Pea Chickpea Soup – 22g Protein | Vegan Lunch

This soup has exactly four ingredients that matter: frozen peas, chickpea flour, bouillon, mint. No cream, no potato, nothing that needs advance planning. What it has is a roux, which is the move that separates a velvety, restaurant-quality blended soup from a thin, underwhelming one.

You cook the chickpea flour in the aromatics first, toast it until it smells nutty, then whisk the liquid in gradually. The flour gelatinizes as it heats and creates a substantial, silky texture that holds up after blending. The color comes out that deep spring green. The mint finish makes it taste bright even when it’s hot. It’s filling in the way that actually lasts, not the way that just feels heavy.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📊 NUTRITION (per serving)
Calories: 432 | Protein: 22g | Carbs: 58g | Fat: 10g | Fiber: 14g
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

⏱️ Time: 40 minutes (Prep: 5 | Pressure Cook: 35) 🍽️ Serves: 1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 tsp (5ml) olive oil
• ½ small onion (40g), finely diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp (30g) chickpea flour
• 1½ cups (250g) frozen peas
• 1 veggie bouillon cube dissolved in 1¾ cups (400ml) water
• 1 tsp (5ml) mint sauce – or ½ tsp dried mint
• 1 tbsp (15g) unsweetened soy yogurt, for serving
• 1 tsp (3g) hemp seeds
• 1 tsp (3g) black sesame seeds

INSTRUCTIONS (PRESSURE COOKER METHOD):

1. Build the aromatic base: Heat the olive oil in a medium pot over medium heat. Add the diced onion and cook for 2–3 minutes until soft and translucent – not browned, just sweet and tender. Add the garlic and cook for another 30 seconds until fragrant. This base is short but don’t rush it – properly softened onion gives the soup a rounded sweetness that raw or undercooked onion won’t.
2. Make the chickpea roux: Add the chickpea flour directly to the onion and garlic. Stir constantly for 1–2 minutes. It will look like a dry, sandy paste clinging to the aromatics – that’s exactly right. You’re toasting the flour to remove the raw, bitter edge chickpea flour can have straight from the bag. Keep stirring and don’t let it catch on the bottom. You’ll smell it shift from raw to nutty – that’s your cue to move on.
3. Whisk in the liquid: Add the bouillon water slowly, a small splash at a time, whisking as you go. This is how you avoid lumps – the flour needs to absorb liquid gradually rather than being hit with 400ml all at once. Once you’ve added about half the liquid and the mixture is smooth, add the rest in one go. Add the frozen peas. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20–30 minutes until the peas are completely tender – cooking time varies by brand, so taste-test rather than relying on the clock.
4. Add the mint: Stir in the mint sauce off the heat. The vinegar in the sauce cuts through the earthiness of the chickpea flour and makes the peas taste sharper and more spring-forward. If using dried mint instead, add it during the last minute of simmering so it has time to bloom.
5. Blend to silk: Use an immersion blender directly in the pot and blend until completely smooth, 60–90 seconds of continuous blending. The soup should be vivid green and glossy, with no chunks or fibrous bits. For an even finer texture, pass it through a sieve – this removes the tiny pea skins and gives you a true fine-dining consistency. Not necessary, but noticeable.
6. Serve: Pour into a deep bowl. Add a dollop of soy yogurt in the center and drag a spoon through it to create a swirl. Sprinkle hemp seeds and black sesame seeds over the top. Serve immediately – the color stays brightest when it’s hot.

PRO TIP: The chlorophyll in peas is heat-sensitive – the longer the soup sits after blending, the more the color shifts from vivid green toward dull olive. Blend it right before serving, not ahead of time. If you’re meal prepping, store the soup unblended and blend fresh when you reheat it. Thirty extra seconds of blending is worth keeping that color.

CHEF’S KISS: Serve with a slice of rye bread on the side if you want to make this a more substantial meal. The soup is generous as a standalone lunch. If you’re serving it as a starter, half the portion works beautifully. Impact: 1 slice rye bread = +78 calories, +2.5g protein, turns this into a complete meal.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

🌱 PLANT DIVERSITY: Peas • Chickpea flour (chickpeas) • Onion • Garlic • Mint • Soy yogurt (soybeans) • Hemp seeds • Black sesame seeds

(If you’re tracking plants per week, this adds 8 to your count.)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

*Nutrition information is an estimate and may vary based on ingredients and brands used.* 

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

ESSENTIALS

*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.

You may find yourself in need of: 

Immersion Blender – sixty seconds of continuous blending is what turns this from textured pea soup into something glossy and restaurant-smooth. Don’t stop early.

Chickpea Flour – the roux and the protein source. Six grams before a single pea goes in.

Mint Sauce – the vinegar in it cuts the earthiness of the chickpea flour and makes the peas taste sharper. Dried mint won’t do the same thing.

Missing something?

Explore Evie’s Kitchen Essentials for additional tools and pantry ingredients.