Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup

Yesterday's pea soup was so great, that I wanted more peas today. I knew I was going to be stuck in meetings all day and the weather is still crummy, so I thought I would make use of the crockpot and have a nice hot bowl of soup waiting for me after work. I also have a couple pounds of split peas sitting around that I've been waiting to use.


I looked up a few recipes online, but didn't find anything that made me excited, so I created my own using inspiration from the others. I started by sautéing onions, celery, and carrots. Once they were almost done, I added some kale. Why kale? Well, I love kale and split pea soup does not have a very attractive color, so why not add a little extra green?

While the veggies were sautéing, I rinsed the peas and made sure that no gross ones or rocks were hiding in the batch. I only found one that looked like it didn't belong... I'm not sure if that is a good number or if I should have found more!

Once the veggies were done, I added them to the crockpot with the peas, some herbs, a bay leaf, and about 6 cups of veggie broth. I set it to high while I was getting ready for work and then moved it down to low to sit for the next 6 hours or so.

When I got home from work, the house smelled amazing! The soup still needed a little cooking, but it was close to done. I could tell because the peas were getting mushy, but they weren't quite mushy enough. So, after a little while longer (I cranked the crockpot back up to high because it smelled so good that I didn't want to wait!) the soup was ready to be blended. I poured everything into the blender and mushed it all up.

I saw in a few recipes that they put a tsp of liquid smoke into the soup at the end to give it that taste that you would normally get from a ham hock. I decided to give it a try. My grandfather always made delicious pea soup when I was growing up and I loved the taste, even though I hated ham. I'm not sure if the liquid smoke made a huge difference, but overall I think this pea soup was even more delicious than yesterday's pea soup.

Why no picture of the finished product? Well, honestly, pea soup is not attractive. I'm not sure it looks great in any type of bowl or any picture... so, I'll let you make it and see for yourselves how it comes out. No matter how it looks, though, it is delicious!

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

1 lb dried split peas, rinsed and sorted through to remove any that don't belong

1 onion, I used white this time, diced

3 carrots, diced

1 large stalk of celery, or 2 if your celery is little, diced

2 large kale leaves, chopped

6 cups of veggie broth

1/2 tsp dried basil

2 tsp dried thyme (I thought about adding herbes de provence, since it is one of my favorite herb blends, but actually I love the thyme part of herbes de provence and just love thyme in all my veggie soups normally)

1 bay leaf

salt and pepper to taste

1 tsp liquid smoke (optional)

Directions

1. Sauté onion, carrot, and celery in a medium pan. Add 1 Tbsp of water when the veggies start to stick and continue sautéing until the onion is soft. When the veggies are almost done, add the kale so that it keeps a bright green color.
2. While you are sautéing, rinse and sort through dried peas, add to crockpot
3. Add the sautéed veggies to the crockpot and the broth and herbs
4. Cook on low for 8 hours, or start the first hour or so on high and then you can decrease to low for a shorter amount of time. Stir the soup about halfway through if you are home, so that the peas don't just sit on the bottom.
5. Once the peas are soft, the soup is done. Remove the bay leaf and discard or save for another pot of soup later. Add all the soup into a blender. Blend in two or three batches if it doesn't all fit into one. 
6. Pour blended soup into a large serving bowl and stir in the liquid smoke, if using. Add salt and pepper to taste. 
7. Ladle into a bowl and enjoy!