Fresh sugar snap peas are available almost year-round. We often buy them for a crudité platter, but don’t think to add them to salads.

This recipe is adapted from a tuna-less version at Robin’s Restaurant in Cambria, California, a seaside village in San Luis Obispo County. (All of the food looks great!)

RECIPE: FRESH SNAP PEA & TUNA SALAD

Ingredients For 8-10 Side Salad Servings

Use more snap peas in your salads! Photo courtesy Robin’s Restaurant.

1. TOSS all ingredients together and serve. It doesn’t get any easier than this!
 
*You can substitute shredded white Cheddar or crumbled goat cheese. Instead of cheese, substitute chicken, shrimp or other seafood.

Popular in Asian stir-fries, sugar snap peas, called snap peas for short, are a relative of the familiar, everyday English peas, also known as garden peas or green peas.

Both are pod peas, but English peas are removed from the pod; the pod of sugar snap peas is less fibrous, and edible when young. Mature snap pea pods may need to be “stringed,” removing the membranous string that running along the top of the pod from base to tip.

Sugar snap peas are a hybrid, developed in the 1970s by crossing Chinese snow peas with a mutant shell pea plant. This was done by Dr. Calvin Lamborn and Dr. M.C. Parker of Twin Falls, Idaho. