Pie Floater Recipe with Pea Soup (2024)

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Pie floaters are an iconic South Australian street food snack. This pie floater recipe features a crispy, flaky beef pie floating in a delicious homemade mushy pea soup. Serve with your favourite sauce for a filling meal – lunch or dinner!

Why We Love This

The pie floater may look like an odd dish at first glance. But there’s something special about the pairing of crunchy, flaky pastry wrapped beef pies floating on mushy green pea soup. You just HAVE to try it!

Pie floaters tick all the boxes: they’re totally delicious and super satisfying, not to mention budget-friendly and easy to make.

With this recipe you can easily make the pea soup and meat pies in advance. Just freeze them separately, then reheat and assemble when you’re ready to eat!

Related: Beef Sausage Rolls / Hungarian Goulash

What is a Pie Floater?

A pie floater is a beef pie served on top of a green pea soup, which is usually thick and mushy rather than smooth like regular pea soup. It’s often often topped with Australian style tomato sauce (quite similar to American ketchup), but other traditional sauce options include mint sauce, bbq sauce, gravy or even malt vinegar depending on your preference.

Where Did They Originate?

This recipe comes to you all the way from our hometown of Adelaide, South Australia. It’s considered to be Adelaide’s original fast food dish, and was always one of Laura’s Dad’s favourite meals to order at the local pub.

The pie floater tradition dates back to the 1870’s, when the original fleet of horse-drawn pie carts would traverse the city streets. Hordes of hungry locals would line up at the carts for a “Floater” as a quick dinner before heading out, or a late night snack before heading home.

With time, the horses morphed into modern food trucks, still drawing the long tram-style carts across the city. Unfortunately nowadays, despite being a South Australian Heritage Icon, the humble pie cart is a rare sight. These days you’re more likely to score a pie floater from a pub, restaurant or bakery – or homemade of course!

If you’re wanting to serve up a sweet treat afterwards, pair these with another classic South Australian snack – Candy Spuds, the small potato-like coconut treats that are melded together with condensed milk and cocoa. Yum!

What You’ll Need

This classic Aussie dish calls for three main ingredients (for the full list see the recipe card below):

Meat Pies – You can use any store bought pie if you like, but for the best flavour we recommend making them yourself. Our Mini Meat Pies are the perfect accomplice to your homemade pie floater.
Pea Soup – Our traditional-style soup is made with dried blue boiler peas or Marrowfat peas – they give the best texture for mushy pea soup once cooked! However, they both require some pre-planning since you need to soak them overnight. To save time you can use regular peas (fresh, canned or frozen) or green split peas, similar to our homemade Erwtensoep – Dutch Split Pea Soup. You could even use canned pea soup – though the flavour will never be the same as homemade.
Tomato Sauce – In Australia we love tomato sauce, which is similar to American ketchup (definitely not canned tomato puree used for pasta).

Wandercook’s Tips

Add the pie just before serving so the pastry stays crispy and flaky.
To be extra authentic you should technically serve the pie upside down in the soup – but we couldn’t bring ourselves to do that when the lids of our homemade pies were so CRISPYYYY.

FAQs

Can I make pie floaters in advance?

Yes, you can make the pies and the soup in advance as long as you store them separately.

How do I store and reheat them?

The pea soup will last for around 3 days in the fridge, up to a few months if stored in the freezer. Reheat in the microwave or on the stove top.
Homemade beef pies can be stored in the freezer, then thawed completely before baking in the oven until heated through. Serve your assembled pie floater immediately.

Why do I need to use bicarbonate of soda (aka baking soda)?

This helps to break down the tough outer skin of the blue boiler peas, so they can soften and soak up the water.

Why won’t my pea soup thicken? How can I make it thicker?

If you’ve added too much water while cooking the pea soup, you have a couple of options to help thicken it:
– Add pureed vegetables such as potato, carrot or celery (best for extra flavour)
– OR, make a cornflour slurry from 1-1.5 tsp of corn starch and 3 tsp cold water. Stir through the soup to thicken.

Variations & Substitutes

Pie – Use any kind of pie that you like – chicken, curry or potato pies would all taste amazing.
Make it Vegan – Swap the beef pie for your favourite vegan pie, and use vegetable stock in the soup instead of chicken stock.
Tweak the Sauces – Traditional options include mint sauce, BBQ sauce, or malt vinegar. Another popular version is to top with mashed potato and gravy! But if you’re feeling more adventurous, you could try it with Worcestershire sauce, HP sauce, Yakisoba sauce or even Takoyaki sauce. Those last two are amazing Japanese condiments with a similar flavour to BBQ sauce.

