Yellow Split Pea Soup – Quebec Style

We had authentic Pea Soup during our visit to Old Quebec City and it was amazing! The Pea soup was way better than what I remember as a kid growing up in Western Canada! Now it’s my new favourite!

We wanted to recreate our experience and found this recipe closely matching the same ingredient profile.

We generally followed the recipe from Seasons & Suppers as a reference guide. Please visit their website for other great recipes. We differed from the Seasons & Supper recipe with our by substituting 1lb ham hock with 1lb bacon.

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 2hours hrs
Total Time: 2hours hrs 20 minutes
Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients
1 lb bacon
2 tbsp butter or canola oil (we used bacon fat)
2 medium carrots, peeled and finely diced
1 rib celery, finely diced
1 medium onion, finely diced
1 3/4 cups dried yellow split peas, rinsed well and sorted through
1 bay leaf
1 tsp dried savory or sage
1 tsp dried thyme
4 cups chicken broth, or vegetable broth
3 cups water
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Separate bacon and fry to a light crisp. Retain fat for later. Place bacon in fridge.
In the same frying pan, melt butter or bacon fat over medium heat. Add carrots, celery and onion. Cook, stirring regularly, until softened, about 10 minutes.
Stir in dried split peas, bay leaf ,savory and thyme. Cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes. Empty frying pan into a slow cooker.
Stir in chicken broth and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover the slow cooker and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the peas are very soft and soup will thickened, about 2 hours.
*NOTE: You may need to add additional stock if soup gets too thick.
Remove the Bay Leaf.
Lightly blend. Do not completely puree to maintain some soup texture.
Combine bacon with soup. Serve when bacon is reheated

Notes
1. Cooking time is a minimum. We slow cooked our soup on low for 4 hours.
2. Soup stores well in the fridge to reheat the next day. May need to add water as the soup may have thickened.