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Instant Pot Split Pea Soup is a good recipe to use for leftover ham! Quick cooking and easy to make, this flavorful pressure cooker split pea soup is one of my most popular recipes. It’s really delicious!
Instant Pot Split Pea Soup
Turning on the Way-Back Machine, I can recall eating Split Pea Soup when I was still in a high chair! It has always been a favorite soup recipe of mine. This recipe is inspired by my Mom.
Use Leftover Ham
If you cooked a bone-in ham you can use the meaty ham bone to flavor this soup.
If you don’t have a bone, just use the ham meat, cubed. It will still add the flavor you want.
You can also use ham hocks. Best if not frozen.
A Faster Split Pea Soup
When I make Split Pea Soup on the stove, it takes 2 to 3 hours, though it tastes awesome!
I wanted to have a quicker cooking split pea soup, so I adapted my recipe for the Instant Pot®.
Pressure cookers are great for just this kind of recipe, as the flavors are extracted from the ingredients and make the broth taste delicious!
Pressure cookers speed up the process and cook the soup in way less time than on the stove.
Instant Pot Split Pea Soup only takes about an hour, with the sautéing and natural release, so that’s a big time saver! The peas come out nice and soft, and the flavor is very good!
If you want a Vegetarian or Vegan pressure cooker split pea soup, omit the butter (for vegan), use vegetable broth, and try some liquid smoke to give the soup a nice smoky hint of flavor.
Instant Pot Potato Soup
Instant Pot Potato Ham Soup
Instant Pot Zuppa Toscana (Sausage Potato Soup)
Instant Pot Beef Barley Vegetable Soup
Instant Pot Ham Hock and Bean Soup
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If you make this yummy pressure cooker split pea soup recipe, let me know! Please leave a comment with a star rating below. I’d love to know how you liked it!
Instant Pot Split Pea Soup
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp Olive Oil
- 2 Tbsp Butter
- 1 Onion, diced
- 3 Stalks of Celery, diced
- 2 Bay Leaves
- ¼ tsp Thyme Leaves, dried
- 3 Carrots, chopped
- 4 cloves Garlic, pressed or finely minced
- ¼ tsp Pepper
- 6 cups Chicken or Vegetable Broth low sodium (use only 5 cups for a thick soup, 7 cups for a thinner soup)
- 1 lb Green Split Peas, rinsed and sorted (unsoaked)
- 1 tsp Liquid Smoke (Optional) for vegetarian version
- ½ tsp Kosher Salt (add last, after cooking, if needed) (1/4 tsp table salt)
Use any of these for your meat (or a combination of them)
- 6 slices Bacon (Optional) chopped
- 2 small Ham Hocks (Optional) Not very meaty, but add a nice smoky flavor and richness.
- 1 Leftover Ham Bone (Optional) I like to use this with the diced ham
- 2 - 3 cups Diced Leftover Ham (Optional)
Instructions
- Turn the pressure cooker on to the Sauté function. Let it warm up and add the olive oil and butter.
- Add the onion, celery, bay leaves, and thyme. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion starts to turn translucent.
- Add the carrots, garlic, bacon or ham, if using, and pepper. Cook for a minute.
- Add the broth and ham bone or ham hocks, if using (Add liquid smoke, if using, for vegetarian method). Let come to a simmer.
- Stir in the split peas.
- Place the lid on the pot and lock it in place. Set the steam release knob to the Sealing position.
- Cancel the sauté function and Choose Pressure Cook/Manual, and use the + or - or dial to choose 18 minutes. High pressure. It will take a few minutes for the pot to come to pressure.
- When the cooking time has finished, let the pot sit undisturbed for 15 minutes to naturally release some of the pressure. Then turn the steam release knob to Venting to quick release the remaining pressure.
- When the pin in the lid drops down, carefully open the lid, facing away from you. Remove the bay leaves and the bone or ham hocks, if you used them.
- Taste and add the salt as desired.
- Serve hot. The soup will thicken quite a bit when it cools, that is normal.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
RESOURCES TO MAKE Instant Pot Split Pea Soup recipe and more
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Hi Sandy,
I just today finally got around to unpacking the Instant Pot that we got for Christmas. I was planning to throw some split peas into the crock pot like usual for dinner when my wife gets home tonight, but decided to take a look at the Instant Pot instead. I found your recipe here and gave it a go.
Long story short: I am now a big fan of the Instant Pot and your recipes. I just texted my wife to tell her that I just made the best pot of split pea soup ever — and I have a reputation for making a good split pea soup. So, thanks.
Also, and not a complaint, but could you make all the gray text on this site black? It’s really hard for my 67-year-old eyes to read this light gray type. They’ve done readership studies on the fad of using gray type on websites and have concluded that it discourages viewers.
Dave
Hi Dave, I’m so happy that you liked this soup! I didn’t realize the text was grey as it looks black on my computer and phone. I’ll look into how I can change it. I’m so glad you let me know!
