Slow Cooker Dakota Smashed Pea and Barley Soup—A hearty split pea soup with barley, carrots, onions, savory herbs and green onions. This is a copycat recipe of the popular vegan soup sold at California Pizza Kitchen.
Get the INSTANT POT split pea soup recipe here
Slow Cooker Dakota Smashed Pea and Barley Soup
When I shared my list of Instant Pot and slow cooker copycat recipes I had two separate people ask for a version of CPK’s split pea soup. I must admit I’d never heard of it but was intrigued that a pea soup could be that memorable. I googled around for some recipes to get ideas of how to make my own slow cooker version and while I don’t know if this is exactly like CPK’s version I think it’s pretty darn good.
The cool thing about this soup is that the split peas are a natural thickener and you don’t need any butter/flour or cornstarch to thicken. You don’t even need to blend the peas. They just cook and thicken the soup. The other cool thing is that this split pea soup has barley in it. The barley adds an extra texture component.
This soup is naturally vegan. However if you want to add some oomph to the soup you could add in chunks of ham and/or cook the soup with a hambone in it. You could also add in crumbled bacon after the soup has pressure cooked.
More Slow Cooker Soup Recipes You’ll Love…
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What Slow Cooker Did You Use?
To make Slow Cooker Dakota Smashed Pea and Barley Soup I used my Ninja Auto-iQ 6 Quart Slow Cooker.* My favorite feature of this slow cooker is that it has a stove top function. This is perfect for sauteing or browning before you slow cook. This slow cooker has four manual cooking functions: slow cook, stove top sear/Saute, steam, and bake.
Slow Cooker Dakota Smashed Pea and Barley Soup
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 8 hours
- Total Time: 8 hours 10 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
Description
A hearty split pea soup with barley, carrots, onions, savory herbs and green onions. This is a copycat recipe of the popular vegan soup sold at California Pizza Kitchen.
Ingredients
- 1 pound dried split peas, rinsed and sorted
- 1/2 cup uncooked pearl barley
- 8 cups water
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp dried sage
- 1/8 tsp ground cumin
- 1 1/2 cups diced carrots
- 1/2 cup minced yellow onion
- 1/3 cup finely diced celery
- 1/2 cup diced green onions
- 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
- Salt and pepper, soy sauce to taste
Instructions
- Add peas, barley, water, bay leaves, salt, soy sauce, thyme, garlic powder, sage, cumin, carrots, yellow onion and celery into your slow cooker.
- Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.
- Remove the lid and stir in green onions and lemon juice. Then add in salt and pepper and extra soy sauce to taste.
- Ladle into bowls and serve.
Notes
This soup is naturally vegan. However if you want to add some oomph to the soup you could add in chunks of ham and/or cook the soup with a hambone in it. You could also add in crumbled bacon after the soup has slow cooked.
- Category: Soup
- Method: Slow Cooker
- Cuisine: American
*Karen Petersen is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
Can I use quick cook barley in place of the pearl barley? If so, would I add it in the beginning or after the soup is partially cooked? Thank you! I can’t wait to make this!
★★★★★
I would add it in later since it takes significantly less time to cook than pearl barley.
If I put a small ham bone in, do I have to cook it longer?
nope! should be great!
It didn’t really get the ham bone done, so I put it back in and set it to cook an additional 10 minutes (way to long I now know). At about 7 minutes I got the BURN message. This is only my third recipe in the instant pot and first burn message–but, the soup was actually GREAT–I will make this again, but I don’t think I’d use a ham bone again.
My peas never got soft. So there is a ton of extra water and everything is not mixed nicely together. I’m not sure what happened. Did I do something wrong?
I would cook longer. Every slow cooker cooks differently. What kind of slow cooker did you use?
Can I omit the barley to make it keto friendly?
yes you can
How many cups is 1pounds of split green peas 🤔
2 cups 🙂
Just made this tonight. The universe was perfectly aligned because we had ham bone from a few days ago. My husband and I LOVED it! First time leaving a comment on a blog site. Thank you for sharing this fabulous recipe!
★★★★★
Kat! Thank you for chiming in. I’m so glad you and your husband liked it 🙂
Ya. This is the best soup I never prepared before. Surprisingly my children are ask me prepare it every weekend.
★★★★★
This is the best pea soup recipe I ever heard of. Thank you for sharing!
★★★★★
Thanks Nancy!