Vegan Yellow Split Pea and Sweet Potato Soup

Peas. Who likes them? They taste "green", pop in your mouth when eaten fresh, look like baby food (and poop..) when cooked and mashed, and they comprise a large part of high school biology thanks to the father of modern genetics, Gregor Mendel, with his 29,000 pea plants. Peas seem to be a food with no happy medium - you love them in any form, or you hate even the sight of them.

I personally don't understand all of the hate. I love everything Pea. Their color, their smells, the flavor. They're cute - perfectly round and soft in their cozy pods. They're pretty, with vibrant, viney plants that produce petite, unique little flowers. They're good for you, too - a mere 100g of fresh steamed peas has over 5 grams of fiber, plenty of vitamin A and B vitamins and vitamin C, and a healthy serving of many important bio-available minerals such as Phosphorus, Zinc, Magnesium, and Iron (a local restaurant with outstanding split-pea soup recommends their soup for anemics!)

Before the 1600's, when eating fresh, immature green peas was "both a fashion and a madness", peas were grown for their dried seeds across Europe and the Mediterranean region. With the modern abundance of canned, frozen, and fresh peas, the humble, cheap, dried pea is often overlooked as too fickle and difficult to deal with. Nowadays you'll most commonly see dried peas sold split to decrease cooking time, and most often you'll find split peas made into various soups.

Every European and North American culture has its own idea of what split pea soup should be. Most uniquely (in my opinion): Australian split pea soup is traditionally served as a "Pie Floater" - with a whole, small meat pie floating in the soup. One of the first processed, ready-to-prepare foods was instant pea soup in a tube/sausage, created in 1867:

Almost universally, pea soup involves ham, salt pork, or sausage. I have not had pea soup in years - since I stopped eating pork. When I set myself up to make split pea soup as part of my 52-Pots-of-Soup challenge, I figured since I was forgoing the pork, I'd go ahead and make the soup vegan as well.

I found beautiful organic yellow split peas at a local market, and was completely enchanted with their color and how fresh they looked compared to the crumbly old green split peas. Incorrectly, I assumed that the yellow peas might be a little sweeter, too- an attribute I was after, since I needed a little something special to make up for the lack of pork (yellow peas, in fact, are not sweeter than green peas; the change seems purely cosmetic). When I thought of throwing in a sweet potato (left over from the unholy amount I bought and stored at Thanksgiving, months ago..), I was a bit disappointed to see that it'd already been done but I was delighted to see how delicious it looked. I was hooked.

What You'll Need

2 cups yellow split peas
1 large sweet potato (preferably an orange variety)
one-half large onion, diced
ground cumin
fresh ginger, grated (1 tablespoon)
nutmeg
cinnamon
salt
white pepper
water or vegetable stock (about 2 quarts)
olive oil
smart balance/earth balance margarine

Yellow split peas are common in health food stores. Green peas may be substituted, but the color of the end product may not be very appetizing (green + orange = ??yuck??). I chose a common Beuregarde orange sweet potato because I think they're sweeter than the random-variety yellow-fleshed varieties I find where I live, but I gander that a light sweet potato could go well with green peas to avoid nasty-looking soup.

I couldn't remember which version - smart or earth - was vegan and since I used the last of it in the house, I also can't remember which version we had when I cooked this a few days ago!

The How-To

Start by peeling the sweet potato. Trim off any eyes or dents, and slice into half-inch-wide slices. Then chop each slice into halves or thirds.

Rinse and sort the peas. Remove any brown peas or floating peas or pea-plant-parts. Drain, and place in the pot with the sweet potatoes.

Before covering with water, add about a quarter teaspoon of cumin, a quarter teaspoon of salt, and a quarter teaspoon of white pepper. I also chose to add a tablespoon of sugar.


Cover the peas with about one inch of water (the potatoes will float).

Set the oven to moderate heat, cover the pot, and allow the peas and potatoes to simmer. This picture was taken after about 30 minutes - the potatoes are edibly tender, and the peas have the texture of raw, mature beans (in other words: they're still pretty darn hard). They've absorbed water, though, and have expanded. Those green bits are a few wayward green split peas that fell in..

Stir the concoction occasionally to avoid burning. Add water as needed to keep the potatoes just covered.

After one hour. The potatos are soft, and the peas are the texture of cooked pinto beans. Turn off the heat, and allow it all to cool and absorb more water.

Add more water if necessary - with these, the peas were remarkably thick, with the consistency of refried beans. There is no way I could have called this "soup"!

Carmelize the onions: dice the onions, heat olive oil on medium-low heat, and cook the onions slowly. Toss the onions frequently enough to avoid excessive browning. Add a teaspoon of sugar if you used a white onion or a particularly strong onion. Good carmelized onions should be transparent-brown, savory, and should not have any burned or stiff bits. It should take about 30 minutes to carmelize a half onion.

I chose to make the onions separately because 1.) I thought adding carmelized onions to the soft peas and potatoes would impart more flavor than cooking the peas and potatos in water poured over already-carmelized onions and 2.) I forgot. It ended up working well!


Add the carmelized onions to the soup and blend. If using a conventional blender: ONLY fill the pitcher half-full to avoid splattering and burns.

The finished product should be smooth, creamy, and thick. "Thick as pea soup" doens't even begin to describe how thick this soup ended up being. I enjoyed it, but if you prefer a lighter soup, feel free to add a bit of water, stock, or (soy) milk to thin it out.

But, if you're like me, you like thick soup. Truly amazing pea soup can hold a spoon upright! (OK, I cheated - the soup pictured is chilled, but its still an amazing feat!)

I have no final picture of my pea soup, because my nephew and little helper ended up proving to be a distraction. I was tickled with disbelief when I read an old book that said "Children seldom disagree with pea soup, and it seldom disagrees with them" - but indeed, that line held true, as my nephew thoroughly enjoyed six whole spoonfuls before deciding that playing with pea soup is more fun than eating it.

I liked this soup a lot. Its certainly different from the thicker, fattier pea soups I grew up on - rich with salt pork and bacon grease - but it made for a good replacement and a healthy meal.