Vegetarian Split Pea Soup

This is a quick recipe that I threw together for a nice split pea soup that is both super healthy and rockin tasty. You'll only need about 45 minutes for the whole recipe, so it's a great one to do on a weeknight.

Split Pea Soup

1 lb dried split peas

1 qt vegetable stock

1 large sweet onion

8 oz Cremini Mushrooms

6-8 Sweet Baby Carrots

4 cloves garlic

4 tbsp Fat Free Sour Cream

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Rinse split peas in a colander removing any foreign materials

2. Add split peas, roughly chopped onion, carrots, garlic, and mushrooms to a 3 qt sauce pan.

3. Cover with vegetable stock and bring to a boil

4. Boil for 30-40 minutes or until split peas are tender, adding stock as needed

5. Once peas are tender, blend soup until smooth (blend in batches to avoid dangerous splattering)

6. Return blended soup to the sauce pan and stir in the sour cream.

7. Season to taste with salt and fresh black pepper.

As you can see, this is a super healthy and super easy soup to produce. The addition of the mushrooms helps to give a bit of meatiness that is lacking by not using the pork bones traditionally used in split pea soup. This is a great example of how one can replace the umami flavor in a dish without adding meat.