Good Rib-Sticking Comfort food for a cold day.

1 Supersized crock pot
2 - 1lb. bags dried split peas
1 large or 2 medium onions
12 - 15 cloves garlic
1.5 lb's Ham
1 - 3 bay leaves
1lb. carrots


Rinse the peas well and soak them overnight (in a bowl covered in water). Rinse them again well before adding them while assembling the soup.
Finely chop the onion
Crush the garlic
Cube the ham ( i prefer smaller cubes but big hunks are good, too.)
Cut up the carrots into good-sized pieces. ( i use baby carrots and don't touch em)
If your peas came with packs of ham flavoring, add it but it's not necessary
Dump it all into the crock pot and make sure the mixture is covered with water.
After about 4 - 5 hours cooking, salt and pepper to taste.
Cook until the peas have broken down and the soup is opaque. Usually about 7 hours minimum. The longer it cooks, the thicker it gets.


I made some this weekend. Awesome stuff. Good with saltines or some garlic bread. After about 2 hours, the house was filled with such an excellent aroma...
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Unlike dried legumes, split peas do not need to be soaked (rehydrated) before cooking. They will in fact cook as fast straight from the bag as they will after being soaked over night.
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:-) Just make sure you rinse them to remove any stones.

I like to remove about half the soup near the end of its cook time, and puree it up with an immersion blender. Mix it all back in to make the soup nice and thick!
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My updated recipe:

Split Pea Soup

Prep Time 20mins.
Cook Time: 6 - 7 Hours
Yield: A LOT of Split Pea Soup!

1 8Qt. Crock Pot

5 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 large onion sliced thin or diced
2 lbs. Ham cubed
15 Garlic cloves crushed
2lb. Dried Split Peas
4-5 Bay leaves
2 Qt. Chicken Stock
1lb. Baby carrots
Garlic Salt
Black Pepper

I rinse and soak my peas overnight prior to cooking. Just prior to putting them into the crock, I drain them and rinse them well.

Turn the crockpot to Auto if you have that setting, high if you do not.
Add the Olive oil, onions, ham, garlic, bay leaves and peas in that order.
Lightly garlic salt and heavily pepper the top then add the chicken stock.
After 2 hours, turn the crock pot to low if you do not have the automatic feature.
After approx. 3 additional hours, taste test the broth and add more black pepper and a small amount of garlic salt.
Add the Baby carrots and stir them in.
Wait 1 hour for the carrots to soften and turn off the heat.

Really great soup served immediately, even better the next day. :-)

I did this recipe just the other day. OMFG... I could have slathered this stuff all over the Lovely Mrs. Fish and... Well... You get the point. :-):-):-)
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Sounds good - I will have to give this a try!
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