SOUTHERN PEA SALAD
Southern Pea Salad is one of my favorites. I love trying new ways to make it and using different ingredients each time. This pea salad is great served on lettuce leaves or just served as a side dish to any meal. I can make a meal of just the salad. Wonderful dish for any holiday meal. We love adding ham to this salad or bacon, both make this salad equally good. Such a versatile dish your family will love!
Ingredients for Southern Pea Salad
Frozen sweet peas, thawed and uncooked (I have used canned peas, too)
Hard boiled
Bacon or Ham
Green onion (could use regular onion)
Cheddar cheese
Black pepper
Salt
Garlic powder
Celery seeds or chopped celery
dash cayenne
Mayonnaise
Sour cream
Many people love this salad and often serve it at holiday gatherings. You can easily make this dish a day in advance, which is always a plus! Great reviews on this dish:
“Looking for just one more side dish for Christmas and this is it. Thank you for all your delicious recipes, they never fail me.” – Denise
“We love pea salad, I always make mine with drained canned peas, We like the texture better. That’s just us….lol. I also cut up my cheese in small squares. That is how I was taught by my grandmother. I love this site, it gives me so many ideas and memories!: – Linda
“I’ve made this for years…My kids love. But never had with bacon. I’m adding for Easter!! Thanks so much!!” – Debra
This salad is super versatile! You can also add tomatoes, green pepper, dill or sweet pickles, pimentos or water chestnuts to this salad. This is one you can use your own imagination and make it to your liking. We like the recipe above but I add both the bacon and ham to my salad.
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Southern Pea Salad
Ingredients
- 1 16 ounce package frozen sweet peas, thawed and uncooked (I have used canned peas, too)
- 2 eggs hard boiled and chopped
- 4 to 6 slices of bacon cooked crisp and crumbled or 1 cup ham, cooked and chopped, optional
- 1/2 cup chopped green onion could use regular onion
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese can use any kind of cheese
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon celery seeds or 1/2 cup celery chopped
- dash cayenne
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup sour cream
Instructions
- Combine uncooked, thawed peas, (I just thaw the peas in the microwave and drain) eggs, bacon or ham or both, onion, cheese, pepper, salt, garlic powder, celery seeds or celery and cayenne in a salad bowl. Mix in the mayonnaise and sour cream. Place in refrigerator for a couple of hours. Makes 6 to 8 servings.
Notes
Don’t Forget to Pin this Pea Salad!
Don’t forget to check out these salad recipes:
Potato Salad for a Crowd
Ranch Pasta Salad
Seven Layer Vegetable Salad
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I made this for an Easter dinner using deli ham & I didn’t come home with any! Easy & delicious! Thank you!
So glad it was a hit!
You can add other ingredients if you must but this salad is so perfect as they wrote it! We have it on regular rotation and love it. You can bet anything these ladies post will be a hit! I love love love their website!
Thank you Toni! We agree.. we like the original version too!
I think it would be good with diced potatoes, as well. And definitely diced celery instead of celery seeds.
This is a pretty classic recipe, I have never seen it made with potatoes.
This is one of our favorite salads. I use chopped celery instead of celery seeds. Yummy.
I make this salad and add pimentos.
Excellent
A++++ This will be a regular in our house from now on. My husband inhaled it and said he would eat it everyday. Thank you for a wonderful recipe.
This was delicious. Everything in it that I like. The eggs are a great addition. I used the fresh celery chopped very small. I highly recommend this pea salad. Would be great to take to a party!
I live pea salad, my mother would make it a lot!
I made your recipe and I loved it, I haven’t made it since n year s and when I saw you recipe I knew I had to make it and it was so good!
Thank you for sharing!
Deb H.
You’re very welcome Deb. So glad you like it!
This salad was awesome I added rotisserie shredded chicken to mine my family loved it and what was leftover we ate for lunch the next day and I must say it was better than the first day this is a must try definitely will be on my menu from now on
Terrific pea salad! Doubled the recipe for a pot-luck BBQ and there wasn’t a pea left. Recommend. I made exactly as in the recipe minus the cayenne which I didn’t have.
So glad it was such a hit! We love this one too!
Made this yesterday before seeing your recipe. Almost identical but I used bottled Ranch dressing instead of sour cream and a couple tbl of sweet corn salsa. It just vanished from the table!!
Love this recipe, make it several times a year. It is one of my husband’s favorites. I sometimes use red onions. Thank you.
Love this so much, I prefer canned peas but I have used frozen, just the taste is so much better with canned peas (to me ). I could eat it anytime, just a cold snack! Yuuuuuum!
Looking for just one more side dish for Christmas and this is it. Thank you for all your delicious recipes, they never fail me.
Thank you for the kind comment!
I don’t remember ever having this at home but I think we used to have it occasionally at the school cafeteria. That was way back when the cafeteria food was cooked fresh and from scratch everyday.
MY MOM USED TO MAKE TUNA AND PEA SALAD
LETTUCE, SWEET ONION, PEAS FROM A CAN SMALL CHOPPED CELERY PLUS MAYO. WE LOVED IT.
