Easy Split Pea Soup

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This Easy Split Pea Soup is the stuff fall dreams are made of. It is thick, creamy, and chock full of delicious root vegetables. This hearty soup sticks to your ribs and warms you up.

Bowl of split pea soup with bacon in white bowl

I love blended soups like this Easy Split Pea, Tomato Basil Bisque, and Roasted Butternut Squash. The creaminess is so satisfying and filling. All you need is a little bit of bread or crackers to have a delicious complete meal.

Make this recipe!

In this recipe, I call for adding chicken broth as the liquid, but making this soup vegetarian or vegan is easy peasy! (I crack myself up!) Simply subsititute chicken broth for vegetable broth and you have vegetarian split pea soup.

On the flip side, you can sprinkle diced ham or bacon over the top of this beautiful pea soup for some extra good flavor.

By keeping the meat a topping instead of blending it into the soup you can make sure to satisfy everyone’s dietary desires.

This is a blended soup, so you don’t have to spend a lot of time perfectly dicing vegetables. It's the perfect recipe for beginning cooks.

The ingredients are very basic and very inexpensive.

It doesn’t have to simmer for hours to taste great. You only need about 1 hour total to have this easy split pea soup on the table.

Ingredients

Dried Split Peas- These are peas that are field dried. Their skins are removed and they are split in half. Dried peas can be either soaked or cooked for softening. They only take 40 minutes to 1 hour to soften by cooking.

Instructions

Step 1

Measure 2 Cups of dried split peas into a colander. Rinse with cool water and remove any debris.

Step 2

Clean and dice carrots, celery, and onion. Smash and peel garlic. (There is no need to fuss about the size of the diced vegetables since everything will be blended together at the end.)

Chopped carrot, celery, onion, and garlic on cutting board

Step 3

Heat a large soup pot on medium heat. Add two tablespoons of olive, then add the diced carrots, onions, celery, garlic, salt, and pepper. Saute until the onions are translucent.

Step 4

Next, pour cleaned split peas into the pot and add red chili powder.

seasoned split peas and cooked vegetables in pot

Step 5

Finally, pour in four cups (1quart) chicken broth and two cups of water.
Bring the soup to a simmer and cover and cook on low for 40 minutes. After 40 minutes, the soup will go from liquid with definite separate parts to a thick, chunky stew like texture.

cooked peas and vegetables with chunky stew like texture

Step 6

Once the peas are completely soft, blend the pea soup completely smooth.

FAQs

How do you cook dried split peas?

Simmering dried peas in water or broth for around 40 minutes will give you tender peas.

How much liquid do I add to dried split peas when cooking?

Add three cups of liquid for every cup of dry peas.

Expert Tips

You really do need to clean the dried peas very well. Split peas are field dried and may have some dirt and debris mixed into the bag. The bags are usually pretty clean, but I often find a very small pebble or some dry pea skins.

Make sure to cook covered and keep the burner on low. Without a lid, too much liquid will evaporate and you could burn the soup.

I recommend an immersion blender that purees everything directly in the pot. A regular stand blender will work perfectly fine. Please be careful when blending hot soup. Sometimes trapped steam in the blender can cause little explosions of hot soup. Vent the lid to let steam escape before fully removing it.