Easy Bacon Pea Salad is one of our family’s all-time favourite summer salads. It goes well with anything from the grill but it also makes a great standalone light lunch. Enjoy!
Salad and I are like *THIS*. That probably comes at no surprise at this point. What you may not know, though, is that I have an especially soft spot for marinated salads.
You know which ones I mean… The ones that fill bowl after bowl at late spring and summer parties. The ones in oil and vinegar or mayonnaise based dressings that become even tastier the day after they’re made.
Macaroni salad, potato salad, corn salad, and baby… that pea salad you see in the picture above.
Even when I was a picky kid, peas were always a friendly food at the dinner table. A bowl of peas meant I had something I could dig into with abandon.
I always loved the little POP of biting into peas. I love them so much that I’ve even been known to dig into the bag of frozen peas for a fast, cold snack in the dog days of summer.
When I saw my friend Amy’s Pea Salad pop up in my feed reader a couple of weeks ago, it was a no-brainer that I was going to make it. I did. And it was glorious.
The next day when I made my second batch (I told you I liked peas), I added a bunch of crispy bacon and upped the cheddar and onion a bit and loved it so much that we polished off the whole batch in a matter of hours.
Yes. I’ve done the math. I am completely aware of how many pounds of peas we ate in two days. I self-imposed a two-day moratorium on pea-salad in the house.
But PEOPLE! (Pea-ple?) Easy Bacon Pea salad? Well, it’s like hand and glove, Rocky and Bullwinkle, peas and, er, bacon! It just goes together. I haven’t done anything but eat it directly from the tupperware container with a spoon, yet, but I guarantee you couldn’t find a tastier or easier side dish for just about any grilled, roasted, or broiled meat or fish.
The sweet POP of the pea, creamy mayonnaise dressing, crunchy mild red onion, and crispy bacon taste great right after being stirred together, but they taste even better after having sat in the refrigerator for a day, making this an IDEAL side dish to serve with an Easter Ham, summer picnics, Labor Day festivities and everything else the whole dad-burned year. Easy peasy, my pea-ple!
Cook’s Notes:
- I prefer to use frozen peas that have thawed overnight in the refrigerator. I prefer the texture and flavour of them over canned peas. If you have fresh peas, blanch them as you would to freeze them and use them after they’ve chilled before using them to make your Easy Bacon Pea Salad.
- We served scoops of Easy Bacon Pea Salad on top of tossed salad the other day and loved it. Bonus: No dressing necessary.
- This can be served immediately after stirring it together, but tastes even better if allowed to sit, tightly covered, in the refrigerator for an hour or up to three days. It should be eaten within 3 days of being made, which is NOT a problem. Trust me.
Use this to make Easy Bacon Pea Salad:
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Love this recipe? Try these!
Here’s another great pea recipe: One Skillet Beef Meatballs with Rice and Peas, and here are excellent recipes to serve alongside Bacon Pea Salad: Creamy Buffalo Chicken for Instant Pot or Slow Cooker, Chicken Parmesan Meatloaf, Slow-cooker Apple Cider Pulled Pork, Big Batch Greek Lemon Garlic Chicken, and Oven Baked Crispy Chicken.
Bacon Pea Salad
Ingredients
- 1 pound of bacon cooked according to package instructions, drained and crumbled or finely chopped
- 2 pounds frozen peas thawed in the refrigerator overnight
- 3/4 cup coarsely grated sharp Cheddar cheese
- 1/2 small red onion peeled, and finely chopped
- 1/2 cup of mayonnaise
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon paprika
Instructions
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Stir together all of the ingredients and serve immediately, or (preferably) put in a tupperware, Gladware, or other tightly covered container in the refrigerator to give the flavours a chance to meld for an hour but up to three days prior to serving. Give it a gentle stir from top to bottom before serving.
This post was originally published April 7th, 2014 and was updated May 11th, 2017 with a video and improved notes.
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