Bacon and White Navy Bean Soup for Later Full GAPS

This bacon and white navy bean soup starts with soft, fully prepared beans, homemade beef meat stock, and salt-only bacon. The bacon cooks first, the onion softens in its fat, and lime goes in at the end. You get a generous pot with creamy beans and browned bacon to scatter over each bowl.

Have the beans ready before soup day. Their soaking, fermentation, and cooking take several days, while the finished soup has a one-hour covered simmer. This is a later Full GAPS meal once properly prepared beans are part of your menu.

Jump to the Recipe

Our family’s meat stock changes with the budget, what is available, and how much time I have. Starting a pot in the morning has been the routine that made GAPS doable for us. With homeschooling before second-shift work, I need the next meal to have somewhere to begin. Ready stock is one part of that. Prepared beans are another job to schedule ahead, rather than discover when everyone is already hungry.

Start With Prepared White Navy Beans

Measure two cups of dry white navy or haricot beans before starting the white navy bean preparation. Use the entire drained, cooked amount that results. Two cups of dry beans and two cups of cooked beans are very different amounts.

The linked preparation takes the beans through soaking, fermentation, thorough rinsing, and cooking in fresh water. They should already be completely soft before they go into this soup. Press a cooled bean with a fork. Its center should squash into a smooth paste without a firm, chalky speck.

Use enough liquid and vessel space for the actual beans as they expand. The preparation explains how to keep its culture-to-water ratio when more liquid is needed. Keep the soak and fermentation liquids out of the soup.

A freezer portion can work if it contains the full cooked yield from the measured dry amount. Label that starting quantity when you prepare the beans. You do not need to guess how many cups they produced or substitute an assumed canned-bean equivalent.

Bacon, Stock, and the Lime Finish

Bacon: Weigh sixteen ounces of finished, uncooked homemade salt-only bacon, then chop it into even pieces. The cure removes moisture, so a pound of fresh pork belly will not necessarily give you a pound of finished bacon. Have enough prepared before weighing the soup amount.

Beef meat stock: Use homemade beef meat stock made from raw meaty bones and joints with a short simmer. Start with eight cups. You can use up to ten cups for a looser soup, depending on how much the beans absorb and the thickness you prefer.

Onion and garlic: Measure one cup of chopped onion and crush four garlic cloves. The onion cooks in the rendered bacon fat. Look for softened, translucent pieces before adding the beans and liquid.

Bay, mustard, and honey: Five bay leaves, a teaspoon of pure dry mustard, and a teaspoon of honey season the whole pot. The honey is a small part of the seasoning, rather than enough to make the soup sweet. Remember to remove every bay leaf before serving.

Lime: Measure one tablespoon of finely grated zest and one tablespoon of fresh juice. Grate the colored outer skin, stopping before the thick white pith. Add both after taking the soup off the heat so their fresh citrus smell is clear when you serve it.

Hot sauce: The measured amount is one teaspoon, with more to taste. TABASCO Original Red Sauce lists distilled vinegar, red peppers, and salt. Check the actual bottle rather than treating every sauce from the same brand as interchangeable.

How to Make the Soup

Cook the Bacon

Put the chopped prepared bacon in a large, low stockpot over medium heat. Stir and turn the pieces as the fat renders. The white fat becomes more translucent, the pieces shrink, and their edges turn brown. Cook the bacon through to the texture you want on top of the soup.

Lift it onto a plate with a slotted spoon, leaving the rendered fat in the pot. Keep the bacon separate during the simmer. Putting it back into the liquid for an hour would soften the browned topping.

Soften the Onion and Garlic

Add the chopped onion to the bacon fat. Stir across the bottom so the pieces are coated and do not sit against one hot patch of the pan. Lower the heat if the edges darken before the centers soften.

Add the crushed garlic as the onion cooks. Continue until the onion is soft and the garlic smells fragrant rather than raw. You are making a savory base, so there is no need to fry the garlic to a dark brown color.

