🇩🇪 Germany · Berlin tradition
ErbsensuppeGerman pea soup
A thick German soup of dried peas simmered with pork rind or ham hock, soup vegetables and onion, seasoned with marjoram, finished with fried bacon and often a sausage such as Bockwurst, eaten with bread.
Origin and history
Pea soup with bacon is tied in Berlin to the Aschinger restaurants, founded at the end of the 19th century by the brothers Georg and Heinrich Aschinger: beer halls and soup houses known for cheap, filling food. According to the Berliner Kurier, citing the 1997 cookbook Unvergessene Küche, a plate of pea soup cost 35 Pfennig there and guests could take as many rolls as they liked. This is a Berlin tradition rather than the only German form: pea soup with pork and sausage is cooked across the country.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 2 h 30 min
- Hands-on
- 30 min
Ingredients
- 400 g2 cups (14 oz) dried green peas, whole or split; soaked overnight in plenty of cold water (split peas need no soaking)
- 250 g9 oz smoked bacon rind, pork rind or smoked ham hock, for flavour in the pot
- 1 bunch of soup vegetables (Suppengrün), carrot, celeriac, leek, parsley; washed and chopped
- 3 onions, 1 peeled and left whole for the pot, 2 diced to fry
- 200 g7 oz smoked streaky bacon (durchwachsener Speck), diced
- 1 to 2 tsp dried marjoram, rubbed between the fingers, to taste
- 1 bay leaf, optional
- 6 Bockwurst or Wiener sausages, heated in the soup
- salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
- bread rolls or rye bread, to serve
Method
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1. Soak the peas overnight in cold water; do not throw the soaking water away.
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2. Put the peas with their soaking water in a large pot, add the pork rind or hock and the whole onion, bring to the boil and skim off the foam.
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3. Simmer gently over low heat, covered, stirring now and then since pea soup scorches easily.
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4. After about 1 hour, add the chopped soup vegetables and the bay leaf.
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5. After about 2 hours in all, the peas should be falling apart; skim off any loose husks with a slotted ladle and remove the rind, hock and bay leaf.
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6. Dice any meat from the hock and return it; thin with hot water if the soup is too thick, or blend briefly with an immersion blender for a creamier texture.
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7. Render the diced bacon in a pan, add the diced onions and fry until golden brown.
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8. Stir the bacon, onions and their fat into the soup and season with marjoram, salt and pepper.
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9. Heat the sausages in the soup without letting it boil hard and serve in deep bowls with bread.
Notes
- Dried whole peas need soaking and long cooking and thicken the soup naturally; split peas need no soaking and cook faster. Fresh or frozen peas give a finer, more delicate soup. If too thick, thin with water; if too thin, simmer uncovered.
- Many home recipes, such as the lecker.de one, add diced potatoes (500 g for 500 g of peas) about 30 minutes before the end, and cook the bacon in the pot, dicing it at the end, rather than frying it separately. The Aschinger-style Berliner Kurier recipe uses no potatoes and no sausage; sausage is the common home addition.
- Both German sources season with marjoram; adjust it at the end. Leftovers keep 1 to 2 days and freeze well; the soup thickens on standing, so add hot water when reheating.
- Vegetarians can replace bacon and sausage with smoked tofu and a little smoked paprika; the soup will taste lighter.
Adapted from Berliner Kurier, Originale Berliner Erbsensuppe mit Speck à la Aschinger (from Unvergessene Küche, 1997) and Lecker.de, Erbsensuppe wie von Oma.
At the festivals
Served at 2 festivals in Germany.
Earlier editions
- June 18, 2025
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October 12, 2024
🇩🇪 Crailsheim, Germany
6th Internationales Suppenfest