Name: Crock Pot Bean Soup
Ingredients: 1 pound dry white beans; 2 quarts water; 1 onion, chopped; 2 cloves garlic, minced; 2 tsp olive oil; 1 ham hock or ham bone, or ¼ pound diced salt pork; 1 tomato, peeled and chopped; ½ tsp thyme; 1 tbsp wine vinegar; salt and pepper

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,713 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,108 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,665 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dry white beans: Provide the main body of the soup and thicken it as they break down during slow cooking.
Ham hock or ham bone: Adds savory, smoky meat flavor that seasons the broth during the long simmer.
Onion: Builds sweetness and aroma as it softens into the broth.
Tomato: Adds moisture and mild acidity that brightens the soup's savory base.
Wine vinegar: Adds acidity at the end that lifts and balances the rich, starchy flavors.

The step that matters

Add the vinegar at serving time. Acid added early can slow bean softening during long cooking, while stirring it in at the end keeps its brightness fresh and balances the richness.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, onion, garlic, olive, ham, tomato, thyme):

Cuminfits better
Oreganofits better
Basilfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, onion, garlic, olive, ham, tomato, thyme. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Pork	100g cooked	242
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Wine	2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)	25
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Thyme	1 tsp dried (1.4g)	4
Vinegar	1 tbsp (15ml) distilled	3
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Bean	not in our table	0
Water	not in our table	0

Crock Pot Bean Soup