Simmer With the Prepared Beans

Add the fully cooked, drained beans, the starting stock, bay leaves, honey, and mustard. Stir gently, bring the soup to a boil, then cover and lower the heat to a simmer. Cook for one hour.

Look for gentle bubbling beneath the lid rather than a rolling boil that breaks the beans apart quickly. Some beans can split and thicken the liquid. That gives the soup body without flour or a separate thickener.

Check the pot during the simmer. If the liquid has become thicker than you want, add some of the reserved stock. The eight-to-ten-cup range gives you room to adjust while keeping the beef flavor in the soup.

Finish Off the Heat

Remove the pot from the heat and lift out all five bay leaves. Stir in the lime zest, lime juice, and measured hot sauce. Taste a cooled spoonful before adding more hot sauce. The bacon and stock already bring salt, so judge the finished bowl before reaching for another seasoning.

Ladle into bowls and add the cooked bacon. Optional sliced green onions add a fresh bite. A spoonful of homemade cultured sour cream makes a tangy topping once that dairy food has been introduced.

Where This Fits on GAPS

Dr. Natasha’s 2020 book names white navy or haricot beans among the legumes used on GAPS, with proper preparation and careful introduction. Beans wait until diarrhoea and other digestive symptoms have cleared completely. For many people, introducing legumes means waiting a year or longer.

This soup belongs on later Full GAPS after those beans are tolerated. It is not an early Intro soup simply because it contains meat stock. The beans, browned bacon, spices, and finish all belong to the complete meal.

Leave off the sour cream if that food has not been introduced. The linked bean preparation uses whey or kefir during fermentation, even though that liquid is drained and the beans are rinsed. This version uses a dairy starter even if you leave off the sour cream.

For an earlier-stage meal, follow the separate meat stock recipe with its own soft meat and stage-appropriate vegetables. Removing the beans from this pot would create a different soup with a different balance of ingredients.

Store the Soup and Toppings Separately

Divide the soup into shallow containers and cool it promptly before refrigerating. Keep the cooked bacon and optional sour cream in their own covered containers. The bacon stays a topping instead of soaking in the stored soup.

Use refrigerated soup within two days, or freeze portions for longer storage. Leave expansion space in freezer-suitable glass containers. Label the soup amount and date so you can take out a meal-size portion.

Thaw in the refrigerator and reheat the soup until hot throughout, stirring so the bottom heats evenly. Beans can absorb more liquid as they sit. Add a little homemade beef meat stock if the chilled soup has become too thick, then add the toppings after ladling.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Recipe Use Two Cups of Cooked Beans?

No. Start with two cups measured dry, complete the linked preparation, and use the entire cooked batch. Measuring only two cups after cooking would leave out much of the recipe’s beans.

Can I Just Soak the Beans Overnight?

The preparation used here includes fermentation and thorough cooking after the soak. Finish those steps before making the soup. Its one-hour simmer does not replace the earlier preparation.

Why Is My Soup So Thick?

Very soft beans release some of their creamy centers into the liquid, and they keep absorbing stock. Start with eight cups and add more within the recipe’s range for the consistency you prefer. Stir gently if you want to keep more whole beans.

Can I Make It Ahead?

Yes. Keep the bacon and optional dairy topping separate, cool the soup promptly, and refrigerate or freeze in portions. Reheat the soup first, then finish each bowl with its toppings.

Equipment and Meal Planning

Use a roomy stainless-steel or enameled cast-iron stockpot with a lid, a wooden spoon, a slotted spoon, a ladle, a cutting board, and a sharp knife. A fine grater and citrus juicer make it easier to measure the lime zest and juice. The pot needs room for the stock and expanded beans, not just the dry ingredient volume.

If you want another later Full GAPS bean meal, the white navy bean and pork hock soup is another option when you want pork hock and vegetables with your prepared beans.

The planned Soup & Stew Recipe Card Deck and Weekly Kitchen Rhythm Planner are part of the WFLI catalog. The planner fits the long bean preparation, bacon cure, and stock day. Write those jobs down first, then put the soup on a day when its ingredients will be ready.