Creamy Vegan Pea Salad

This vegan pea salad mixes blanched green peas with red onion, smoky tempeh bacon, parsley, and a creamy dairy-free ranch dressing. It comes together in about 20 minutes with no cooking beyond blanching the peas, and works as a side dish or a light lunch. The dressing makes it a good pick even for people who normally skip salads.

Peas are healthy and highly nutritious, with an attractive green colour and a bean-like shape. Fresh or frozen peas both work well in this salad.

Pea salad is especially popular in the southern United States, where it’s a familiar side dish.

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To make the vegan pea salad, fresh green peas are mixed with red onion, smoky tempeh bacon bits, creamy dairy-free ranch dressing, and parsley.

What Makes This Vegan Pea Salad Work So Well?

The combination of textures does the work: soft blanched peas, crunchy red onion, and smoky tempeh bacon, all coated in a creamy dressing. It also comes together quickly, with no cooking beyond blanching the peas and soaking the onion.

Ingredients Needed to Make the Vegan Pea Salad

• 20 oz of frozen or fresh peas
• ¼ cup diced red onions
• ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
• 8 slices tempeh bacon (or any other smoky vegan protein of your choice)
• 1 cup vegan ranch dressing or vegan mayo

Instructions

Before you go ahead and make your salad, you will need to blanch the peas and soak the onions.

• Blanching the peas help their coat to turn a brighter green while keeping their fresh flavour and it’s a very simple process to carry out while soaking the onions in cold water takes away some of the sharp flavours of the raw onions but ensures that it retains its taste, flavour and texture.

How Do You Blanch the Peas for This Salad?

• Boil a pot of water and prepare another bowl of ice water that can fit a colander into. Put the peas into the boiling water for 2 minutes if they are fresh or 30 seconds if they are frozen.
• Carefully strain the peas using the prepared colander and then place the colander in the bowl of ice water to stop the peas from cooking further.
• Drain the water and your peas are ready to be used.

How Do You Soak the Onions for Pea Salad?

• Prepare a bowl of cold water and put your diced onions in it to soak
• Leave the onions to soak for about 5-10 minutes, drain and pat dry
• After blanching your peas and soaking your red onions in cold water, all you need to do to finish up the Vegan Pea Salad is to put all the ingredients together and mix them nicely.
• There’s no standard instruction on which ingredient goes first. Just make sure that you mix properly and thoroughly and you’ve got yourself a delicious and healthy bowl of Vegan Pea Salad.

Pin the image below if you like this plant-based pea salad recipe!

Can I Freeze Pea Salad?

This is not something I recommend.

First, the peas are already frozen. Refreezing them will result in a looser texture.

The ranch dressing will also become watery and make the entire salad soggy. It won’t taste good.

If you’ve liked this vegan version of famous pea salad, please share to your social media pages.

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