A question for the vegetarian ladies.

Most of my life I've been a veg-a-phobe, but I have replaced a LOT of meat in my diet with a LOT more vegetables since my major lifestyle change. All of a sudden I crave them...and the thought of a steak kind of freaks me out now...ewwww...But my question relates to soup.

A bunch of people from work had a retirement dinner for someone last night and trying to stay on plan, I ordered the split pea soup for an entree. And it was SO...FREAKING...GOOD. I never liked peas and all of a sudden I was like whoa. Divine bowl of mushy green stuff.

I checked calorie king and fit day, and I'm wondering is split pea soup actually healthy? Can something as healthy and low fat as split peas actually taste that good? Fit day said two cups of it was like 330 calories and 5.9 grams of fat. I thought to myself that's impossible. Nothing can taste that good and be that good for you.

Is there some way of preparing the soup that restaurants use like throwing lard in it or something? I'm just curious. If not, I'm ordering split peas every time I go out for the rest of my life.

You should ask the server. It can deffinately be made low calorie, so I dont doubt that, but I also doubt that it is vegetarian. From my experience, most restuarants use chicken broth for those types of soups (like split pea and cream of broccoli). But, if you dont care about that, then Im sure its not terribly bad for you. I highly doubt there is any lard, but again, ask your server and they will get the answer from the chef. Im a picky vegan so I always have to ask questions and they are always so nice in finding my answers.

Split pea soup often has ham in it or some other meaty product.

You can make good split pea soup at home and it can taste very good. I love split pea soup

Thanks to this thread, I'm gonna go make me some split pea soup right now. Sounds like the perfect food for a snow day like today.

I never make my own soups, but I made this split pea recipe, and its soooo good!!

Thick, Flavorful, Hearty, Split Pea Soup!

Ingredients (use vegan versions):

1 bag (2 cups) split peas, no presoaking necessary
4 cups vegetable broth
4 cups water
1 vegetable bullion cube
2 largish potatoes, peeled
2 stalks celery
1 medium carrot
1 medium onion
1 clove garlic
1 leek
2 bay leaves
2 Tablespoons parsley
1 Tablespoon basil
1 teaspoon rosemary

Directions:
Chop all vegetables into small pieces. not microscopic, not bite-sized, but somewhere in between. The carrots can probably be a little bigger because they're there for taste/color, not consistency.

Combine all ingredients in large pot, stir around a bit, cover and gently simmer for about an hour.

Use a potato masher to thoroughly mash everything up. There shouldn't really be major chunks of anything floating around. The potatoes and split peas mashed together will make a nice thick puree. (If you don't have a potato masher, use a large fork, egg beater, whatever you have and beat it vigorously for a few minutes. it'll be fine.)

Cover and gently simmer for about 30 more minutes. throughout the entire simmering process, be sure to add water if needed so that the whole thing isn't sputtering loudly like a stew would. It needs to look watery and soupy, not stewy while it's simmering so that it won't burn. Do not boil!!

Uncover and simmer until enough water has evaporated to desired thickness (make sure to stir it around to get a better idea because all the gloop will sink to the bottom and make the soup look more watery than it actually is). Remove bay leaves, salt and pepper to taste, enjoy!

Serves: 4 HUGE bowls

Preparation time: 20 minutes

(Ok this took me about an hour longer than the recipe said it would take, I also did not use Rosemary, and added a little more of the other herbs & spices)

Hee! My thoughts exactly. I love split pea soup.

My recipe calls for either ham stock (I make my own with left over ham bones) and bits of chunked ham, or bacon and bacon drippings.

You can make it veggie with vegetable stock and it's just as yummy, I think. A little different, but still good.

Either way, even with using bacon, it's incredibly low calorie per serving. And one serving is sooooo filling. Pea soup is one of my winter standbys.

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Jill, I think I'll try that soon!

Christmas Eve dinner WILL include copious amount of pea soup! Thanks Jill!

You're welcome! Hope it turned out great! Mmm its sooo good

OMG Jill! Your recepie was AMAZING!!!! SO SO TASTY!
Everyone had a bowl on Christmas Eve, I had two bowls yesterday and I got at least two bowls left in there! I used the rosemary and it was PERFECT! Wow, Rosemary is a great herb!
It was really...really good! Thanks for posting!

Love pea soup, especially with a swirl of Dijon mustard on top It's a Thursday thing in Scandinavia by the way.
I've cooked pea soup a few times myself but even with the softening tablets that come in the pea packet it has taken a really long time to boil (several hours) that's why I rarely make it

i just made a pot of split pea soup and thanks to fatfreevegan i got the idea of putting liquid smoke in it. umm, yummy. it has the smoky flavor of the non-veg friendly version, but, you know, without ingredients that make you want to puke.