Snap Pea Salad

This snap pea salad is easy, delicious, and refreshing. I made good use of our Asian pantry with go-to’s like sesame seeds, sesame oil, rice vinegar, coriander seeds, and a couple cloves of garlic for good measure, but this snap pea salad is versatile enough to serve with anything! 

A Spring/Summer Recipe for Sugar Snap Pea Salad

Sugar snap peas are one of the most rewarding vegetables of the late spring/summer harvest. Of course you can add them into stir-fries, but my personal favorite way to eat them is by making them into a salad. 

When you eat these peas raw, you can taste their natural sweetness in all its glory, and with a few additional ingredients, they really shine. 

I slice them thinly, giving the salad a nice texture and so the juiciness of the snap peas comes to the forefront. This also gives the peas more surface area for the salad dressing to cling to!

What Can I Serve This With? 

You can make this snap pea salad as a refreshing side alongside an array of Chinese stir-fries, or any grilled or seared protein of choice (e.g. chicken, steak, shrimp, or a piece of salmon or flaky white fish).

Because this salad is served at room temperature, and also uses a hardier vegetable than your average green salad, it’s also great for picnics, barbecues, and potlucks! It’s special and unique enough to serve to guests. 

On your average night, if I’m being totally honest, I’ll just drizzle over some olive oil, white wine vinegar, and salt, and call it a day, eating it with literally whatever I’ve got planned. But I’ll be adding this lightly Asian-influenced version into my rotation too! 

How to Trim Snap Peas

The most important part of this recipe is trimming the snap peas. They have tough ends and fibrous “strings” along the concave curve of the pea that must be removed. Luckily, it’s easy enough to do—all in a couple of motions. 

The way to do it is to grab the main stem (where the pea attaches to the plant). Snap it off, and tug downwards along the inner curve of the snap pea. The stem should remain attached to the stringy bit, which should come away easily. 

Then, you do the same thing from the other end. Trim the bottom tip of the pea to get the rest of the string—this time, pulling upwards. 

If the snap pea doesn’t have an obvious stem, just use your fingernails to grab a little piece of the tip of the snap pea (so as not to excessively waste good snap pea during the trimming process), and follow the same steps. 

Don’t skip this step—those strings are very fibrous and chewy. Sometimes, when you get snap peas in restaurants (usually non-Asian restaurants, ahem), they forget to do this step, and you find yourself with a very unpleasant eating experience! 

Snap Pea Salad Recipe Instructions

First, trim the snap peas of the stems and strings, and rinse them of any dirt or debris. If they look a bit lackluster, let them soak in cold water for a few minutes to perk them up. (I use this trick with lots of different vegetables—especially kale and celery. Just trim the peas first.)

We didn’t have any such issue, as we harvested these snap peas straight from our garden!

Toast the sesame seeds in a dry pan over medium heat until they’re 1-2 shades darker and fragrant.

Remove the sesame seeds, and add the coriander seeds to the pan. Toast until fragrant. Grind the coriander seeds into a coarse powder using a mortar and pestle or spice grinder. (You can also cheat by toasting pre-ground coriander in a dry pan over low heat until fragrant.)

Slice the snap peas lengthwise into thin strips—you can usually get 3-4 strips out of one snap pea.

Add them to a mixing bowl. Also add the sesame seeds, ground coriander, rice vinegar, neutral oil, honey, sesame oil, salt, garlic, and almonds. Toss until everything is well-combined. 

Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking, if needed. My dad preferred his sweeter (more honey), and I preferred it more tart (more vinegar). Serve!