Frozen Green Peas – learn why you should always have a bag of these on hand & what makes them so useful.
Our special ingredient this week is a kitchen staple that everybody should have in their cupboard — frozen peas. It is part of our Healthy Shopping List
Frozen peas are a great thing to keep in your freezer because any time that you’re cooking something and you think that you could use a little more vegetables in it, you can always add peas.
You can add frozen peas to just about anything. I use them in mac and cheese, I throw them in mac and cheese, I throw them in stir fry’s, I throw them in soups, you can use them in salads, and you can use them as a salad with a little bit of chopped onion and some vinegar.
Frozen green peas are great because they’re legumes so that they have protein. In fact, peas are one of the more complete proteins. That’s why you see all those pea protein powders on the market. Plus, peas are also a vegetable so they have all the phytonutrients of vegetables.
Now, I’m sure there are some purists out there who are thinking, “frozen vegetables! I don’t want to use frozen vegetables. Wouldn’t be better if I used fresh?”
Well, in theory, yes. If you had a garden outside and you knew exactly when to go pick them, and you pulled them in, and you cooked them immediately. Those would probably be the freshest and best peas you could get. But let’s face it, if you are talking about “fresh” green peas from the grocery store, they really are not all that fresh. First of all, they get picked before they’re ripe because they need to be transported. Then it takes up to two weeks before it winds up in your produce section. Then you buy it you keep it for however many days.
Then you have to shuck them!
Do you really want to shuck peas? I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a lot of time to shuck peas.
Did you know, 1/2 a cup of peas (which is a serving size) has 162 individual peas. I know, because I did count them! For you. You’re welcome 🙂
Do you really want to shuck a 162 peas just so that you can throw it in a meal? Usually, I don’t have that kind of time, so I recommend just using the frozen green peas. They’re picked at their peak of freshness, and then they’re flash-frozen, and they wind up in your grocery store. They lose very little in the freezing process and then they can just sit in your freezer.
Whenever you need some, just open up the package and dump them in.
One thing you have to watch out for with frozen peas is sodium. Some brands have over 200 milligrams of sodium per serving. Which is quite a bit considering there seems to be no reason to put sodium in peas. I was speaking with somebody about this and they said, “well maybe they use sodium because they need to preserve them”. But if that’s the case, why do some brands of frozen peas have zero milligrams of sodium? Zero milligrams of sodium verses 200 milligrams of sodium – you chose. I have no idea why they put sodium in frozen peas, but do check the labels because if you’re trying to avoid sodium there is a clear difference.
So to recap, our healthy shopping list item this week is frozen green peas, I highly recommend you keep them in your freezer to use for whatever you’re cooking.
I also recommend you keep some frozen broccoli as well.
