Instant Pot Black Eyed Pea Soup (Stovetop and Slow Cooker Friendly)
This Instant Pot Black Eyed Pea Soup is an easy way to cook this hearty, cheap, and nutritious soup with dried black eyed peas in half the usual time! And it’s a great way to use up any leftover ham (or a ham bone) you have from the holidays. In the south, it’s traditional to eat black eyed peas and greens on New Year’s Day for good health, prosperity, and luck in the new year.
Packed with healthy pulses, tons of veggies, and smoky flavor, this soup will warm you to the core on cold days. And since it’s freezable and makes a TON, you can easily store the leftovers for the next time you need a quick, warm meal on a busy weeknight. It’s gluten- and dairy-free, too!
I love the traditions surrounding New Years. A while ago, I posted a recipe for Vasilopita, a traditional sweet Greek bread with a coin hidden inside (whomever gets the coin in their slice gets good luck in the new year).
And in fact, I’ve even heard that some people add a coin to this soup with the same intention. By the way, I do not condone this- it would be so hard to find in a soup. So dangerous for your teeth!
Why do people eat black eyed peas and greens on New Years?
This tradition of black eyed peas on New Years is 1500 years old. In fact, it’s documented that people ate black eyed peas in 500 A.D. as part of a Jewish custom of celebrating Rosh Hashanah.
Eating black eyed peas with rice is African in origin. When served with rice, the dish is known as a “Hoppin’ John.” The greens (traditionally collard, but I used kale) are green and therefore represent wealth. This tradition spread throughout the South after the Civil War. One tradition states that they are a symbol of emancipation for previously enslaved African-Americans.
This soup is a twist on the tradition. Here’s a great recipe for traditional southern black eyed peas from Grandbaby cakes.
Sometimes, the peas are served with cornbread, which is golden in color and therefore also represents wealth.
Is black eyed pea soup healthy?
Wealth and traditions aside, I love the healthy, nutritious focus on this soup. I eat this soup all winter long because it’s so healthy and nutrient-packed!
The black eyed peas are super high in fiber (and, interestingly, using dried peas results in more fiber than canned). We all know greens are good for you- kale and collards both have a ton of health benefits.
But because collards need to cook for a longer period of time, they often lose some of their nutrients in the cooking process. I used kale because it requires very little time to cook in the soup.
Can I make this black eyed pea soup vegetarian or vegan?
Yes! This soup is packed with a delicious smoky flavor, both from the ham and from the smoked paprika. If you are making a vegetarian/vegan version of this recipe by omitting the ham, I recommend adding more smoked paprika to get that awesome flavor.
Also, be sure to use vegetable stock instead of chicken stock.
I also made sure to use fire roasted diced tomatoes. I almost always use them in whatever recipe I’m making that calls for canned tomatoes. The fire roasting gives them a smoky, deep flavor.
Should I soak the black eyed peas?
I DO recommend soaking the peas before cooking.
People love pressure cookers because they save on time. So from a time-saving perspective, you don’t really need to soak them. And if you want to skip this step, you can make this soup with dried black eyed peas and 8 cups of chicken stock instead of 6, increasing the cooking time to 30 minutes from 10.
BUT. Here’s why I recommend soaking them.
- Soaking the peas breaks down the indigestible carbohydrates found in legumes that makes them hard to digest. If you soak them, they’ll be easier to digest. In other words: less gas :-)
- Soaking the peas in SALTED water helps flavor them and helps keep the skin intact. You’ll end up with much more flavorful peas if you use salt when soaking, and it will also help the peas not turn too mushy when they cook.
So there you go! I recommend soaking the peas covered by at least 2 inches of water in a container with 1 tablespoon kosher salt overnight in your fridge before making this soup. Drain and rinse well before cooking.
Can I make this in my slow cooker or on the stovetop?
Yes! To make it in your slow cooker, start by sautéing the onions, celery, carrots, garlic, and cubed ham in a skillet, as you would in the instant pot. Add the sautéd ingredients, and all the rest of the ingredients except for the tomatoes, greens, salt, and pepper. Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours. Then, stir in the remaining ingredients/season with salt and pepper.
To make it on your stovetop, sauté the veggies in olive oil, add the garlic and ham, add the remaining ingredients, and simmer covered on low for 2-3 hours, until peas are cooked. Then, stir in the greens, tomatoes, and season with more salt and pepper.
Why I recommend an Instant Pot
If you got an Instant Pot for the holidays and can’t wait to try it out, this is a great beginner’s recipe! And if you don’t have a pressure cooker, I highly recommend it. It makes healthy cooking so fast and easy.
As compared to a slow cooker, I like that the Instant Pot has a sauté feature (which makes browning meat and softening veggies a cinch). It also makes food taste a bit better in my opinion than a slow cooker. There is a bit of a learning curve to it, but once you get in the swing of things, it’s a wonderful piece of kitchen equipment for the busy cook.
