When you have a large crop of peas from the garden or farmstand, you don't have time to casually include them in complicated recipes or to frantically figure out how to use them up before they go bad without getting sick of them. You want to make the most of your harvest and to actually enjoy it.
Here at Plant to Plate, we like to keep things simple! Here are some of my favorite ways to use or preserve peas:
- Sauté them with asparagus and shallots or leeks.
- Sauté or stirfry them with fennel stalks and bulbs and leeks. This works especially well with snap peas.
- Sauté them with asparagus, parsley, and lemon juice or lemon balm. This makes a delicious standalone dish, or it can be added to pasta, meat dishes, and casseroles.
- Make a Simple Salad. A few ideas for Simple Salad combinations with peas are as follows:
- Bell peppers and pine nuts
- Orzo and grilled zucchini
- Arugula and tomatoes
- Leeks and tarragon
- Use them as a Frame in an Interesting Salad. (Wondering why I capitalized those letters? Read more about Interesting Salads here!)
- Steam them with garlic and mix in cheddar or another cheese. The idea is to have the cheese melt when you mix it in, so shredded or grated cheese is best.
- Dry, peel, and split them for use in split pea soup.
- Alternatively, make fresh pea soup with the same ingredients as split pea soup but whole, fresh peas rather than split, dried peas.
- Add them to other soups.
- Add them to baked macaroni and cheese and other baked pasta dishes.
- Add them to stovetop pasta dishes like spaghetti with marinara.
- Add them to egg dishes like omelets and quiches.
- Purée them in the food processor and spread on toast, crostini, or crackers, alone or with cream cheese, brie, or another soft cheese.
- Purée them and add to hummus or include them in your own from-scratch hummus purée.
- Make pea salad, a Midwestern side dish, with peas, bacon, and mayonnaise.
- Add them to pasta salads.
- Pickle them. Peas can be pickled using both traditional and quick-pickling methods, alone or in combination with other herbs such as garlic and tarragon.
- Can them. Peas are best suited for pressure-canning techniques, as their pH is too high for water-bath canning.
- Freeze them to save them for later.
- Feed them to the birds. Duck owners will attest that peas are one of their ducks' favorite treats! Chickens and wild birds also enjoy them, and the birds benefit from peas' high niacin content, which strengthens their beaks.
Further Reading
Growing peas? Check out these quick facts like its best growing conditions, companion plants, and expected yields.
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