Slow Cooker 15 Bean Soup with Collards and Smoked Turkey 🫘

This is a set it and walk away dinner, and those are the ones that keep this house running.

Beans soaked overnight, smoked turkey necks, a whole bunch of collards, and four hours later you come back to creamy beans and turkey falling off the bone. One pot. Enough for everybody. Leftovers for tomorrow.

The one thing I want you to change about how you normally make this. Throw away the seasoning packet that comes in the bag. I will tell you what to use instead.

If you would rather watch me put it together, the video is right here.

Three things that make this one

• Skip the seasoning packet. It is mostly salt and it tastes like it. My blend is seven things you already have in the cabinet and it is not close.
• Smoked turkey necks, not smoked turkey wings. The necks have more collagen in them and they give the broth a body you cannot get any other way. They are also cheaper.
• Wait on the tomatoes and the vinegar. Acid going in early keeps beans from softening. Both go in at the end, after the beans are already tender.

What You Need

• 1 bag 15 bean soup mix, about 20 oz, soaked overnight
• 2 to 3 smoked turkey necks, about 1 to 1 1/2 lbs
• 1 bunch collard greens, cleaned and chopped
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 4 to 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 6 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup water
• 1 can diced tomatoes, drained
• 1 whole Scotch bonnet, optional

My seasoning blend

This is what goes in instead of the packet.

• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
• 2 bay leaves

If you are short on time and you want to use the packet, use it. I am not going to fight you about it.

To finish

• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar, optional
• Better Than Bouillon chicken base, only if it needs it after you taste

How I Made It

1. Soak the beans the night before

Cover them with a few inches of water and leave them overnight. Drain and rinse in the morning.

This is not optional for me. Soaked beans cook more evenly, they are easier on your stomach, and it cuts real time off the cook.

2. Everything in the pot

Beans, onion, bell pepper, celery, garlic, the turkey necks, all seven of the seasonings, chicken broth and water go into the slow cooker together.

3. Collards on top

Clean them well and chop them. Collards hold grit down in the ribs, so wash them more than you think you need to.

If you are using the Scotch bonnet, it goes in whole. Do not cut it. Do not poke it. A whole pepper sitting in there gives you the flavor and almost none of the heat. Split it open and you have made a completely different soup, and somebody at your table is going to let you know about it.

4. Cook it

HIGH for 4 to 5 hours.

Since the beans were soaked, start checking around three and a half. Test one of the bigger beans, not a little one. The big ones are the last to give.

5. Pull the turkey

Once the beans are tender, take the necks out and let them cool enough to handle.

Pull the meat off the bones, shred it, and put it back in the pot. Fish out the bay leaves and the Scotch bonnet while you are in there.

There is more meat on a neck than it looks like. Take your time and get it all.

6. Now the tomatoes and the acid

Drained tomatoes, Worcestershire, apple cider vinegar, and the brown sugar if you are using it.

The vinegar is what wakes the whole pot up. A bean soup without acid tastes flat and heavy and you cannot figure out why.

7. Another 20 to 30 minutes

HIGH, lid on, let everything come together.

8. Taste before you salt

The smoked turkey and the broth already brought a lot of salt with them. Taste first. Then add a little Better Than Bouillon or more seasoning if it needs it.

If you want it thicker, mash a scoop of beans against the side of the pot and stir them back in. That is all it takes.

Questions about this one

Can I skip the overnight soak?

You can, but add about two hours to the cook time and check them more often. If you forgot, cover the beans in boiling water and let them sit an hour instead. Not as good, but it works.

What if I cannot find turkey necks?

Smoked turkey wings or a smoked ham hock. Wings give you more meat, necks give you a better broth. A ham hock is somewhere in the middle.

Can I make it without meat?

Yes. Use vegetable broth, double the smoked paprika, and add a splash more Worcestershire at the end. You are chasing that smoke, so lean into it.

Can I use kale or mustard greens instead?

Kale, mustard, turnip greens, whatever you have. Collards take the longest to break down, so if you swap to something more tender add it in the last hour instead of at the start.

How spicy is it with the Scotch bonnet?

Barely. Left whole it perfumes the pot more than it heats it. If you want actual heat, split it, but taste as you go because there is no taking it back out.

Stovetop or Instant Pot?

Stovetop, low simmer, about two hours. Instant Pot, high pressure 25 minutes with soaked beans, natural release, then finish with the tomatoes and vinegar on sauté.

Leftovers

Fridge, 5 days, and it is better on day two. The beans keep drinking the broth so add a splash when you reheat it.

Freezes well. Portion it flat in bags, up to three months.

The collards are the part you can grow

Everything else in this pot comes from the store. The collards do not have to.

Collards are one of the easiest things we grow in Florida and they are one of the most generous. You cut the outer leaves and leave the center growing point alone, and the same plant keeps feeding you from October all the way into spring. I start mine in trays in September.

If you have been meaning to start some, here is what I am planting this month, and here is how I start the trays so they actually make it.

The slow cooker, the seasonings and the kitchen tools I use are on my Amazon storefront. If you buy through them I make a small commission and it costs you nothing extra.

A recipe or a garden journal entry goes up every week on Patreon for five dollars a month.

This one is in our regular rotation now. If you make it, come tell me what you served it with, because we do cornbread and I know somebody out there is going to say rice.

Toni

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