Other Instant Pot Soup Recipes with Dry Beans
Looking for a more traditional recipe? Here’s a great recipe for traditional southern black eyed peas from Grandbaby cakes.
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Instant Pot Black Eyed Pea Soup
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Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 onion diced
- 1 rib celery diced
- 2 carrots diced
- 1 clove garlic finely chopped
- 1.5 cups ham cubed, or leftover ham bone or hock (see notes)
- 1 lb. dried black eyed peas soaked overnight in salted water, rinsed, and drained
- 6 cups chicken stock/broth or vegetable broth
- 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme (from about 2 sprigs)
- 15 oz. canned fire roasted diced tomatoes
- 2 cups roughly chopped kale or collard greens, packed
- kosher salt to taste
- black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Turn your Instant Pot/pressure cooker to the “sauté” setting.
- Sauté the onion, celery, and carrots in the olive oil (1 tablespoon) for 2-3 minutes, or until softened.
- Add the minced garlic (1 clove) and cubed ham (1.5 cups); sauté for 2-3 more minutes. (If using a ham bone or hock, just add the garlic, then add the ham bone in the next step).
- Add the pre-soaked, drained, and rinsed black eyed peas, chicken stock (6 cups), smoked paprika (1 tablespoon), bay leaf, fresh thyme (1 tablespoon). Stir together.
- Set Instant Pot/pressure cooker to manual/high pressure for 10 minutes.
- Allow to naturally depressurize for 20 minutes, then quick release the pressure.
- If you used a ham bone/hock, remove it at this time. Take the meat off the bone, chop it up, and add it back to the pot. Discard the bone.
- Stir in the 2 cups packed kale (or collard greens) and canned diced tomatoes to the soup and season with salt and pepper to taste. The residual heat of the soup should cook the greens through, but you can always set the pot to "sauté" to simmer it for a few minutes if you need to.
Notes
- Soaking the beans: I recommend soaking the peas covered by at least 2 inches of water in a container with 1 tablespoon kosher salt overnight in your fridge before making this soup. Drain and rinse well before cooking. This will help break down the indigestible carbohydrates in the peas and flavor them as well.
- Slow Cooker Instructions: If using a slow cooker, sauté the vegetables and cubed ham as directed for an instant pot in a skillet. Transfer to the slow cooker, and add all the rest of the ingredients except for tomatoes, greens, salt, and pepper. Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours. Add the tomatoes and greens and season with salt and pepper when it’s done, allowing the residual heat of the soup to cook the greens through.
- Stovetop Instructions: If using the stovetop, sauté the onions, carrots, and celery as instructed in olive oil in a large pot. Add the garlic and ham as instructed. Add remaining ingredients except for tomatoes, greens, salt, and pepper, bring to a boil, cover, and simmer on low for 2-3 hours, or until black eyed peas are tender. Add the tomatoes and greens, season with salt and pepper, and continue simmering until greens are cooked through.
- Make it vegetarian/vegan: omit the ham and make sure to use vegetable stock. Add more smoked paprika for a deeper smoky flavor, as well as more salt.
- I made this recipe in my 6 qt. Instant pot. It should work the same in an 8 qt., but you may need to cut the ingredients in half for a 3 qt. mini.
- The provided nutrition information does not include any added sodium from seasoning to taste, any optional ingredients, and it does not take brands into account. The serving size is estimated. Feel free to calculate it yourself using this calculator or by adding the recipe to Yummly.
Nutrition
Nutrition Information Disclaimer
The provided nutrition information is my best estimate and reflects one serving of the recipe (total servings indicated at top of recipe card). It does not include any added sodium from seasoning to taste, any optional ingredients, and it does not take brands into account. I use an automatic API to calculate this information. Feel free to calculate it yourself using one of these tools:
This recipe is perfect! Delicious!
So glad you liked it!
Family review: dad— “awesome”; child-“it was good”; mom— “it was easy.” Win all the way around.
So glad you and your family liked it!
This is an excellent soup/stew. I followed instructions explicitly and it turned out perfectly! Thank you for a successful new year’s day meal!
So glad you liked it!
Just made this and its very tasty. Modified by not having meat. Using 4 cup veggie stock and 2 cup water. Also didn’t have any kale or collard greens, but added a potato. Put the can of fire roasted tomatoes in with everything to pressure cook. Also added rosemary. Came out very delicious!
So glad you liked it!
So good!!!
Thank you! So glad you liked it :-)
My husband loves this!!!!! So easy to make-new favorite soup recipe
Glad you and your husband liked it!
making this tonight – great option in this time when I have lots of dried beans in the pantry and need some comfort! thanks for including nutrition info in the recipe!
