This delicious spring pea salad is perfect for a picnic, or Easter or any time. It is super easy to throw together and tastes great using either fresh or defrosted frozen peas. The bacon, cheese and creamy dressing tie it all together in a side dish that will keep you coming back for more.

Serving bowl filled with creamy pea salad with creamy dressing, cheese and crumbled bacon.

This super simple side dish is always a hit. It is a great way to highlight fresh peas or you can use frozen peas to make it even easier.

Bits of crumbled bacon and cheese highlight the savory side of this pea salad and a simple creamy dressing ties it all together. It is perfect with grilled meat, ham and more.

It also makes a great lunch if you want to make a meal out of it. Make some for a picnic, a potluck or Easter and it is sure to be gobbled right up!

It is a great make ahead dish too. You can make it several hours or even a day or two in advance.

Ingredients including peas, sour cream, miracle whip, shredded cheddar and crumbled bacon ready to be made into a pea salad.

Mixing bowl filled with pea salad with bacon and cheese, ready to chill in the fridge.

That makes it perfect for a carry-in or holiday meal. All you have to do when it’s time is pull it out of the fridge and give it a stir.

Sometimes simple sides like this really are the way to go. With spring upon us again, I couldn’t wait to make another batch of this spring pea salad.

We were making baby back ribs and cheesy potatoes with bacon. I thought a simple and fresh side like this would be a perfect accompaniment.

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I only made one batch because I knew he was going to make a ton of ribs and he was doing a smoked macaroni and cheese too. In hindsight I should have made two as the pea salad disappeared rather quickly.

This pea salad is a perfect side dish with anything on the grill. Though you don’t have to fire up the grill to enjoy a serving, I could also eat it by itself for lunch!

Pea salad topped with extra chopped bacon, ready to be served.

Pea salad served with BBQ ribs and cheesy potatoes with bacon.

Optional Add-ins:

We like to keep our pea salad on the simple side. The whole family loves it this way and adding too much more is likely to turn somebody off.

However, there are a lot of great options to add if you like more variety in your salad. Here are a few ideas:

Chopped hard boiled eggs
Diced red onion
Chopped green onions
Swap diced ham for some or all of the bacon
You can also try different cheeses, sometimes we use small cubes instead of shredded

For a lighter dressing you can swap plain yogurt for some or all of the sour cream and salad dressing.

Defrosting Frozen Peas

You can put a bag of frozen peas in the refrigerator overnight to defrost them. If you forgot, just empty a bag of frozen peas into a colander and run cold water over them until they are most of the way defrosted.

5 from 16 ratings

Spring Pea Salad

Author: Carlee

Servings: Servings

This delicious spring pea salad is perfect for a picnic, or Easter or any time. It is super easy to throw together and tastes great using either fresh or defrosted frozen peas. The bacon, cheese and creamy tie it all together in a side dish that will keep you coming back for more.

Prep: 10

Cook: 0

Additional Time 30

Total: 40

Ingredients

▢ 1 pound peas fresh or defrosted
▢ 4 Tablespoon Miracle Whip or similar
▢ ⅓ cup sour cream
▢ ¼ cup bacon cooked and crumbled
▢ ¼ cup shredded cheddar cheese
▢ ⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
▢ ¼ teaspoon salt

Instructions

Make sure peas are fully defrosted and drain any liquid.
1 pound peas
Mix all the ingredients together
4 Tablespoon Miracle Whip, ⅓ cup sour cream, ¼ cup bacon, ¼ cup shredded cheddar cheese, ⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper, ¼ teaspoon salt
Adjust your salt and pepper to your liking and refrigerate until ready to serve
That’s it! So easy and so good!