- Frozen peas are harvested at peak ripeness and flash-frozen, locking in their sweet flavor and bright green color.
- Chefs love frozen peas for their consistency, convenience and ability to add natural sweetness to many dishes year-round.
- Other frozen options like fava beans, cherries and blueberries save prep time while offering great taste and nutrition.
The convenience of frozen vegetables is hard to beat. Open a bag of spinach or carrots, drop it into some boiling water, and you have a super fast side dish ready in minutes. Perhaps the biggest selling point for frozen veggies is the long shelf life. You can stock up when they are on sale at your grocery store, or buy a big bag from a warehouse store like Costco. And it is not just home cooks who rely on frozen vegetables; chefs also lean on these convenience products.
But, let’s face it, frozen vegetables tend to have a bad reputation for lacking in taste and texture. With that in mind I reached out to a handful of chefs to ask what frozen vegetables, and even fruit, they like to have in their freezers. It turns out there are a lot of great options, but the one all the chefs recommended was frozen peas.
Why Frozen Peas?
Like a lot of other vegetables in the freezer section, peas are harvested at their peak ripeness, par-cooked and flash-frozen to seal in the sweet flavor. This is important because “they hold their sweetness and bright green color beautifully,” explains Patrick Prager, executive chef for Silverado Resort in Napa, California.
“Some frozen fruits and vegetables can offer a convenient, economical alternative to fresh while delivering near-peak season flavor,” says Andrew Black, chief culinary officer at Counter Service in New York City. While he currently doesn’t feature any frozen vegetables on Counter Service’s sandwich menu, he likes to keep a bag of frozen peas in his freezer at home. “The peas come cooked so it’s easy to incorporate that vegetal sweetness into brothy stews or soups just before serving.”
Is there anything unique about peas that makes them so good straight from the freezer? Perhaps the biggest selling point is consistency. Fresh peas are certainly delicious and worth your time and money if you can find them at your local grocery store or farmers’ market. But even if you purchase local peas, there’s a chance they’ll be starchy if they are a bit old.
Even celebrity chef Bobby Flay says 90% of the time he prefers using frozen peas instead of fresh. Why frozen? As other chefs have mentioned, it’s because they are frozen at their very peak sweetness, and fresh peas, as wonderful as they are, will get starchy quickly if not used immediately. “A lot of chefs will tell you that frozen green peas sort of trump fresh peas.”
Justin Freeman, chef at Somebody People, a vegetable-forward restaurant in Denver, Colorado, explains that “when deciding between fresh and frozen, I always think about seasonality. If peas are in peak season, I’ll go with fresh, but in the winter, I’ll choose frozen. Frozen veggies are a great option when fresh ones aren’t at their best.”
He likes to add them to pasta sauces and fried rice or to give “a little something extra to whatever I’m cooking.” He adds: “Since moving to Colorado, I’ve been using frozen vegetables more often, especially as a quick way to sneak my kids some extra vegetables.”
Prager agrees that frozen peas are great additions to purees, risottos or pasta dishes. “For consistency and ease in a busy kitchen, frozen always wins.” He says it’s not that any frozen vegetable is necessarily better than fresh, it’s “more about practicality and consistency at scale. Frozen produce allows us to feature ingredients that might be too labor-intensive or impossible to find fresh, while still delivering excellent flavor and quality to the guest.”
Other Great Freezer Picks
It is clear that frozen peas are considered excellent quality, but the chefs also offered some of their other favorite options for frozen vegetables and fruit. Like peas, fava beans are a great option to purchase frozen, Prager says. “Fresh favas are delicious, but peeling them twice (once from the pod and again from the skin) is extremely time-consuming at scale. Frozen favas come already shelled and blanched, which makes them a huge time-saver in a restaurant kitchen without sacrificing quality.”
Black likes to keep bags of blueberries and cherries in his freezer at home alongside peas. Cherries, in particular, have a relatively short season, plus removing the pits can be time-consuming. “The frozen blueberries and cherries are great for smoothies and baked goods. Having the cherries pre-pitted is a huge time saver.”
The Bottom Line
While chefs prioritize using seasonal, fresh local produce when possible, peas can be tricky since they have a fairly short season, get starchy quickly and are time-consuming to shell. Frozen peas offer an excellent alternative to fresh as they are pre-shelled and harvested at their peak freshness then flash-frozen to seal in their natural sweetness. Keep a bag or two in your freezer and add the peas to pastas, stews, soups or fried rice.
