Split Pea & Potato Soup – Vegan and Gluten Free
SOUP!! Funnily enough I’ve never been big on soups over the years. I never chose to have them too much. I think because when I was a kid my parents were more about canned soup rather then homemade soup and canned soup never did anything for me. So I never bothered as an adult. Well up until a couple of years ago when I realised that I LOVE homemade soup, just not canned premade. So then I started to experiment a little more and when I turned vegan I discovered a recipe for split pea soup. Up until maybe 2 years ago I’d never had split peas before. After I tried this recipe I was obsessed.
I’ve modified the recipe from where I originally got it from, the first thing that I added is potatoes to it. This just gave it more body, with a thicker consistency that I prefer in soup. Also the original recipe cooked the split peas separately whilst for me I just cook up the onions, garlic and spices and then throw in the potatoes, split peas and stock and just cook it all up together.
The other thing is you may need more or less of some of the spices depending on your personal preference. Sometimes I’ll make this soup and it will be spot on with how I’ve seasoned/spiced it. Other times I’ll find myself adding in a smidge more cumin or cinnamon. The cayenne also gives it the slightest kick without being too spicy which I love, especially in winter it warms you up nicely…but you can omit that if you’re not big on spicy or of course add more if you love it.
The final note I will add is, you can season it with salt & pepper while it is cooking but I often find that, it gets lost during the cooking process and the flavour comes out best if I just put a spritz of salt & pepper across the top of the bowl when I’ve served it up. Those first few mouthfuls are divine with the soup, rice, salt & pepper, shallots & bbq sauce. So I leave that entirely up to you.
For now I’m going to stop chattering and get on with the recipe. Below is the video version if you prefer that:
Otherwise scroll on down for the written recipe. Enjoy!
Split Pea and Potato Soup
Ingredients
- 1 cup dried Green Split Peas
- 3 cups water
- 2 Potatoes chopped
- 2 cups Onions chopped
- 2 large Garlic cloves minced
- ¼ cup Olive Oil
- 2 Bay leaves
- 1 tsp ground Cumin
- ½ tsp Cinnamon
- ¼ tsp Cayenne
- ½ tsp ground Cardamon
- 2 cups Vegetable Stock
- 2 tsp fresh Lemon Juice
- Salt and Pepper
- 1 Green Shallot
- Cooked Rice to serve over
Instructions
- Rinse the split peas.
- Heat a large saucepan with the oil over med-high heat.
- Saute' the onions and garlic in olive oil until onions are translucent.
- Add the cumin, cinnamon, cayenne & cardamom and let it saute with the onions for about a minute, to release the scent and flavour of the spices. Remember to stir frequently to prevent burning.
- After about a minute add in a cup of water and mix it through the onion and spice mix to prevent sticking and so it becomes more like a paste texture.
- Now add in the Bay Leaves followed by the chopped potatoes and stir.
- Add in the rinsed green split peas and mix.
- Now add in 3 cups of vegetable stock and 1 cup of water.
- Put the lid on the saucepan and turn the heat down to low-medium and let it simmer for approximately 30 minutes or until potatoes and peas are cooked.
- While the soup is cooking, in a separate pot cook up some rice to go with it. If cooking brown rice allow 30-40 mins for it to cook. If using white rice then allow about 15 mins. Of course check the package instructions for best tips.
- Once the soup is cooked, add in the lemon juice at this point and stir.
- Take the bay leaves out before blending.
- Now its time to blend the soup. It's up to you how thick, thin, chunky or mixed you want your soup. If you want to leave some texture in there then I take a few ladles out into a separate bowl and blend it and readd it back into the soup until its at the consistency you want so that some potato, peas and onion chunks are still mixed in. OTHERWISE just get a hand blender and blitz directly in the pot till its smooth.
- Dish up some rice into a bowl, ladle some of the soup over the rice and season with salt and pepper. Slice up the shallot and sprinkle however much you want over the top. If you think this is purely for decoration, you would be wrong, the fresh onion flavour mixed in with the spices in the soup and rice, work so well together in my opinion. Also if you want to pull a bogan move like me, I like to squirt some BBQ sauce across the top. It isn't a must, purely down to personal preference.
- Now all that's left to do is apply food to face. 🙂 Enjoy!
