Black-Eyed Pea and Farro Soup
Because black-eyed peas aren't just for New Years Day.
Hello, Lovely Readers and Cooks—As promised in my last newsletter, I have a soup recipe for you this week. 2025 is already off to a very tough start, and I think we all need some comfort in our lives if we’re going to get through the end of this winter. Part my plan for day-to-day comfort is to make some big pots of restoring soup, like this one. I hope it helps get you through, too (or just helps you decide what to make for dinner).
Housekeeping note: I’ve just updated the site’s recipe index, so if you’re looking for a recipe I’ve previously sent out (or just want to look for meal inspiration), check it out!
Like many Americans, we started our year with a meal that included black-eyed peas and collard greens. I can’t lay personal claim to this Black American tradition, intended to bring luck in the new year, but, like many, I’ve adopted it over the years—in part to honor this county’s history and in part because it’s a delicious and healthy way to celebrate.
This year, in order to avoid arguments at the dinner table (the perennial problem of any parent cooking for kids), I decided to do something different with the ingredients: I made the collards into a lemony, garlicky salad and simmered the peas in stock with farro plus a little bacon and parmesan, for good measure. The resulting soup was heavenly: flavorful and comforting, the kind of bowl that ends up as far more than the sum of its parts. (It was so good, in fact, that I never added the chili crisp I’d brought to the table—it would have just ruined an already perfect flavor.)
A tiny bit of self-promotion: If you haven’t done so, check out my new newsletter, Snacking Dinners! It’s based on the idea behind my upcoming cookbook—that dinner can be fast, delicious, and also fun—and I’ll be sending out free recipes once a week, plus occasional book news. I’d love to hear what you think of it!
This meal also got me wondering: How many Americans only eat black-eyed peas once a year? I definitely don’t have them in my regular rotation. This is partly because I didn’t grow up with them and partly because I just don’t see them displayed at the store—and definitely don’t get them through my bean club—at any other time of year. As a Californian (and sometime New Yorker and expat) the only ways I’ve know to prepare them are stewed with bacon and in Texas caviar (a popular bean salad). Their flavor is too vegetal to sub them in for brown or black beans in tacos or soups, so I haven’t added them to my regular legume rotation.
This is, I see, a major oversight on my part. The peas’ unique flavor offers all kind of opportunities that I haven’t explored. And judging from the Google results for “black-eyed pea recipe,” I’m probably not alone. The entire first page is essentially the same pot of stewed peas with bacon. Looking at my bookshelves, I see that Joe Yonan’s book Cool Beans has a few other fun options, most of which refer back to African cooking traditions (in a Nigerian stew and an akara-inspired burger). Bryant Terry’s Vegetable Kingdom also has a dish that involves serving the stewed peas on top of roasted delicata squash and braised mustard greens (which sounds delicious). But the general lack of recipes for this ingredient, beyond a bacony stew, just makes me more curious to see what they are capable of. Perhaps their green-leaning flavor would pair well with a tomato-based sauce, the way brassicas do? Or maybe I should be adding them to curries?
I still have half a bag of dried peas tucked into my cupboard, so over the next few weeks I can experiment with them and see what sticks and what doesn’t. Playing with ingredients to see if I can surprise myself is something I don’t do nearly often enough when I’m not developing recipes for work, but it’s something I should try more ofen. Maybe by the end of these experiments I’ll have a new favorite way of preparing black-eyed peas.
Until then, I’ll just keep making this amazingly delicious soup.
Black-Eyed Pea and Farro Soup
Serves 4
½ lb dried black-eyed peas
Baking soda
Kosher salt
1 clove garlic
½ bay leaf
1¼ cup dried farro
4 strips bacon, cut into batons
1½ quarts good-quality chicken broth
Freshly ground black pepper
Parmesan, for grating
Finely chopped parsley, for garnish
Prep the Peas and Farro
Put the peas in a medium bowl, cover them with enough water to let them double, and dissolve in a little bit of baking soda (this will help break down the skin to reduce the cooking time and also the oligosaccharides—the sugars that can cause gas). Let the peas soak overnight.
Drain the peas, transfer them to a medium pot, and add enough water to cover by at least a couple inches. Add the garlic, bay leaf, and a pinch of salt, bring the mixture to a boil, then lower the temperature and simmer the peas until tender but not too soft; timing will vary depending on how old the peas are, but will likely take between 45 and 75 minutes. Set the peas aside, in their liquid, or refrigerate for up to 5 days.
Put the farro in a medium pot with at least 3 cups of water and a big pinch of salt and bring everything to a boil. Boil the farro, like you would pasta, until it is al dente, about 15 minutes, then immediately drain through a fine-mesh sieve. Set the farro aside or refrigerate for up to 5 days.
Make the Soup
Cook the bacon in a large skillet or pot until it starts to crisp. Add the farro to the pan with a splash of water and stir to let the farro absorb the fat.
Add the bone broth and the peas, and bring the mixture to a simmer to heat everything well. Season the mixture well with salt and pepper. Turn off the heat and stir in some parsley.
To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and grate a generous amount of parmesan on top with a microplane.
More Comforting Recipes from California
If you want even more soup in our life, the San Francisco Chronicle recently posted a great recipe for Lentil Soup with Swiss Chard, the Betty Eatz newsletter shared a delicious-looking Chicken, Corn, and Poblano Soup, and Elizabeth Poett of the Ranch Table posted her tried-and-true recipe for bone broth. Alternatively, if you want something sweet—and a project recipe to take your mind off current events—check out the LA Times’ series on making chocolate babka that ran in late December or Nik Sharma’s new olive oil chocolate cake. And if you want something healthy but you’ve had more than enough soup recipes for the month, checkout Edible East Bay’s Red Lentil Pasta with Lemon, Garlic, and Kale (shared by Livermore Valley cook @thevineyardmom) or the Tomato Basil Sauced Salmon and Spaghetti with Zucchini shared by the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
Recipes for Chinese New Years/Tet
While I don’t have any new recipes to share for CNY this year, Denise Lee’s chow mein would be a fun one to make this week, if you want a low-key way to observe the holiday:
Homemade Chow Mein
This week I’m sharing a classic Chinese American recipe, courtesy of Denise Lee, an educator who uses Legos to teach kids STEM subjects like robotics. Denise’s cousin Lorraine Hee-Chorley was the subject of my very first newsletter, and she shared the story of their great-grandfather’s journey to California during the Gold Rush. Denise told me a bit abo…
There are also a lot of great recipes over on The Mala Market site, where I’m an editor. (Most of the authors aren’t from California, but I’m making an exception here for great, authentic Chinese dishes just for the holiday.) Here on Substack, Chill Crisp has lost of lovely dishes you can make for CNY, while Pass the Fish Sauce has lots of great recipes to pull from to celebrate Tet. However you choose to celebrate, I hope it’s delicious!
Photos: Georgia Freedman, Rancho Gordo website, Georgia Freedman
Sounds so good! I have half a bag of RG black eyed peas left & am going to make a vegetarian version!