Want more great Aussie recipes to try? Here are some of our all-time favourites:

★ Did you make this recipe? Please leave a star rating below!

Pie Floater Recipe with Pea Soup

Pie floaters are a classic South Australian street food snack made out of a crispy, flaky meat pie floating in a delicious pea soup. Learn how to make your very own mushy pea soup pie floater – Adelaide style.

5 from 7 votes

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Prep Time: 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour hour

Total Time: 1 hour hour 5 minutes minutes

Course: Soup

Cuisine: Australian

Servings: 4

Calories: 465kcal

Author: Wandercooks

Cost: $10

Equipment

▢
Large Saucepan
▢
Large serving bowls

Ingredients

▢ 2 cups dried peas 375 g blue boiler or marrowfat
▢ 6 cups chicken stock 1.5 L
▢ 1 tbsp bicarb soda
▢ 4 mini beef pies or whatever pie you like!

Optional toppings (to taste)

Metric – US Customary

Instructions

Pop your dried peas in a large saucepan (no need to soak!). Pour in your chicken stock and bicarb soda and bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer on low.
2 cups dried peas, 6 cups chicken stock, 1 tbsp bicarb soda
Cook until the peas have softened and the soup has thickened nicely, around 1 hour. Stir every now and then to prevent sticking. Scoop off any foam as you go. Note 1: If it starts to boil over, you've got the heat too high! Note 2: If the liquid evaporates too quick, just add more water as you go, 1/2 cup at a time for a runnier soup.
During the last 15 minutes of cooking the soup, pop your store-bought or homemade beef pies in the oven to heat and cook through.
4 mini beef pies
Transfer your mushy green pea soup into serving bowls and top with the hot flaky beef pies. Slather with your favourite toppings such as tomato sauce and tuck in!
tomato sauce / ketchup, BBQ sauce, Mint sauce, Malt vinegar, Salt and pepper

Video

Recipe Notes

Pies – You can use any store bought pie if you like – beef, chicken, curry or potato pies would all taste amazing. but for the best flavour we recommend making them yourself. Our Mini Meat Pies are the perfect accomplice to your homemade pie floater. Add the pie just before serving so the pastry stays crispy and flaky. To be extra authentic you can serve the pie upside down in the soup.
Pea Soup – Our traditional-style soup is made with dried blue boiler peas or Marrowfat peas – they give the best texture for mushy pea soup once cooked! However, they both require some pre-planning since you need to soak them overnight. To save time you can use regular peas (fresh, canned or frozen) or green split peas, similar to our homemade Erwtensoep – Dutch Split Pea Soup. You could even use canned pea soup – though the flavour will never be the same as homemade. If your pea soup is too thin, try adding pureed vegetables such as potato, carrot or celery OR, make a cornflour slurry from 1-1.5 tsp of corn starch and 3 tsp cold water. Stir through the soup to thicken.
Tomato Sauce – In Australia we love tomato sauce, which is similar to American ketchup (definitely not canned tomato puree used for pasta).
Make it Vegan – Swap the beef pie for your favourite vegan pie, and use vegetable stock in the soup instead of chicken stock.
Tweak the Sauces – Traditional options include mint sauce, BBQ sauce, or malt vinegar. Another popular version is to top with mashed potato and gravy! But if you’re feeling more adventurous, you could try it with Worcestershire sauce, HP sauce, Yakisoba sauce or even Takoyaki sauce. Those last two are amazing Japanese condiments with a similar flavour to BBQ sauce.
Store & Reheat – The pea soup will last for around 3 days in the fridge, up to a few months if stored in the freezer. Reheat in the microwave or on the stove top. Homemade beef pies can be stored in the freezer, then thawed completely before baking in the oven until heated through. Serve your assembled pie floater immediately.

Nutrition

Nutrition Facts

Pie Floater Recipe with Pea Soup

Amount per Serving

Calories

465

% Daily Value*

Fat

Saturated Fat

About Wandercooks

Wandercooks is an Australian recipe site reaching over 9 million views annually. Our recipes are here to inspire you with fresh and exciting food ideas from a range of Asian, European and Australian cuisines. As seen on Google.com, Today.com, Buzzfeed, Jetstar Asia and Lonely Planet.Read more...