This is complete deliciousness ( we loved using spam this time).
So glad you liked it, I bet it’s great with Spam!
Can you add shrimp instead of bacon or ham?
Sure, you can add whatever you like.
This was delicious. It tasted even better the 2nd day.
I have been looking for this particular recipe for pea salad for a year!! This is, I believe the same recipe a certain Southern grocery store chain makes in their deli. I absolutely love it and am so happy I found it here!!
We hope you enjoy this recipe Amanda and it is what you are looking for. My family loves this pea salad and can’t get enough of it. Have a great weekend.
Love this salad!
We love pea salad, I always make mine with drained canned peas, We like the texture better. That’s just us….lol. I also cut up my cheese in small squares. That is how I was taught by my grandmother. I love this site, it gives me so many ideas and memories!
So glad you’re enjoying the site Linda! Enjoy.
I’ve made this for years…My kids love. But never had with bacon. I’m adding for Easter!! Thanks so much!!
Yummo!!
I like to make this with my own homemade dressing, which is similar in taste to Marzetti’s slaw dressing. I use mayo, sugar, and cider vinegar. I don’t know amounts, just add a little of all, taste, and adjust by adding a little more sugar or vinegar. You could also just sub the Marzetti’s.
When taking this for a potluck or a picnic use the peas frozen right from the freezer. This will help keep the salad cold yet thaw enough it’s ready to eat.
Thank-you so much now i am going to make it
This is most certainly a keeper. What makes it one is the variety of ingredients that can be added as a choice. Thanks.
I ate this at a dinner one time and loved it. This will be my first time making it, I can’t wait, thanks for posting.
I can’t eat mayo but use sour & add a packet of ranch dressing mix. I also add croutons & red onion chopped fine.
That just looks and sounds so good it should be sinful, was my first thought just now, I haven’t ever had just a pea salad before but at my house we love to add them on our homemade “house” salads which usually consist of lettuce, boiled eggs, cheese, bacon, ham or turkey and what ever else sounds good to add and when I added them to my little girls salad one day (not sure if she’d notice them or not) she said when she was done that she wanted some more of those little green balls on hers because they were yummy!
3bears alaska in alaska makes this salad and sells it in their stores,but they add cauliflower and broccoli to it. is quite delicious, thank you for the recipe. been looking for it.
My mom made it with lots of celery, a little of grated onion, chopped apples, and sone finely chopped red pepper.
it’s a lot like my 7-Layer Salad. I love them. It’s strange…I am not crazy about English (green) peas but I love them in a salad.
My Uncle Dave asked me to make this every time he came to OK. from Ca. Made me think of him. love him and miss him
This looks so good. But my husband is not a pea fan. I could try making it with out the peas. Then just add them to mine. It’s worth a try.
try green beans instead of peas…my gram made this with both peas and gre
en beans together
I’m not a pea fan – but I like pea salad. Use things he likes. My hubby doesn’t like eggs in it but he likes ham or chicken chunks. It is good!
Thank you so much for this recipe. My late mother made it for us especially in the summer. I recall her making it once at the height of winter and it perked us all up. Both she and my sister have passed on so I thank you for the recipe I will make this coming weekend for my family,sandi wechsler
I just made this salad ~~well my version for it but i do think they are all family of variations of a theme here 3 nights ago ~~must be that old adage great minds ~~so timely ~~I do add fresh dill in mine along with a jolt of very very very finely mined jalapeno ~~:))~`one hardly does know what hit them but just that something has ~~:)))~~funny but i have now taken to adding jalapeno to my pimento cheese as well ~~love you page ~~so happy I found it ~~smile ~~happy Thursday Ya’ll
I have made this before and used diced Spam when I didn’t have ham. Could not tell the difference!
I know some people, including my parents, love Spam. But I’m quite certain I could tell the difference. 🙂 I have always loved ham, but the only way I can barely tolerate Spam is fried. However, this type of recipe is the kind that easily incorporates different tastes!
LOL…..I hate spam! I could tell in a heartbeat if it was there. It is just one of those things I can tell the texture of. We had to eat so much growing up, because we were so poor. Sometimes we had the kind that was given as commodities, like the cheese in the brown box. I feel blessed to have what I have now. God blessed us then as he does now!
I had forgotten about pea salad. My mom made it in the spring and summer for Saturday lunch. I love it with bar b que chicken. Thanks for the reminder. We put sweet pickles in ours too.
Linda
Green olives are also good in this.
A neighbor used to make this exact salad…but she ‘stretched’ it a bit by adding a bit of cooked pasta, which I think must also require a bit more dressing. It was SO good. My favorite on a hot summer day
make it with Feta cheese — oh yummm
YES! Feta is great and also about a cup to a cup and a half cooked small shell pasts. You have to adjust the mayo & sour cream a tad, too…YUM..
My mother use to make this. It is so good. Glad you posted this recipe, very similar to my mother’s. May she RIP!