Leeks, potatoes and frozen green peas quickly cook into a creamy, hearty soup that tastes like spring. See Kitchen Notes for a vegetarian version. Recipe below.
Spring in Chicago is being its usual capricious self. Warm, sunny days mix it up with cold, blustery, rain-filled stretches. The range of our outerwear this time of year says it all. Leather jackets, sport coats, shirt sleeves, raincoats and, sadly, even our down parkas all see action.
It’s the same story in the kitchen. Longer days and soft breezes have us longing for fresh asparagus and other tastes of spring. Sudden blasts of cold send us running for comfort food. This soup delivers both. The sweet, green flavor of peas is filled with promise; the thick, hearty, potato-rich base soothes even on an unseasonably chilly night.
You’re looking at Tuesday’s five-day forecast for Chicago above. Everything from thunderstorms to snow showers. It’s been not unlike this for a while now. I’m normally not a huge fan of peas—unless they’re fresh peas which we often shell and devour on the way home from the store. But the peas in the deconstructed chicken pot pies I cooked a couple of weeks ago reminded me how much they taste like spring. The cold reality of springtime in Chicago, on the other hand, called for the comfort of a hearty potato soup. I decided to put them together.
Many green pea and potato soup recipes call for puréeing everything. While I like some creamed soups—especially vichyssoise—I generally prefer some recognizable chunks in mine. By puréeing only some of it, you get a nice creamy soup with actual stuff in it.
Creamy Green Pea and Potato Soup
Serves 4
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 leeks, white and pale green parts only, sliced into thin half moons
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
1 clove garlic, minced
3 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
2 cups water (plus more as needed)
1-1/2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes (about 3 large potatoes) peeled and cut into a bite-sized pieces
2 cups frozen peas
freshly ground pepper
salt, if needed
Melt butter in a large, heavy stock pot or Dutch oven over medium flame. Add leeks and sweat until tender, about 5 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid browning. Clear a space in the middle of the pot and add tarragon and garlic. Cook until fragrant, about 45 seconds, stirring constantly. Add broth and 2 cups of water and stir to combine.
Add potatoes and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, until potatoes are tender, at least 20 minutes. Stir in peas and cook for 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from heat.
Carefully purée 2 to 3 cups of the soup (see Kitchen Notes) in a food processor or blender, working in batches, if necessary. Return to pot and stir to combine. Season with black pepper. Taste and add salt, if needed (depending on the saltiness of your broth, you may not need it). If soup is too thick, thin slightly with water. Reheat until warmed through and serve.
Kitchen Notes
The thick and the thin of it. I say in the recipe to purée 2 to 3 cups of the soup. I did 3, which made the soup velvety thick. You can do less if you prefer a “soupier” soup. You can also adjust overly thick soup by adding a little water, milk or even half and half. Adding milk or half and half will give it a richer, creamier flavor.
Make it vegetarian. You can do this by substituting vegetable broth for the chicken broth—or even water. In either case, I would add a little soy sauce to approximate the umami taste the chicken broth delivers.
I love peas! But almost never see ones worth buying in the shell – the season for local peas is so short. I’ve grown them in the past, but they do take space. Anyway, the weather here in St. Louis has been similar to yours (a bit warmer, though). So we’re breaking out our salad recipes, but thinking hearty soups, too. Great combo of flavors. I have a stick blender which I really like for using in soups (I use it for little else). The best thing about it is I don’t have to transfer hot soup to my food processor or blender. Plus it takes longer to do a thorough blending job, so it’s much easier to get the soup just as chunky (or not) a I desire. Anyway, really nice recipe – thank you.
Ooh, yummy! I’ve actually never had any type of green pea soup.
I wish our weather would decide already—enough with the teasing! It’d be 65 one day and another, 33.
Can you describe the difference in taste between split pea soup and this one? Is this lighter, brighter?
Kitchenriffs, I actually thought about using the stick blender on this, but opted for the food processor so I could report accurately on the outcome here. But a stick blender would be perfect.
I hope you’ll try it, Michelle!
Altadenahiker, that’s exactly right. Although split peas are actually just dried versions of fresh peas, to me, split peas have a less pronounced sweetness, more of a legumy or beany flavor.
The weather in NY has been all over the place too. It’s been 30 and 80 and 50 all in one week. You just don’t know what to eat or how to dress. This sounds like a perfect bridge between the seasons. I don’t have any tarragon, but I have a giant bag of fresh mint, which is always good with peas. I’ll let you know how that turns out.
Mint plays very nicely with peas, Jeri. I await your report!
Terry:
You have created a great blog. Interesting, clean, crisp writing style,
and I enjoy reading every word.
BUT I cannot figure out how print your recipes for my collection. Normally, I rewrite them to avoid printing lots of pages that have nothing on them which I want to keep.
Tell me the secret ’cause I ain’t figured it out yet.
Beachbum, creating printable recipes is on my to-do list. You know, the one I ignore. For now, you can highlight the recipe copy and paste it into a Word doc. Sorry.
Chicago – we hear you here in Toronto! We’re currently under a freezing rain advisory. In mid-April. Just when I was planning on a fruit smoothie for lunch, I am craving comfort food. A nice, warm bowl of soup would be so good right now. I love that this one has a rich, potato base. Comfort food, here I come.
Oh, lovely! I mostly use frozen peas slightly cooked because our season here in NH is so short – and Spring comes late. This looks wonderful and bright, as one reader noted.
What a beautiful soup. The leeks lend such a delicate note, and tarragon is one of those lesser used herbs that deserves so much more exposure – brava!
Thank god I had the foresight to buy all the ingreds this week, because today I’ve got a cold and feel like hell, so this is going to perk me right up.
Tara, now almost two weeks later, it is still cold here. Last night, I made a pot roast.
Katrina, frozen vegetables have gotten so good. Unfortunately, it’s getting hard to find just plain frozen vegetables. Everyone’s making these tarted up concoctions with sauce and butter and who knows what else. The honest plain frozen vegetables are getting squeezed out of the freezer case.
Thanks, Adri! Tarragon really is wonderful, isn’t it?
Feel better, Altadenahiker. I hope the soup helps.
Made this for last night’s supper and it was divine! Seriously, the entire time I was making it, the phrase “God‘s sweat” was running through my head.
I made a couple of subs. Since my husband wanted a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich on the side- I used 1 tbsp of applewood bacon drippings with 1 tbsp butter to sweat the leeks. Because seriously, I was right there! I couldn’t resist.
I didn’t have russets so I carved up a pile of fingerlings, reds, golds and purples. I left the skins on since they are so tender. Didn’t hurt the texture at all, and the little half rounds were super cute and bite sized. The purple and gold were so pretty with the green.
I was out of tarragon so I used Herbs de Provence. It really, really worked. Spring to the extreme.
Thanks so much for the recipe, love your blog.
What a great recipe! Although many people associate soup recipes with the winter season, don’t pass-up the opportunity to try it in the summer months. Thank you so much!!
Gina, a belated thanks for your kind words and excellent variations. Every tweak you did sounds delicious.
Thanks, Roxy! We’re huge fans of cold soups in the summer. Cold or hot, there’s something so satisfying about soup, isn’t there?