Freezing Sugar Snap Peas

Passover ended up being my pea vines' most prolific week.  Sure, the one week of the year I can't have legumes.  I could have picked more the week before, but the vines were so overgrown, I just couldn't see most of the pods.

The day after picking about a pound of pods filled to bursting, I went out with the clippers to remove all the dying vines and any shoots above the level of the cage.  I ended up with a huge pile of vines on the lawn, most of them filled with pods that had been buried in the morass.  Forgot to take a "before" photo, but you can see that the "after" still fills the tomato cages and has more than a few new blossoms on it.

I looked in multiple books, but I guess pickling peas isn't a thing.  To preserve an abundance, your choices are pressure canning (not recommended for sugar snap), dehydrating, or freezing.  I don't have a pressure canner or dehydrator.  That left freezing pods or making a lot of pea soup and freezing that.  The National Center for Home Food Preservation has a page on how to do it.

There isn't much to freezing peas.  You just have to clean, trim, and blanch them first.  It works best with immature pods, where you can barely see the seeds when you hold them up to the light.  The mature ones need to be shelled before blanching.

I made two piles, the easy ones that could go straight into the pot and the ones that needed to be shelled.  For the whole pods, the very tips and stems need to be cut off, and remove the strings if possible.  After that, they just go in boiling water for 90 seconds.  Cool, dry, and freeze in a baggie or other container.  These pods can be thrown straight into recipes like stir fry, right out of the freezer.

Shelling the plump pods took a little while, and more than a few got eaten before they could make it to the bowl.  After that, 2 minutes in the water took care of them.  This is why frozen peas from the market are wrinkly and not firm.  They are also blanched before freezing, to keep the moisture content from destroying the texture.  The pods became mulch.

Whether from the market or the garden, finding ways to preserve produce before it has to be thrown out should be a priority.  Not only does it save money, it saves planetary resources.  With just a little work, most produce can be frozen, dehydrated, or canned.  The HFP has many trusted resources toward that end that are worth investigating.