Ham Bone

A ham bone is the leftover bone from a cured or smoked ham, often with scraps of meat, fat, and collagen attached. It lends a deep smoky, salty pork flavor and releases gelatin as it simmers, enriching soups and stews with body. Cooks commonly use it to flavor bean pots, braised greens, and stocks; it is often sold frozen or vacuum-sealed after carving.

Cured hams and their bones arise from longstanding preservation traditions across Europe and the American South, where cooks save bones for broths and pots of beans. Meat processors and butcher shops generate ham bones when trimming bone-in hams, and home cooks repurpose them after holiday roasts.