Creamy Green Pea Soup with Pancetta and Croutons

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This Creamy Green Pea Soup requires only three basic ingredients for the soup base, and is actually both vegan and gluten free without the toppings. I like to load up my soup with croutons, pancetta, yogurt and fresh peas, but this can easily be personalized to your taste and dietary restrictions.

Two bowls of green pea soup on a wood cutting board over a light brown surface.

In addition to the toppings being easily customizable, you can serve this soup both chilled or warm. I was taught this recipe by my old chef boss and we typically served this soup chilled in the spring and early summer seasons, so I actually prefer it cold rather than warm.

Ingredients

Green peas- You can certainly use all frozen peas for this recipe. I generally use frozen peas for the soup base even if I find fresh peas for the topping, because it takes quite a bit of time to shuck peas. The frozen peas are also less expensive. If you can find fresh, English peas, they’re definitely worth while to serve raw for topping.

Bread- Most bakery style breads will work fine for croutons, but I generally prefer a sourdough loaf. At my old job, we usually used a Pullman loaf which works great too.

Pancetta- Simple omit this if you want to keep things vegetarian, or feel free to substitute with bacon or prosciutto.

Yogurt- I like to top the soup with some thinned out, plain yogurt. Greek or regular yogurt will due, just adjust the amount of milk or water to thin it out, as needed.

Overhead view of ingredients for soup including fresh and frozen green peas, pancetta, bread, olive oil, onion and yogurt.

Recipe Steps for Green Pea Soup

The first and most important step is cooking the onions low and slow (1). This will add a lot of flavor and sweetness to the soup. Seeing as the ingredients for the soup base are simply olive oil, onions, frozen peas and water, I think it’s pretty important to spend time developing the flavor of the onions.

After the onions cook, add the peas and sauté them for a minute (2). Then pour in some water and bring it to a boil (3).

Add everything to a blender, and puree away (4). I think you’ll be surprised at how creamy and flavorful this soup is without stock or cream or butter!

Side-by-side photos showing steps to make soup, including sautéing onion, adding peas, boiling with water and pureeing in a blender.

While the onions cook, prepare the toppings for the soup. Sauté some pancetta (5), fry up the croutons (6), season the peas for topping (7) and thin out the yogurt (8).

Side-by-side photos of sautéed pancetta, croutons in a pan, a bowl of green peas and a bowl of thinned out yogurt for the toppings.

Recipe Tips and FAQs

Use frozen peas. If you don’t have access to fresh green peas, you can use frozen peas for both the soup base and the topping. Briefly sauté an additional cup of frozen peas in olive oil and season with salt to use as a topping.
Cook the onions low and slow. Take your time to slowly caramelize the onions. It will add tons of flavor and you can multi-task by preparing the topping as the onions cook if you’re serving the soup warm.
Chill it. I definitely recommend trying this soup chilled. Whether you try it chilled the first time you eat it or leftover, it’s worth giving a try! You can prepare it the day before you plan to eat it and refrigerate it overnight. Wait until the day of to prepare the toppings for the best result. Then, about 10-15 minutes before you’re planning to eat, take the soup out of the fridge and allow it to sit at room temperature so it’s not too cold.

Why won’t my pea soup thicken?

If your pea soup is too thin, you probably added too much water. I would add more cooked peas to the soup and blend it again to make it thicker.

Is pea soup vegan?

My version of creamy pea soup is actually vegan if you don’t include the toppings. All you need is olive oil, onions, peas and water to make a great pea soup!

Closeup overhead view of a bowl of Green Pea Soup topped with yogurt, pancetta, peas and croutons.

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