What's the best way to eat sugar snap peas?
Snap peas are best eaten raw or briefly cooked, such as in stir-fries or quick sautes. For a simple side dish, steam or blanch snap peas, then season with a bit of butter, salt, and pepper. Although stringless varieties are available, most sugar snap peas need to have the stringy seams removed before eating.
If you've never tried raw sugar snap peas, you're in for a treat. You can eat the whole pod, with the peas inside, and if you can get them fresh from the farmer's market, they will be so impressively sweet.
To eat sugar snap peas raw, rinse them well with clean water and use a knife to cut off the tough stems at the end of the pea pods. You can then pop the whole pea in your mouth, pod and all!
Things to Watch Out For
Snap peas are an excellent source of dietary fiber, but eating too much fiber can also cause stomach distress. In some cases, eating too much fiber can lead to gas, bloating, or abdominal pain.
If you are trying to lose weight or maintain your current weight, sweet, crunchy sugar snap peas could be just the thing you are looking for. For a one cup serving they are only 35 calories, yet pack in 2 grams of protein, and no fat. They also contain 3 grams of natural sugar and 2 grams of fiber.
Their fiber and protein prevent your blood sugar levels from rising too quickly, which helps keep diabetes under control ( 7 , 15 , 33 , 34 , 35 ). Furthermore, the low glycemic index (GI) rank of green peas makes them a diabetic-friendly food, since they are unlikely to spike your blood sugar ( 7 , 33 , 34 ).
Sever the top of the pea and pull off the tough string that runs along the length of the pod. (Sometimes stores have already trimmed the string.) It's not necessary to remove the other end, though you can if you'd like. (This also works for snow peas.)
Storage Tips
Refrigerated in a plastic bag, they should last at least about a week to ten days. If you won't get around to eating them right away, peas are very easy to freeze. Blanch in boiling water for 1 minute, followed by an ice bath.
Boiled sugar snap peas have 40 milligrams of vitamin C and about the same amount of niacin, folate and vitamin K as raw sugar snap peas. Storage: We recommend eating them right away, but they will stand to be refrigerated in a plastic bag for up to 4 days.
Eat them fully cooked: Antinutrient levels are higher in raw peas, which makes them more likely to cause digestive discomfort.
Do you top and tail sugar snap peas?
Sugar snap peas are eaten whole but you can top and tail them if necessary.
...
Sugar Snap Peas.
| 1 cup (50g) | 2-3 mins |
|---|---|
| 2 cups (100g) | 3-4 mins |
| 3 cups (150g) | 4-5 mins |
Bring salted water to boil; there should be enough to cover peas when added. Add peas. When water returns to a boil, cook about 3 minutes. Do not overcook.
Sugarsnap peas have a low Glycemic Index and as a food that is mildly anti-inflammatory, they are a good choice for those following an Anti-Inflammatory Diet. One cup of raw sugarsnap peas is just 41 calories.
To feel full and get adequate nutrition while losing weight, experts suggest loading more than half of your plate with non-starchy vegetables like sugar snap peas. 6 Cooked or fresh, sugar snap peas are useful for healthy weight maintenance.
The good: This food is very low in Saturated Fat, Cholesterol and Sodium. It is also a good source of Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Pantothenic Acid, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Potassium, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Thiamin, Folate, Iron and Manganese.
Starchy vegetables—like beets, carrots, and jicama—contain higher amounts of carbs, and because of this, can raise blood sugar much faster than non-starchy veggies.
People living with diabetes should look to avoid vegetables with a high GI rating, as the body absorbs blood sugar from those foods much quicker compared with low-GI foods. This includes artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, celery, cauliflower, eggplant/aubergine, green beans, lettuce, peppers, snow peas and spinach.”
Simply remove the end stems and the strings of each pod, throw them in a large skillet with some olive oil and saute for 3-5 few minutes with salt and freshly ground pepper until they're crisp-tender. And that's it, they're ready to serve! Serve immediately and Enjoy!
