Bacon Pea Salad – Spend With Pennies

Ingredients in Pea Salad

This is a take on a classic pea salad, jam-packed with flavor. It’s the perfect side dish for a summer bbq or even Thanksgiving dinner!

Peas – Frozen peas are the best option. They’re sweet, tender, and don’t require cooking. To make creamy pea salad with fresh peas from the garden, shell the peas and place them in a pot of boiling water for 5-8 minutes or until tender. Drain well and cool completely.

Add-Ins – We love crisp bacon, cheddar cheese, and red onion. Chopped boiled eggs can be added if you’d like.

• Use real bacon bits in place of cooked and crumbled bacon.
• We love sharp cheddar cheese best in this pea salad recipe but you can swap in your favorite cheeses.
• Green onion or sweet white onion can be used in place of red onion.

Dressing – This pea salad dressing is both tangy and creamy and takes just a couple of minutes of prep. A bit of mayo is mixed with sour cream, a splash of vinegar, sugar, salt, and black pepper. Simple yet perfect.

• For a lighter dressing swap the sour cream with Greek yogurt.
• The dressing in the recipe is best but you can also use Ranch dressing if you prefer.

Do You Have to Cook Frozen Peas for Salad?

You do not have to cook frozen peas to make green pea salad.

Frozen vegetables are blanched before freezing (in other words, partially cooked and quickly chilled.) This prevents the cell walls from bursting and turning vegetables into mush.

To make a sweet pea salad, buy frozen tiny peas, sometimes called baby peas or baby sweet peas. They contain more sugar, and make a nice complement to the saltiness of the bacon.

Simply run the peas under cold water to allow them to thaw/

ve only tried this as written so I can’t say for sure. Let us know how it works out for you!

How to Make Bacon Pea Salad

Here are the steps to making a delicious pea salad with bacon:

1. Thaw the peas by running them under cold water.
2. Cook the bacon until crispy and then crumble.
3. Whisk the dressing ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Add the peas, bacon, and onion, and stir to coat with the dressing.

Voila. It’s so easy!