Black-Eyed Pea, Kale and Ham Soup

It’s getting cooooold this week, so let’s make soup. Kale and Ham Soup is nutritious, delicious, and ridiculously easy. It’s very similar to my New Year’s Day Soup, but the kale adds a little more texture and crunch, as it isn’t braised like the collards.

If I could make soup every day when the temps dip below 50, I would, but my husband requires “real food” every so often (aka meat and starch). This soup is a beautiful compromise, as Kale, Black-Eyed Pea and Ham Soup is essentially a ham dinner in a bowl. Black-eyed peas and ham are filling, and kale is kale, so there’s that.

To make this ham soup, you simply sauté some aromatics like onion and garlic and add some chopped carrots. Then you add vegetable or chicken stock, some water, a can of diced tomatoes, and a chopped up ham steak (or the remnants of meat from a ham bone).

This is a great recipe to make after Thanksgiving, Christmas, or even Easter, when you have a leftover ham bone with some meat still clinging to it.

3.36 from 17 votes

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Kale, Black-Eyed Pea, and Ham Soup

This delicious, soul-warming soup is a winner for a chilly winter night.

Course Soup

Cuisine American

Keyword black eyed pea soup, kale and ham soup, kale soup

Cook Time 1 hour

Servings 12

Author Amanda

Ingredients

• 4 cups chopped kale
• 1 large onion peeled and diced
• 2 cloves of garlic minced
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 14- ounce can diced tomatoes in juice
• 1 32- ounce carton of vegetable stock
• 4 cups water
• 2 cups frozen black eyed peas
• 1 ham steak chopped or torn into bite sized pieces
• 3 carrots peeled and chopped

Instructions

1. Remove the tougher, woody stalks from the kale leaves. Smaller stems are okay. Wash the leaves and cut them into half-inch-wide strips. If using a bag of pre-cut greens, skip this step.
2. Put the onion and garlic in the pot with olive oil. Saute until translucent and fragrant, about 2-3 minutes.
3. Add carrots and saute for a minute.

4. Add stock, tomatoes, black-eyed peas, and water. Bring to a boil, turn to low and simmer for at least 30 minutes, or until peas are thoroughly cooked.

5. Add the chopped ham and kale, bring to boil, and simmer for 10 minutes or until ham is warmed through and kale is cooked.
6. Serve in bowls with a baguette, if desired.

Recipe Notes

If you have a ham bone with a bit of meat still on it from a spiral sliced ham, you can skip buying the ham steak. Put the ham bone in with the water and stock, and then remove the ham bone after the hour of simmering time. Shred off the meat, return it to the pot, and discard the bone.

I decided to serve this with cornbread muffins, because why not? I’m also not even going to pretend like I didn’t use a Jiffy cornbread mix, but I did use duck eggs, so that counts for something. And also, check out that steam, y’all (*raised hand emoji*).