Hope you like it!
OH MY GOODNESS this is a keeper- really delicious flavor! Didn’t have ham or hocks or similar so used bacon, threw in a zucchini and a red pepper. What great flavor! Really nice soup, this will go into the regular rotation for sure. Thank you!!!
LOVE the idea of adding other veggies like zucchini and red pepper!
Im new to black eyed peas and ham hocks so I was a little scared to try this. OMG this is the best soup I ever had. The flavor was so good. Since there are only two of us i shared half with my folks. They loved it also. This is a keeper and have shared the recipe with quite a few people. Everyone give this a try. Its part of my rotation on soups now.
So glad you liked it!
I made this as a vegetarian soup and used 4 oz of tomato paste. Did not have bell peppers, kale or soy sauce. Used low sodium vegetable broth and it was great. Will certainly make it again. The rest of the ingredients were the same except used no salt. On a low sodium diet. Eiminated the ham too.
So glad you liked it, and thanks for sharing your vegetarian recommendations!
Very colorful, and looks easy enough.
Thanks! I do love the colors in this soup.
Fried greens lose their nutrients to the pan, but greens (or any other food item) in soup do not, because the nutrients just escape into the soup liquid. Soup is an excellent way to preserve nutrients.
Great point, thanks!
We love this recipe a lot! Enjoy year round!
So glad you like it!
Delicious and colorful! Made it on a stove top.
So glad you liked it!
Did you get your stupid 1500 words for SEO?
Actually, 999! Think I should add more? Phew, thanks for looking out for me. Have a great day!
My wife and I have been rotating new years day black eyed pea recipes in search of a winner. We have found it!! and will be made more than new years day.
So glad you both liked it! I plan on making it all winter long, too.
Delicious!
Thanks, glad you liked it!
In my second batch I did use the saute button to cook the collard greens a little more and that worked out very well.
So glad you liked it, and thanks for explaining what you did for the collards!
I made this recipe yesterday for the new year and it turned out perfect! It was very tasty and the consistency was just how I like it. I posted a photo on Instagram with the bowl of delicious hashtag. I had to adapt it to fit in my Instant Pot 3 Qt Mini so I will share with you how I did that. I kept the same amount of onion, carrot, celery and garlic and still used one whole bay leaf. I avoid pork so I used a half a package of turkey bacon instead (about 4 oz). I cut the black eyed peas down to a half pound, used 2 cups of broth and half the amount of paprika and thyme. I used dried thyme because the store was out of fresh. I used half of a 14.5 oz can of fire roasted diced tomatoes and 1 cup of collard greens. I followed all of the instructions the same. I’m going to make another batch tomorrow since I still have the other half of the bacon and tomatoes and some collard greens left; I forgot about cutting the recipe in half and soaked a pound of peas so I need to finish those! I am going to be very prosperous this year!
Thanks so much, and I’m so happy you liked it! Thank also for including what you did to accommodate a 3 qt. mini instant pot, and for sharing on insta :-)
On New Years Eve, I’ve been making black-eyed peas soup for years. This recipe is healthy, hardy and delicious.
So happy you liked it! Happy new year :-)
Really was delicious, starts this new year off right! It was a great reason to pull out the instant pot. I’ll be back for more ideas.
So glad you liked it! I’m hoping to add even more IP recipes this year to the blog, so keep an eye out :-)
So puzzling ! My black eyed peas are not soft and edible. Got an Instant Pot Duo Nova as a 2019 Christmas present a few days ago. Successfully made Coq au Vin (pg 66, Instant Pot Cookbook, c2019), then Split Pea Soup, (pg. 38). Both have great texture and they taste great. BUT today, my third dish—mixed beans soaked more than overnight—is a huge failure. I’ve twice used the Pressure Cook setting; first only 5 minutes as the cookbook Grains Chart recommends (Peas are much too hard!), then the full 38 minutes setting to pressure cook and I let the steam go down naturally before opening. The black eyed peas are “better” but totally not soft enough anyone would enjoy eating them. Any suggestions?
That is definitely strange! I made this myself following the directions exactly on New Years Day and it came out fine- the peas were creamy and very soft. My first thought was that the peas were added dry, but you said you soaked them, so I’m very confused. My other thought is that perhaps a setting on your instant pot wasn’t set the same? Such as doing low pressure instead of high? Otherwise, I wonder if your instant pot might not work properly :-( You might want to contact their customer service to see if they can replace it, if this happens again. Sorry I can’t be more help, better luck next time!
Can I use frozen black eyed peas in this recipe?
That’s a GREAT question. I’ve never used frozen black eyed peas before, but after doing a little research I think you can use them with the same cooking time and liquid ratio. If you try it, I’d love to know how it comes out!