I am a soup lover. I can eat soup any time of the day and any day of the year whether it’s hot as hell outside or it’s cold. Soup is so hearty and there are so many variations of soup that you can make.
I am also an Instant Pot/Crockpot lover because you can place your ingredients in the vessel in the morning, head out to work or wherever, and return home to a wonderful smell filling the house and quick and easy dinner to place on the table. If you time it right, you can also put some instant smiles on your hungry family’s faces when they start asking about dinner.
If you don’t own an Instant Pot, I highly recommend investing in one. The Instant Pot is a Crockpot/Pressure Cooker combination unit that allows you to slow cook a meal for hours on the Slow Cooker setting or quickly on the Pressure Cooker setting. Here is the one that I have and highly recommend: https://amzn.to/2y5bmh9
A few weeks ago, at the beginning of this Pandemic, I was at the grocery store and decided I wanted to buy some split peas to make split pea soup. Because of the Pandemic, people were hoarding and the shelves weren’t as supplied as usual. To my surprise, almost all of the dried beans were sold out. The only split peas on the shelf were yellow split peas. I didn’t even know yellow peas existed, but they looked like the green ones so I figured what the hell? They turned out tasting very similar to the green ones, just slightly sweeter. I actually prefer them to their green counterpart for their taste and they are more pleasing to look at.
Split Pea Soup is a hearty and healthy soup, almost a stew. You can actually thin or thicken the soup to your preference to resemble a thinner soup or a thicker stew. It is made with some staple vegetables – carrots, celery, onion – and the beauty of this soup is that it can remain vegetarian or you can add meat, which a lot of traditional recipes call for.
This is a versatile soup with a mellow flavor. It is very easy to change this soup up to whatever you are leaning towards when you are making the soup. I usually add a sausage of some sort. I add a kielbasa or Italian sausage which adds a little kick. You can also add some seasoned shredded chicken or beef. If you are looking for a twist, try adding some shrimp. That would give you a sort of split pea chowder. You could choose to add a variety of meats, and it would be like a jambalaya style soup.
I prepared this soup for the Instant Pot this morning. It took me 10 minutes to prepare. I left it slow cooking for 8 hours and when my kids asked me “When’s dinner going to be ready?” I smiled and said, “Right now!”
INSTANT POT YELLOW SPLIT PEA SOUP RECIPE
14 oz bag of GOYA Yellow Split Peas – https://amzn.to/3bJp9IT
Six cups of water
½ small onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, chopped
8oz kielbasa sausage (substitute chorizo, Italian sausage, cooked seasoned shredded chicken or beef or shrimp) 2 TBSP Olive Oil
1 TBSP Better than Bouillon Chicken Bouillon seasoning – https://amzn.to/2KAoGNg
1 Tsp Cumin
1 Bay Leaf
Salt and Pepper to taste
Pour the peas into a colander and rinse. Sort through the peas for any particles such as small stones or dirt from harvesting. Combine all the ingredients in the Instant Pot. Cook on Slow Cooker setting for 8 hours. Use a hand immersion blender like this one: https://amzn.to/2W9dOvo to blend the ingredients together and make the soup smooth. Add water to thin the soup, if desired. Server with some crusty bread and a salad to create a complete meal or let it stand on its own deliciousness.
*You can make this soup on the stove if you don’t have an Instant Pot. Follow the same recipe and place it in a large pot on the stove. Bring the combined ingredients to a bowl, cover, and then simmer on low for 60 minutes or until all ingredients are soft. Blend with a hand immersion blender until smooth. For Vegetarian version replace the Chicken Bouillon seasoning for Vegetable broth and omit the meat.
Leave me a comment and let me know how you liked the Yellow Split Pea Soup recipe and let me know which meat you chose or not to use. Bon Appetit!