Snap Pea Serving Suggestions
Sugar snaps can be served raw or only briefly cooked in order to retain their crisp, crunchy texture. Blanch sugar snaps in boiling water for 30 seconds before stir-frying or using in salads.
Do you need to wash snap peas?
Rinse snap peas with water to clean them. You'll want to remove the tough stringy part that runs along the sides of the pod.
Bitter vegetables are caused by plant stress. The chemical that causes the bitterness is always in the plant but sometimes that can translocate to the fruit. This can be can be caused by uneven watering or underwatering or another less than ideal condition.
Sugar snap peas are a cross between snow and garden peas. The pods of snow peas are flatter with small, premature peas, whereas sugar snap peas are more rounded. Both have an identical nutritional profile and very similar flavors although sugar snap peas tend to be sweeter and more flavorful.
And they don't really need to be refrigerated — at least for a day or two.
The first sign of peas with powdery mildew is small, round, whitish or gray spots on the top of mature leaves. The powdery stuff is easy to rub off with your fingers. Powdery mildew of peas spreads quickly and may cover entire leaves and stems, often causing the foliage to turn yellow or brown and die.
1. Why are peas not good for you? Green peas have a high GI value, which makes them unsuitable for diabetic people.
Cooked peas have more minerals than raw peas. A cup of cooked peas has 2.5 milligrams of iron, 62 milligrams of magnesium and 187 milligrams of phosphorus, compared to raw peas' 2 milligrams of iron, 48 milligrams of magnesium and 157 milligrams of phosphorus.
Fresh fruits and vegetables contain higher amounts of nutrients than frozen or canned and should almost always be your first choice.
You can eat the entire pod raw or cooked, though some people prefer to trim off the ends and pull of the string that runs down the middle of the pods. For best results, rinse the snap peas, trim the ends, and let your imagination run wild. You'll find that cooking with snap peas is, well, a snap!
You don't want to wait until the peas are bulging out of the pod, and you also don't want to pick them too soon (when they look more like snow peas instead). To harvest sugar snap peas, pinch behind the “tassle” at the top of the pod and pull them off the vine. Here's a photo of some of my best peas this season.
Do you remove the peas from sugar snap peas?
But, unlike garden peas, you can eat snap peas whole (pod and all!). They're super sweet and best eaten raw on a crudités platter or quickly cooked in pasta salads. While some snap peas need to have the strings removed, these days you can often find stringless snap peas in the grocery store, too.
Add a little sugar to the peas. It's ok, it won't taste weird and it will bring out the natural sweetness. Don't add salt until ready to serve. Salting them too early can dehydrate them and they (obviously) won't be as sweet.
Most varieties of peas need about 60 days of growth before harvest. But they will stop growing and not produce flowers or pods once temperatures get above 85°F, as often happens in June. Although the plants do need full sun, peas produced in hot weather may also have poor quality.
Brighten up your summer dishes with a handful of crisp, sweet sugar snap peas. Serve them in seasonal salads, stir-fries, pasta dishes and more.
Directions. Cook 1 1/4 pounds sugar snap peas in boiling water until bright green, about 3 minutes; drain. Cook 1 minced shallot in a skillet with 2 tablespoons butter until soft, about 3 minutes.
Can You Eat the Skin of Sugar Snap Peas? Yes! The skin on sugar snap peas is crisp and totally edible. If you purchased loose snap peas from the farmers market or grocery store, chances are they're not trimmed, so you may want to remove the stem and pull the string off the side, both of which can be tough.
They're impossible to chew and incredibly annoying when lodged between your teeth. Removing them is an extra step on the path to that primo snap pea experience, but if you don't do it, you're going to be dealing with a less-than-ideal situation and a real need for dental floss.
The seeds of sweet peas are mildly poisonous, containing lathyrogens that, if ingested, in large quantities can cause a condition called Lathyrus. Symptoms of Lathyrus are paralysis, labored breathing, and convulsions.