Healthy Split Pea Soup Recipe

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Hey guys! This is Heather from HealthyVeganRecipes.net. Alright, we’re getting to soup season and today we’re gonna make one of my favorites split peas soup.

Now for those of you who don’t know this, split peas soup often comes with ham in it. Especially here in Canada, the French Canadian version of pea soup includes ham so it can be tricky sometime to find a vegan version of it and it is so so tasty so I love to make my own and that way I know there is no animal food in it.

Ok, so we’re gonna start as all fantastic soup start with some garlic and onion. For those of you who want the recipe with the directions and all of the measurements. You can head over to HealthyVeganRecipes.net. I’m just gonna go over how to make the recipe and the important things you should keep in mind when making it.

So again we will start with onion and garlic which I have already chopped up and ready to go. I’ve got a soup pot that’s heating up and what I’m gonna do is into that soup pot I’m gonna put a little bit of white wine.

And I’m going to brace the onion and the garlic. You can if you prefer sauté them in some oil. I would use probably coconut oil, really nice flavor with the split peas soup. But I like whenever possible to avoid using oil so I’m going to do it with some wine.

Alright, check it out, if you heat the pot and then add your wine, it’s gonna bubble nicely and the onions and the garlic are gonna cook a little bit. You’re gonna see them starts to go translucence meaning you can see through them a little bit but not totally see through.

Again if you wanted to sauté these first, what I would do is sauté them in the oil and then add some wine for flavor. Ok, so when they get to look translucence, we’re going to add the split peas which are these guys right here.

I’m using green, there’s also yellow. They’re kinda pretty so you can use whichever one you like so check those in there and I’m also gonna throw some seasonings in. I got some bay leaves and these are actually fresh from a friend’s garden where I use to live in British Columbia.

So nice memories with those and then I’ve got some thyme and this is also fresh thyme that I’ve dried, this is from Phil’s garden also in British Columbia. I’ve carrying it around with me for a little while so it’s about time I use them.

If you rub them a little bit with your hands as you throw them in. It will help release the flavor. And I’m gonna throw a little bit of oregano in here as well coz I’m just a little bit crazy. I like to put different flavors in there. Not everyone will do oregano in a split peas soup.

Okidoki! Stir that around a little bit so that the wine can soften up those peas just a little bit. Now what we’re gonna do is add some vegetable broth or water. Little trick that I pick up form my sister in law, soul sister is to boil the water in an electric kettle and then when your soup is ready you can just pour it on in and you don’t have to wait for it to come up to a boil again.

Saves time and helps preserve the flavor because it doesn’t have to sit there in the water while it gets boiling. Alright, so what you’re gonna do now is put a lid on here and the name of the game is to let those peas cook.

The beauty of a split pea soup other than starting with garlic and onions is to have them cook really really well so that they’re super soft and they get really nice and rich and creamy.

If they don’t cook properly it’s gonna taste a little bit starchy and that’s not really what you’re going for. You want those things cook really really well and not only taste super super delicious but it will also be much more easily digest so my tips for cooking these peas properly. I have two things I wanted to say.

Number one, do not add any salt right now. I know you want to, sometimes I kinda want to myself but if you add salt now those peas are gonna go hard. They’re not gonna cook properly and it won’t be a good scene.

So although you may feel you want to flavor this up, at this point with some salt, hold off, please, do it! Ok? Another thing that I’ll mention there is that some vegetable broth can actually, ok, let me say this first – so vegetable broth has salt in it. Vegetable stalk does not, so if you’re buying some vegetable stalk or broth, check the ingredients and make sure there’s no salt.

If there is, you’re not gonna want to use it in this recipe just use some water. If you can find a stalk that doesn’t have salt in it, excellent! That will give you flavor, really really rich nice flavor without adding the salt that’s gonna screw up the cooking of the peas.

Ok, that’s enough of that topic. My number two tip for cooking the peas properly is that this is boiling right now because I added boiling water. Turn it down to minimum. You want these guys to simmer.

Simmer means that it’s just gonna be kind of jiggling around and not really boiling but just very gentle bubbles coming through and the reason this is so important is because when you boil peas they’re gonna stay with their shape intact.

If you get them to simmer, the water is gonna enter into the peas, they’re gonna swell and the carbohydrates in there are gonna breakdown and that’s when you get the really nice creamy peas. If you boil them it’s gonna be a little bit starchier so again, you can do that but it’s not gonna be quite as phenomenal of a split pea soup experience.

Ok, so what are those again? Number one, don’t use salt! Number two, once it gets boiling turn it down to minimum. And then you just wait for them to cook into deliciousness.

After that I will show you how to finish this off and make an amazing, delicious, easy, healthy split pea soup.

Ok, so if you manage to follow the direction of not adding salt and letting this simmer for quite some time, you will get some super super soft split peas. Look at that, they’re coming apart on their own.

Now I’m gonna puree this because I want the onions to get mix up in here as well before I do that I am going to take out the bay leaves because they’re not so good to eat.

Hand blender makes a perfect tool to puree soup because once your done, all you do is take this off and then that is all you have to wash. Plus you can puree it right in the pot so I can keep going in making this.

So there is the texture in my soup, if you want it thicker then you can do with less water or more peas. Or you can add some – something thick here like a coconut milk or something like that but anyway moving on.

We’re gonna add some salt and what I’m gonna add in here because it is so tasty and salty is some miso. This is fermented soy bean paste and so I’m just gonna stir it in here but if you don’t have miso don’t worry about is just use some salt and you can throw a bit of soy sauce or tamari in there if you want to.

But it might little bit too much flavor, the miso is kind of a just a rich salty flavor. So what you wanna do here is just add enough salt that the flavor come throw so you wanna get this a taste a few times to make sure it’s good for you and start small because you can always add a little bit more but you can’t take it out.

Alright, now for my super special addition to this soup, I’m going to add some sundried tomatoes and you can soak this in water beforehand and really soften this up or you can and put them in a soup and let them marinate for a little while and they will soften and swell with the soup.

So what I’m gonna do is just take my kitchen scissors and cut some little bit in there and what this will do is they’re gonna have a really nice salty bite to them so every so often we take a bite of your soup you’re gonna have a little salty sundried tomato coming at you. You can also do this really nicely with olives, sun dried tomatoes!

Alright guys that it’s for the recipe today you can get all of the amounts and ingredients and directions and all that fun stuff over at HealthyVeganRecipes.net. If you’re interested in more nutrition and healthy eating information head over to HealthyEatingStartsHere.com and I hope you enjoy your soup.