Easy Ham and Split Pea Soup

Delicious yellow split peas cooked in ham stock and finished with cooked ham – this is the perfect recipe for using up leftover roast ham. It’s ridiculously easy to make, yet packed with flavour – and only 5 minutes hands on time! (No leftover roast ham? No problem – I have a solution!)

Course Main Course, Soup

Cuisine British

Prep Time 5

Cook Time 1

Total Time 1 5

Servings people

Calories 302kcal

Author Eb Gargano

Ingredients

200 g yellow split peas (see Note 1)
500 ml ham stock (see Note 2)
500 ml water
2 bay leaves
6 twists of black pepper
300 g cooked ham cubed (see Note 3)

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Place the split peas, ham stock, water, bay leaves and black pepper in a saucepan.
Cover and bring to the boil then simmer for 50 minutes.
Remove the lid, lightly mash the split peas with a potato masher. (Optional – see Note 4.)
Add the cooked ham, replace the lid and simmer for a further 10 minutes.
Serve the soup with crusty bread.

Notes

Split peas vary enormously in how long they take to cook – so I advise you follow the packet instructions and also test as you go along. It is likely to take between 50 minutes and 1 hour 10 minutes to achieve a soft texture. Don’t add the ham until the split peas are quite soft.
Use ham stock from making Honey Roast Ham. If you don’t have any ham stock, use 1 ham or chicken stock cube and 1 litre of water.
Use leftover Honey Roast Ham. If you don’t have any leftover Honey Roast Ham, buy ready-cooked ham from your butcher or supermarket and chop into cubes. Alternatively buy an uncooked gammon steak, cube it and add to the soup a little earlier – so it cooks in the stock for 20 minutes.
Lightly mashing the split peas gives the soup a little more ‘body’ / makes the soup thicker, while still preserving some of the texture of the split peas. If you prefer a chunkier texture, omit this step. If you prefer a smoother texture, use a hand blender to blitz the soup before adding the cubed ham.
Not suitable for freezing.
Nutrition information is approximate and meant as a guideline only.

Nutrition