What Are Green peas and How Can I Use Them?

Snow pea pods are flat, bright-green pea pods eaten whole, shell and all, while the peas inside are still tiny and undeveloped. They're crisp and sweet with a tender bite.

In French they're the mange-tout, literally "eat it all."

The flatness is the tell. A snow pea is harvested young and stays nearly two-dimensional, so the pod is thin and snappy rather than plump. That young pod is the whole vegetable, which is why it needs almost no cooking.

Black-eyed peas are small, cream-colored beans with a dark spot where they attached to the pod, the "eye" that gives them their name. Despite the name, they are not actually a pea.

Across the American South, black-eyed peas and other field beans simply get called "peas." They cook up earthy and a little starchy, holding their shape better than many beans, which is why they turn up in everything from brothy soups to cold salads.

The classic is Hopping John, the rice-and-peas dish eaten on New Year's Day for luck.

Frozen peas are green garden peas, also called English peas, that are shelled and blanched, then flash-frozen within hours of harvest at the exact point when their sugars are highest. That speed is the whole story.

A fresh pea starts converting its sugar to starch the moment it leaves the vine. By the time most "fresh" peas reach a supermarket they are already past their sweet peak.

A bag of frozen peas, locked at the field, is often sweeter and more tender than the fresh peas next to it. They are one of the few frozen vegetables that genuinely beat the fresh version for most cooks.

Split peas are dried field peas with the skin removed, split in half along their natural seam. That splitting is why they cook faster than most dried legumes and break down into a thick, creamy puree as they simmer.

They come in two colors. Green split peas are sweeter and a little grassy; yellow split peas are milder and earthier. They are interchangeable in most recipes, though each leans toward different cuisines.

Unlike dried beans, split peas need no soaking. Rinse them and drop them straight into the pot.

They turn tender in about 45 minutes to an hour, dissolving into a soft, almost porridge-like body.

Sugar snap peas are a cross between the snow pea and the garden pea, bred so you eat the whole thing: plump pod and the small sweet peas inside. The pod is rounded and full, not flat like a snow pea, and it stays crisp and juicy when fresh.

They're best known for crunch and sweetness. Raw, they snap like a fresh green bean and taste almost candy-sweet, which is where the name comes from. That sugar starts converting to starch the moment they're picked, so the fresher they are, the better they taste.

Yellow split peas are field peas that have been dried and hulled, then halved along their natural seam. They are a different crop from the green peas you eat fresh, grown specifically to dry.

The splitting exposes the starchy interior, so they cook faster than whole dried peas and break down readily into a thick puree. Their flavor is mild and faintly sweet, a touch softer and less grassy than green split peas.

That gentleness makes them a blank canvas for spices and a bright squeeze of lemon. They anchor pea soups across Northern Europe and Canada, and across India they stand in for the split pulses used in dal.

Split green peas are mature field peas that have been dried and skinned, then split along their natural seam into two halves.

The green ones come from a green-seeded pea variety, and they carry a sweeter, grassier, more vegetal flavor than the earthier yellow split peas grown from a different cultivar.

They are a pantry legume built for soup. Because they are split and skinless, they cook without soaking and break down into a thick, creamy puree on their own, which is exactly what you want in a classic split pea soup.

Canned peas are green peas that have already been cooked inside the can, then packed in salted liquid and sealed. They sit on the shelf for years and need nothing more than a quick warm-through, which is the whole reason to keep a can around.

Because they are fully cooked, they come out softer and more uniform than fresh or frozen peas, and a touch less sweet.

They even map to their own USDA entry, because the canning process and the packing liquid change the texture and push up the sodium compared to the fresh and frozen forms.

Dried peas are whole field peas that have been dried with their skin left on and, crucially, not split. They are the same mature pea behind split peas, just kept intact rather than skinned and halved, which changes how they cook and what they are good for.

That skin and round shape are the whole story. Whole dried peas hold together instead of collapsing into puree, so they suit dishes where you want peas you can actually see.

They come in green and yellow. The green ones taste a little sweeter and grassier; the yellow ones are earthier and milder.

Pea shoots are the tender young leaves and stems of the pea plant, picked along with their curling tendrils while everything is still soft enough to eat. They taste like a mild, fresh pea: sweet and grassy, with a snappy crispness in the stems.

You will see them two ways. As delicate microgreens just a few inches tall, and as longer, leafier shoots with visible tendrils, the kind piled high at farmers markets and Asian groceries.

Either way they are eaten as a green, raw or barely cooked. They are a staple of Chinese cooking, where they are known as dou miao.