Freezing ham??
 

I've never been a fan of freezing ham, but I have quite a bit leftover that I'd like to freeze for soup. Any tricks?

No real tricks .....
Chop it up into whatever shape/size you want for the soup.
Put in ziplocks in the quantity you will use for a batch of soup.
Then it is ready to just toss into your soup pot when the time is right.

mmmmmmmmmmm .... soup! :)

Put it in a Ziploc Freezer bag & then into a brown paper bag & tape it shut. Everything in our 2 chest freezers is done this way & we have never had anything freezer burn. We buy or pick meat, veggies, fruits in bulk & freeze. We still have strawberries, blue berries, blackberries, apples, etc., we picked 4 years ago & they have no freezer burn. We have lots of meat, frozen veggies, etc. The brown paper bag is the key to preventing freezer burn. If you can't get a brown paper bag then use freezer wrap & wrap the Ziploc bag in it, folding all edges at least twice, & tape it shut well.

Freezing ham changes the structure of the tissue and forces the water out. Doesn't hurt anything at all, just makes it feel a little different. Using it in soup is likely a better idea than serving it whole.

Watson

This was my previous experience. I guess I just have to ignore any change and use it. I like various bean soups.

Yes I’ve frozen it too. It works fine in soup or scalloped potatoes.

Newspaper over works as a good over wrap too.

I don't care for it to eat as is, but in soups it's fine but I do like to cut it up small.

I made bean soup yesterday. Yum. I freeze ham. Yes it does lose something in the freezer. We like to fry the slices quickly. I usually use med high heat. Sometimes I put it on the grill.

Another trick is to get the air out of your freezer bags. I don't own one of those fancy seal-a-meal machines any longer so I use a plastic straw, close the freezer bag up to enough to allow the straw in at one end and suck out the remaining air and quickly pull out the straw and finish closing the bag. My freezer stuff lasts longer this way.

I also found out that when freezing veggies such as onions, peppers, etc. I chop them up to the size I like, place them on a cookie sheet and put them into the freezer for a couple hours. This dries them out so when you thaw them out later, they're not so watery. I place them in a freezer bag and they stay more individual instead of in a pile. In fact right now I have peppers and mushrooms on a cookie sheet I need to place into freezer bags right now. Guess I should get cracking and do that.

Ham and Potato Soup

This recipe says that it serves 8. (It served 3 at my house, so I always double it).

3 1/2 cups peeled and diced potatoes
1/3 cup chopped celery
1/3 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup diced cooked ham
3 1/4 cup water
2 Tbsp. chicken bouillon granules (6 cubes)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper ( I use less—about half )
5 Tbsp. butter
5 Tbsp. flour
2 cups milk

Combine potatoes, celery, onion and ham with water in stockpot. Bring to boil, then cook over medium heat until potatoes are tender (10-15 mins).
Stir in bouillon and salt and pepper.

In separate saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Whisk in flour with fork and cook stirring constantly until thick (1 min). Slowly stir in milk...continue stirring (med low heat)
until thick (4-5 min).

Stir the milk mixture into the stockpot and cook soup until heated through. Serve with cheese ( I throw in Velveeta during the last few minutes!)


Gluten and Dairy Free Recipe

I use cornstarch instead of flour and rice milk instead of milk.

My mom always gives us a Costco spiral cut ham at Christmas, there's just two of us so quite a bit ends up frozen. Knowing that we won't get through all of it, I take off an inch or so off the sliced part and freeze it to start. Then the middle gets eaten. The end part gets chopped up for soup. The pieces for soup I chop first and then squeeze out the air in a freezer bag. I'll freeze the bone until I'm ready to make the soup too, usually just toss it in a gallon sized freezer bag and roll up. Then when I'm ready, I buy the bag of 15 bean (or 12 or whatever it is) soup mix and basically follow the directions, or at least the directions of the brand I used back then, it's slightly different now.

I freeze the ham bone and any ham that was not cut away in a ziplock freezer bag. In fact, I just pulled a ham bone out to make a split pea soup tomorrow. I like Emeril Lagasse’s recipe.

If you cook up the ham bone to make broth, you can use some of the broth in each bag of meat. That way the broth will provide moisture to protect the ham from drying out.

There isn't much to freeze now. I made a friend scalloped potatoes and ham - heavy on the ham. I think I will make a batch of bean soup with half of the remainder and freeze enough for split pea soup.

We freeze ham bones and ham scraps (not off plates!) for cooking in beans or peas. It reconstitutes the ham, which tastes fine, and flavors the beans. Yummy.