Making this rosemary black-eyed pea soup is effortless. It fills the room with a pleasant aroma from the coconut milk and the fresh rosemary. The mellow flavor of black-eyed peas harmonizes well with the other ingredients in this soup, as opposed to a stronger flavored bean like the red or black.
Like I said, it’s effortless. Let me get into more details:
- Soak the black-eyed peas for a few hours
- Sauté some yellow onion and bella mushrooms in a pan
- Add soaked beans and sautéed onion and mushrooms with coconut milk, water, and fresh rosemary into a pressure cooker. This soup is done in as little as 4 minutes after the pressure cooker reaches its pressure.
Pretty simple, right? I can’t tell you how much I love my presto pressure cooker and how much time and energy it saves me, in addition to saving on our energy bill. Because legumes are the main part of our family’s diet, using this reliable pressure cooker means I no longer have to check boiling/simmering beans on the stove to make sure they’re not spilling over. It reduced my cooking time dramatically. What used to be one to three hours is now less than 25 minutes.
Here are some of my favorite pressure cooker recipes that you may find interesting:
For soup recipes with fresh leafy vegetables, I cook the beans and spices in the pressure cooker first. After the pressure drops on its own, I will add some chopped leafy greens to the cooker and let it sit. The heat from the soup is sufficient enough to soften the vegetables, without overcooking them. This is exactly what I did with the kale in this black-eyed pea soup.
Picking up a bunch of kale at the grocery store has been part of my shopping routine lately. We had great success with our 2.5-year-old son, Leo, eating lots of oven baked crisp kale chips. Soups with a strong pungent flavor are not Leo’s favorite right now (might be in the future). This soup is just perfect for him. Rich flavors from the fresh rosemary and coconut milk harmonize beautifully with the black-eyed peas. He also loves to add steamed rice into his soup. That’s absolutely delicious.
If you’d like to make the soup to be an all-in-one bowl meal, you can add some well-rinsed and drained quinoa to the pressure cooker and cook it together with the presoaked black-eyed peas. Since the cooking time for quinoa and black-eyed peas are similar, neither of them will be overcooked. You’ll get protein, carbohydrates, and fiber all ready in one pot in a just a few minutes. It’s a win-win.

Tools: A large mixing bowl, 8-quart pressure cooker, knife and cutting board, 12” sauté pan, measuring cups and spoons
- 1 lb black-eyed peas dry
- 6 cups water for soaking
- 1 large yellow onion diced
- 5 oz sliced button bella mushrooms
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 rosemary sprig
- 3 cups coconut milk (full fat, homemade or store-bought)
- 4 cups water or vegetable broth see note
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 2 cups shredded kale leaves
- In a large bowl, soak dry black-eyed peas in approximately 6 cups of cold water for at least 4 hours.
- While the peas are soaking, heat a sauté pan over high heat. Add oil after the pan is hot and then wait for 15 seconds until the oil is hot. Reduce the heat to medium and add the diced yellow and sliced mushrooms. Saute until the yellow onion is transparent and fragrant. Approximately 3 minutes.
- Drain and rinse the soaked peas and then transfer them into a pressure cooker. Add the remaining ingredients except shredded kale leaves and black pepper. Follow the instructions for the pressure cooker and cook 4 minutes with a very low heat setting. Once the pressure drops on its own accord, add shredded kale leaves and stir gently to mix the leaves with the soup.
- Add black pepper to taste and serve hot.
If using salted vegetable broth, adjust the amount of salt in the ingredients to taste.
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The weather is rainy and cool here at the moment and I definitely think a heart soup like this is in order. Thanks for the idea Xx
Please provide cooking time/directions if I don’t have a pressure cooker. Thank you.
Hi Cindy, if you don’t have a pressure cooker, you can bring the liquid to a boil first and then simmer with the cover on for about 1 hour to 1 hour 20 minutes until the black-eyed peas are soft. Add the kale in the end when the soup is hot. I hope this instruction helps. 🙂