Slow Cooker Bean and Bacon Soup
Tired of the same old soup recipes? You’ll love this delicious and easy slow cooker bean and bacon soup. Perfect for cold winter nights, this hearty meal requires minimal ingredients but delivers big on flavor – it’s sure to become a staple in your kitchen along with our other crock pot soup recipes.
With only 15 minutes of prep needed before you can let the slow cooker work its magic, you won’t have to worry about constantly monitoring or stirring up your dinner. That’s great for a busy weeknight with the family!
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Making white bean and bacon soup in a slow cooker is a wonderful way to get dinner on the table quickly and easily.
The savory and salty flavors of the bacon combined with the velvety texture of the beans make this simple dish a comfort food favorite.
Serve with crusty bread and a green salad for a delicious meal that’s full of flavor and nutrition.
Ingredients for bean soup with bacon
Slow cooker “dump” recipes are so easy! You just add all the ingredients to the crock, cover and cook on Low.
With soups, you can’t really overcook it. This type of recipe is perfect to start in the morning so you’ll have hot, delicious soup at dinnertime. Here’s what you need:
- bacon
- canned Northern beans
- celery
- onion
- carrots
- salt and pepper
- garlic cloves
- chicken broth
Is this slow cooker bean with bacon soup gluten-free?
As long as you use a gluten-free chicken bouillon or chicken broth, this soup recipe is naturally gluten free. We like to serve our carbs on the side (like dinner rolls or breadsticks) so everyone can control their portions.
But it would be easy to add potatoes, rice or noodles to this soup to make it even heartier. For rice and noodles, cook them separately on the stovetop and add in at the end of slow cooking. For potatoes, you can add them at the beginning as long as they’re in large pieces (otherwise they’ll get too mushy).
How to make bean soup with bacon
Start by chopping up the raw bacon and cooking in a skillet. Once cooked, move to a paper towel-lined plate to soak up the grease.
Chop the carrots, celery and onion. Add to bottom of crock pot.
Drain and rinse white beans (rinsing removes a lot of the extra sodium) using a colander. Add to crock along with chopped vegetables.
Add minced garlic, salt, pepper and chicken broth. Set to Low and cook for 6-8 hours or until vegetables are tender.
Serve this slow cooker bean with bacon soup hot.
More slow cooker bean recipes
Beans are so yummy when slow cooked in the crock pot. Give these other slow cooker bean recipes a try:
- Slow Cooker 15 Bean Soup
- Soup-er Easy Slow Cooker Bean Soup
- Slow Cooker Chicken Chili with White Beans
- Sausage and Bean Slow Cooker Soup
- Slow Cooker Red Beans and Rice
- Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup
I often use liners in my slow cooker, but with soups it’s usually not necessary because it’s easier to clean up afterward.
Printable slow cooker bean and bacon soup recipe
Slow Cooker Bean and Bacon Soup
This delicious, and super easy bacon and bean soup recipe is loaded with bacon, carrots, celery, and onion to give it the perfect flavor.
Ingredients
- ½ lb bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
- 3 (15.5oz) cans northern beans
- ½ cup celery, diced
- ½ cup onion, diced
- 1 cup carrots, diced
- salt and pepper
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 cups chicken broth
Instructions
- Add cut bacon to a skillet and cook over medium heat, until done, stirring the bacon often. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate to allow the grease to absorb.
- Add all of the ingredients to the crockpot.
- Cook on Low for 6-8 hours.
Notes
This can be made on the stove top instead. Just add everything to a stockpot as directed and heat over medium heat for about 1 hour.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
6Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 242Total Fat: 14gSaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 8gCholesterol: 41mgSodium: 1325mgCarbohydrates: 12gFiber: 3gSugar: 3gProtein: 17g
1. This recipe is delicious! Made with 1 quart of Great Northern beans I canned last fall, and had a sad-looking leek wanting using, so threw that in, as well!
2. That being said, despite starting crispy in the slow cooker, the bacon gets WAY soggy – I despise the texture of soggy bacon (It’s an Autism thing!!! Ugh!!!). So, that being said:
3. Add maybe 1/2 teaspoon of liquid smoke to get that great bacon-y flavor in the soup, but consider topping the DELICIOUS, amazing and EASY soup with the crispy bacon!!! Or, as an alternative, chop ham and add to soup, where you won’t have to worry about texture being compromised.
This is a easy, fast, throw it together quick-as-a-wink recipe that can be made in the morning, or prepped the night before and refrigerated. Dump in slow cooker with the beans in the morning, and out the door… You cannot beat coming home to a house smelling of amazing soup!!!
If you want it a tad thicker, take a potato masher and just mash up the mixture randomly until it’s your preferred thickness… THANK YOU for reminding us that the humble bean can be elevated!!!
As a note: as grocery costs continue to skyrocket – consider buying dried beans and soaking them overnight. It doesn’t add to your time, at all – put the beans in water. But you can get a pound of beans (actually, about 4+ cans’ worth, once re-hydrated) at Dollar Tree; cans are at about $1 or more, at my local Walmart. If you soak beans overnight, prep your veggies the night before, you just drain the beans in the morning when you add everything else to the slow cooker. It saves you a few dollars, bringing this recipe down to pennies per serving!!! My slow cooker is large enough that I can easily double this recipe, using the entire pound of beans. It also freezes beautifully, though the beans will get a little more mushy… It’s totally worth it, though, to get more than one meal from humble, inexpensive ingredients, and minimal time invested – yum!!!