I don’t want to be mean about it or anything, but if you don’t make this soup the day after you make a holiday ham, something is wrong with you.
P.S. Tonight’s dinner of atonement: my favorite latkes topped with sour cream and smoked salmon. And for dessert: gelt!
Split Pea Soup with Leftover Ham
In a large stockpot, over medium-low heat, melt 2 tablespoons of butter. Add one onion (chopped), 2 stalks celery (chopped), 3-4 carrots (chopped, about 1 cup). Cook about 8 minutes until vegetables are soft.
Add leftover ham hock (with or without meat still on it), 1 3/4 cup split peas, and 8 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer, cover, and cook for 1 hour 10 minutes.
Remove ham hock. Using an immersion blender, puree the soup in the stock pot until it’s mostly smooth. Add a little more water if it seems too thick. If there was meat on the hock, pull it off the bone and add back to the soup. Serve with croutons or baguette toasts.
Haha. Go ahead. Be mean. Sometimes ham hurts.
P.s. It’s an important suggestion. 😉
I am not a fan of Ham. How about replacing Chicken with Ham?
I am all for improvising, but emedoutlet, I wouldn’t advise replacing the ham with chicken. It’s all about the smokiness of the pig here, I’m afraid.
emedoutlet–I have made vegetarian split pea soup with chipotle chiles–that way you get the nice smokiness (you have to like some spice, though). You could try some smoked turkey, but I can’t vouch for any of the results there.
There is no way your kids eat this.
Lex – My older one will lick the bowl. It’s a harder sell on the little one, but if the ham is on top of the bread as shown (and not mixed in) it helps a lot. She basically had a ham sandwich with a shmear of pea soup dressing. And I’m not complaining!
I know some who use smoked turkey for split pea soup. Can’t say I’ve tasted it, but they say it works great.
I had a little smile when I saw in your instructions “cook for one hour 10 minutes”. When I make split pea soup, it’s usually “cook at least an hour, usually two or three, until you feel like turning it off and pulling the meat off the bone, or whenever dinnertime rolls around.” That’s the part I love about soup–just keep on simmering until you’re ready to eat.
… and when i make that ham… i WILL follow it up by making this soup. (my cousin usually has dibs on the leftover hamhock, but this year… she’s out of town… so it looks like I’ll get to make this soup a couple times in the near future :))
and thank you for making it so simple! when i’ve made split pea (with ham) soup in the past, i’ve had a hard time with finding basic recipes that are meant for using leftover ham.
Wow it looks like delicious. I want to try that.
I haven’t made the ham (yet), but I did get the leftovers from my grandma this year! It was DELICIOUS. 🙂
I don’t comment very often, but I just have to say…this soup was amazing! My husband (who hates even the thought of pea soup!) and my five children, all thought this soup was very good. It was not an all-time favorite for a few of my children, who consequently still ate all the soup in their bowls (I’m sure they’ll grow into it), but for my husband and myself this made our favorite soups list for sure! This soup has a lovely texture – not too thick or gritty like some pea soups and the ham is what really makes this soup special. We will be making a tradition of this soup for years to come. Thanks for sharing.
“…if you don’t make this soup the day after you make a holiday ham, something is wrong with you.”
*nod nod nod*
I’ve made this after the holidays for the past few years now and it’s always a success. My husband was never a fan of pea soup, but he loves this. I use a similar recipe except I saute the veggies in 1/4 cup olive oil and add a clove of chopped garlic. This year I had some shallots on hand, so I threw those in as well. I’ll also add that it’s important to have some nice, crusty bread on hand to go with it. Yum.
Nice image．It looks delicious. I would probably try following your steps. Hope it would work well.
The first sentence of this post made me laugh out loud! I’m taking a work break and browsing your older posts, and I swear my family could have written that line. We fight – with just-kidding-but-really-I’m-serious animosity – over the leftover ham bone at Thanksgiving. This soup is the entire reason I even like ham. . .
So….I got one of those hams without a hock and ordered one that’s way too big so have tons of leftovers. Can I make the stock in some other way or just use chicken stock?
I really like your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did you make this website yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you?
Plz answer back as I’m looking to create my own blog and would like to know where
u got this from. many thanks
my web site :: fridge repair (Patti)
I made my first ham so am now going to make my first leftover soup. Do you think it would be too much to use homemade chicken broth as a replacement for a few of the cups of water or would that be too much? Thanks for any help…