This is a slow cooker recipe for split pea soup that has notes for how to make on the stove top. Split pea soup is a simple soup with very few ingredients, the most important being a ham bone (traditional) of a smoked turkey bone if you want to try something different. This is a slow cooking soup because split peas take a long time to soften and you need time to get the marrow flavors out of the bone.
Ingredients
- 454 g dried split peas ~ 1 lb or 2 1/4 cups
- 1 ham bone
- 454 g ham – trimmed and diced ~1 lb
- 2,000 g water ~ 8cups
- 1 large onion – diced ~ 1 cup
- 2 medium celery stalks – finely chopped ~ 1 cup
- 3 medium carrots – in 1/4″ slices ~ 1.5 cups
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- Kosher salt to taste (depends on saltness of ham)
Process
- Mise en Place – measure and prepare your ingredients prior to starting.
- Sort peas by removing any dark or discolored ones.
- Put peas in bowl and cover with water. Soak two mins. then remove any shells or peas that float to the top.
- Discard water and rinse the split peas in a colander.
- For slow cooker: heat peas and water on high for 1 hour.
- For stove top: bring peas and water to a boil in 4-quart Dutch oven. Boil uncovered 2 mins, then remove from heat, cover and soak 1 hr.
- Stir in onion, celery and pepper. Add ham bone. Slow cook 2 hrs.
- For stove top: Add ingredients and heat to boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer ~1.5 hrs. or until peas are tender.
- Remove ham bone and clean meat from bone.
- Stir ham and carrots into soup.
- For slow cooker: heat on high for 30 mins then lower heat to warm.
- For stove top: heat to boil, reduce to simmer, cover and cook ~30 mins. or until carrots are tender.
