Not long ago I had a hankerin’ for a good sweet pea salad. Do you ever get hankerings?  I sure do.  And they have a habit of eating at me until I am compelled to do something about them.

It had been a very long time since I had eaten a sweet pea salad. Some people refer to them as cold pea salad or green pea salad. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had eaten one. (But that may not mean much with this ole mind of mine).  It seems like the usual places I’ve eaten a sweet pea salad were at family reunions or 4th of July potlucks but it’s also been a long time since we have been to either of those type gatherings. Sometimes you find them at restaurants that have really good salad bars too.

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Another thing I couldn’t remember was ever having made a sweet pea salad myself before. I didn’t even have a recipe in my files for a sweet pea salad. So I decided to set out on the look out for a good recipe to try. I found some that sounded pretty good. And I tried a few….  but none of them seemed to hit the spot with me so I decided to make up my own recipe for Sweet Pea Salad.  I took what I liked the best from different recipes I tried or read and put them all together. And then I added an ingredient that was not in any of the other recipes….. the ingredient that I think really MAKES this salad good.

My Secret Ingredient for the Best Sweet Pea Salad

You might be wondering what that secret ingredient might be. It was something I found quite a while back that someone put in their potato salad.  When I tried it in my next potato salad, it was just what my recipe was missing….. And I decided it would probably fit in real good in my sweet pea salad recipe.

Are you ready for it???

Drum roll Please…

Sweet Pickle Juice….

That’s right…. Sweet Pickle Juice…. I add in 2T of juice from my jar of sweet pickles to the dressing I put over my sweet pea salad. I make my own dressing for the salad.  It is a very simple dressing with a mayo base. I usually use sweet pickles that are sweetened with splenda like this one by Mt. Olive.

Summer is fast approaching and one of the earliest vegetables in many gardens are sweet peas. I think a sweet pea salad made with fresh peas would be awesome and I will probably try to make one this summer with fresh sweet peas but right now I just use frozen sweet peas. I tend to buy a large 5lb bag of frozen sweet peas and divide it up into 1lb bags so I can just grab a bag out of the freezer. 1lb of sweet peas fits nicely into quart size zip lock bags like these.

About Some of the Other Ingredients in my Sweet Pea Salad

I like to put bacon bits like these in my sweet pea salad.  I’m not certain they are usually included in sweet pea salads but I like them in mine. It also adds in protein which helps make this a good, easy salad if you pack your own lunch.  And I like the bacon bits that are packaged into smaller packs like these so you don’t have a partial bag in your fridge that ends up going bad on you because you didn’t have anything else to use them in. 

I use shredded cheese in my sweet pea salad. Many people use cubed cheese but I like the simplicity of just using a bag of shredded cheese. And I usually use colby jack cheese when most people use cheddar.  I rarely have cheddar cheese in my fridge. I have sometimes had a Cheddar Jack cheese  on hand but to be honest with you, I would use what ever cheese I have on hand.  It’s just simpler that way. I don’t think it really matters what kind of cheese you use.  Use what you have and what you like.

Another protein punch in my sweet pea salad is chopped hard boiled eggs. I like hard boiled eggs in my chicken salad too and in my potato salad. I like to pump up the protein in my food.  But if you don’t like hard boiled eggs…. leave them out.

The Dressing for my Sweet Pea Salad

The last 5 ingredients of the recipe is the dressing. I have listed mayo but I usually make it half mayo and half sour cream or half mayo and half greek yogurt.  It really doesn’t matter. It is a personal preference here. And on the sweetener, I usually use a Xylitol or Erythritol or a mix of both.  You can just use plane sugar or any granular sweetener that you are use to.

I mix the first 5 ingredients in a bowl.  Then mix the last 5 ingredients which is the dressing in a separate bowl. Pour the dressing over the first bowl and mix in well.  This recipe can be served immediately or made ahead for the next day.  You could easily double this recipe for a larger crowd.

You will have to let me know if you give my Sweet Pea Salad recipe a try.

Bye for now…  XOXO

Cindy