” as beans, especially the first couple of ‘sittings.’ The idea is people were poor. Cornmeal was about as abundant as beans, so cornbread went alongside the dish. One almost never ate beans without cornbread.
* The only garnish I encountered until I was much older were picked corn/green beans, raw sliced onion in the winter, green onion in the spring/summer/early fall, and sometimes honey or sorghum on a second piece of cornbread as a ‘sweet bite.’
*I ate fried potatoes about 50% of the time with soup beans just depending on what the meal plan was for the day, usually for dinner. Lunch would just be soup beans and cornbread. That was also about the ratio my family served some sort of ‘green’ (kale, mustard, or spinach). It was usually from a can in the fall-winter and was repugnant.
*As Eastern KY mountain people became more affluent, moving ‘to town’ or out of state, my experience was soup beans would be part of a meal consisting of one of several meat extender dishes, such as salmon patties, but I also at them with fried livers. Also using a pressure cooker was not uncommon, as the long soak method was simply too time consuming for two working adults in a household. The method would be as follows:
1) Rinse beans and cover with two inches of water in a pressure cooker along with thickly chopped onion and pork
2) Presure cook for 45 minutes
3) Slowly release pressure
4) Add salt, remove and mash 1/4 of beans, returning to the pot.
5) Hard boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly
6) Reduce to low heat until ready to serveJust one experience.
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Melody
I use ham hocks, salt pork or hog jowl – any of those work well. I love pintos but speckled butter beans are my favorite. Black eyed or Crowder peas are good too & a whole different flavor! I like to mix them sometimes. Like today I have a pot going with navy beans & pintos beause I only had but a little of each. I put in a rather large meaty ham bone and a piece of onion leftovers. No salt till it’s done. No chicken broth – what?!
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Van
Something I learned from Jack Trayer back when I worked in one of his restaurants in Bristol – peel a whole onion and push the it down in the middle of the pot. I have also taken to using trimmed country ham instead of fat back. It still makes a pretty good bowl of beans, especially when cooked for 8 to 10 hours in a crockpot.
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Nick
I’m not sure I’ll make your soup but, if I may say, your story was wonderful. Have you ever considered writing? If not, you should.
Kind regards,
Nick
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Sandra Sue
I am 78 yrs of age and this is the first I have ever heard pinto beans called soup beans. Very gentrified or pretending to be something one is not, lol. We had pinto beans cooked with fat back (salt pork) 7 days a week. Guess we were to poor here in western Virginia, to have soup beans.
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Linda Powell
My ex was from a little town in Kentucky, about 40 miles east of Lexington. They always called pinto beans soup beans, and it had nothing to do with being “gentrified”, as they were anything but. Soup beans is just a different regional name than the one you use. Doesn’t make it wrong just because you never heard it.
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