Made this tonite to take to work with me This is fantastic I work in an old fashioned Meat Market and I brought home two 1 in thick cut smoked pork chops with the tenderloin cut the meat off sauteed it and then added the bones it makes great seasoning meat also I went ahead and added four cloves! Plus my homemade chicken stock!!!! Wow loved it! I am new to the electric multi cooker but tytyty!
Hi Salina! Your version of this soup sounds so good! To have access to all of those meats! Smoked pork chops! I’m really glad you liked this recipe. Thank you for your review!
I made this tonight for dinner with then leftover ham and bone out of the freezer from Easter. This recipe is AMAZING!!! Wish I could share the picture I took. Everyone loved it. Thank you for sharing. I used both vegetable broth and chicken broth. 4cups veggie with 2cups chicken. Soup came out perfect.
Hi George, that’s so great! I’m thrilled that your Easter ham gave you a second meal that you enjoyed so much! Thank you for your review, it’s really fun to read these!
Do you have any tips for reheating the leftovers? They were very thick and did not reheat well in the microwave. Thank you.
Hi George, just add a little water to reheat in the microwave.
The soup was delicious. I omitted the butter and olive oils since I’m following weight watchers. Instead I sautéed the onions, etc in non stick pan and then added them to the instant pot. Would it have been ok to sauté in the instant pot with spray olive oil?
I calculated the point value to be 2 points depending on how much ham you used. I used a ham bone but carefully cut off any fat when I stripped the bone.
Hi Kristin, thank you for the nice review (I matched the cook times). I’m glad you could make this work within your diet! As far as sautéing with the olive oil spray, you could always add some water and just pre-cook them a little. It’s not that critical to the outcome.
What a nice soup – I am in the process of making it. One of the nice things about the Insta Pot is that when I use frozen stock, I don’t have to defrost it in the microwave – I can just add it at the end of the saute part, and the Insta Pot defrosts it in about 3-4 minutes. The same goes for the frozen box of spiral-cut honey ham from Easter – chopping up 2 cups of that while frozen and adding it to the pot worked well. I used four cups of stock because I like it thick, but if’s too solid I’ll add a cup of water to balance it out. Thanks for the recipe!
That’s great, Rae. I think those are smart shortcuts. Enjoy the soup!
THank you for sharing this recipe. I made it today and we all agreed it was the best we ever tasted. I made a couple of changes such as fresh thyme instead of dried and only three slices of bacon. Agreed with previous comment to cook bacon longer next time although I mixed the soup with my stick blender at the end so the fatty bacon disappeared anyway. I will definitely make this again!
Made this split pea and ham soup today. I precooked the bacon to keep the fat content low and crumbled it. The ham leftover had been frozen from our Easter dinner. And the ham bones from the Easter ham had also been frozen. I used 2 packets of Goya low sodium ham packets to 8 cups of water. I added the ham bones and all went into the instant pot. I cooked them on three cycles back to back to pull all the flavor from the bones. I wanted the broth by it’s self instead of pulling bones out of a soup.I did not have thyme, I used oregano instead and it worked fine. The soup came out great with the 18 minute cook time.
Excellent! I bet it was delicious! Thank you so much for your review, and the technique!
I added potatoes and thought it would be a problem after I did it. However, the soup came out perfect! The soup, carrots and potatoes were all the perfect consistency. Even the pea-haters are enjoying it as I type. Thanks Sandy,
That’s great, Dawna! It’s nice when everyone likes what you make, isn’t it? I like the addition of potato. Thank you for your review!
I’m usually too lazy to make a comment, but mustered up enough energy to type my thoughts because this soup was so good. I followed the recipe (I usually play fast and loose) because my past attempts at split pea have been only so so and I wanted to give this recipe a solid try. I doubled the recipe and I did make one change: I used a bag of pre-shredded carrots that I had purchased for stir-fry and needed to use up, fast. I used the Easter ham bone plus cubed ham for 20 instead of 18 minutes (because I had two pounds of beans), and released steam manually. This soup was the bomb and no crunchy peas and between friends and family, a day later, all of it is gone. Win Win.
Marji, I am so happy that you mustered up enough energy to leave this review. Thank you! So thrilled that you and your family & friends liked this split pea soup!
It looks like a great recipe! Can I add barley, when I add the carrots?
Hi Michelle! I’ve never had barley in split pea soup, but you can add it and see how it works. I do have a Beef Barley Vegetable Soup that the barley is wonderful in.
This soup was delicious. I used leftover ham from Easter. The only problem was some peas were a little hard so I might need to increase the time. I used an Instant Pot. If anyone has any tips on why some peas might be hard please let me know. Otherwise it is the perfect consistency.
Hi Marie, I’m so glad you liked this recipe! As for a few random hard peas, I would guess either they didn’t get covered with liquid, or they are old peas. When beans, legumes, pulses, etc. get old, they take longer to cook. Unfortunately, you never know unless you are able to source them from someone who knows their real age! So, cooking a few minutes longer, or letting the pot naturally release longer will cook them more and hopefully avoid that. I have not had this issue with split peas, but I have with beans. Thank you for your review!