Don't Throw Out Your Ham Bone: Freeze It And Save It For Later Use

Next time you bake a ham, do yourself a favor and hang onto the bone. Ham bones are flavor bombs that can impart salty and smoky complexity into a plethora of dishes. But, unless you're going straight from roasting the meat to putting bones into a stock, you need to know how to properly store ham bones for a later date.

Regardless of how long you intend on keeping it, the first step for saving a ham bone is to seal it in a plastic bag. If you're planning on using it within the next two to three days, then it will keep just fine in the fridge. But, the ham bone will be good for about three months when stored in the freezer, should you want to save it for even longer. If you have a vacuum sealer, this would be the time to use it. No vacuum sealer? No problem. You can keep freezer burn away from bagged foods using the straw hack. Before sealing your ham bone in a storage bag, leave some room to insert a straw. Suck out all of the air in the bag until the bone is tightly sealed, and you're good to go.

The ham bone is an oft-forgotten about piece of culinary gold. Sure, the meat may be the star of a celebratory dinner, but the bone is equally as valuable — not to mention the precious marrow that it holds. Especially in cold winter months, a decadent and briny ham soup is the perfect meal. If you've frozen your ham bone, you don't technically have to defrost it before tossing it in a stock pot. Keep in mind, though, that a big, frosty bone will cool everything else in the pot down, which could impact cooking time. However, this matters less if you're making something like our herby ham and bean soup recipe where the bone is added to the pot alongside other ingredients and everything is stewed together at once.

Some people also like to use the remaining fat, marrow, and bits of meat that are still stuck to a ham bone to add extra richness and savory flavor to whatever they're cooking. In this case, it would be best to thaw the bone overnight in your refrigerator to make sure everything cooks at a relatively even pace. Any fat clinging to the bone will render in the pot and make an excellent base for soups and stews, or even when cooking beans from scratch. Otherwise, use the ham bone and leftover scraps to craft one of the best bone broth recipes, which can then be used as a cooking liquid for risotto, barley, or even potatoes.