Vegetarian Split Pea Soup

 

This week I have recipe to go into our slow cookers. I love to use my slow cooker all year round but especially when I can make a wonderful soup to enjoy on a cold day. The slow cooker I am using today is my 1 ½ quart Crock-pot. This size is my go to as far as slow cookers go right now and it's a handy size no matter what your family size. For the small household they are perfect for making soups, stews and many other things without the huge amount of leftovers that you would get with the larger size. For the larger household they are great for side dishes and desserts. I consider this one to be the best $10 I ever spent for my kitchen. 

 

 

When you are using a slow cooker it is important to use the correct size for the recipe since either being too full or not full enough effects the cooking time and quality.

So this recipe I was looking through some of the older recipes I had saved and never tried when I came across this one. I did have to make several adjustments to make it for a small batch cooking but I think it was well worth it. I love split pea soup and while I am not vegetarian I do enjoy having vegetarian meals often. I think this recipe would be really easy to make vegan too since the only ingredient that is not vegan friendly is the cream. I know there are many vegan friendly cream substitutions out there.

The mix of ingredients in this recipe really drew me in, I love sweet potatoes so that was a real win. More importantly I love soups that have spinach in them. I have to admit I was a bit nervous about the apple juice, I was afraid it might make the soup too sweet however I found this not be the case. The blend of flavors is so fantastic. I will say that I did add a couple of healthy splashes of my favorite hot sauce and I found the soup to then be perfect. Truth be told though I think that hot sauce improves pretty much all soups.

You might have to get up a bit early depending on what time you like to eat dinner. This soup needs about 10 to 11 hours in the slow cooker then another 30 minutes at the end to cook that spinach. Believe me when I say it is well worth the time and effort. You could probably prep your veggies the night before if you know you will be rushed in the morning but since there are so few ingredients there isn't much chopping involved.

Click here to access the printable PDF of the recipe.

Vegetarian Split Pea Soup

1 cup dried green split peas, rinsed, picked over and drained

1 cup cubed sweet potato

½ chopped onion

2 cloves chopped garlic

1 teaspoon salt

3 cups water

¼ cup apple juice

1 ½ cups firmly packed cut up fresh spinach

½ cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon dry dill weed

freshly ground pepper to taste

In your 1 ½ quart slow cooker mix the split peas, sweet potato, onion, garlic, and salt. Add the water and apple juice and stir again to combine. 

 

Set slow cooker on high for 30 minutes then turn to low and cook for another 9 ½ to 10 ½ hours. (If you can't do the 30 minutes on high that's okay but the the soup might take a bit longer to get cooked through)

Stir the soup. 

 

 

 

 

Stir in the spinach, cream, dill weed and pepper cover and cook for another 30 minutes at low. Taste and adjust the seasoning, I found I needed more salt at this point.

Serve in large soup bowls.

 

 

A good splash of your favorite hot sauce is optional but really tasty.

Makes 3 good sized bowls of soup.