Although many dried beans need to be soaked before cooking, split peas (green or yellow) do not need to be soaked. When split peas are processed, the hard outer shell is removed and then they are cracked in half. They cook quite quickly. Simply rinse split peas, green or yellow, and sort out any foreign material that may have slipped in. Incidentally, if you have a pressure cooker, you can eliminate the soaking step when you cook legumes such as black beans or pinto beans. Try my Instant Pot pinto beans.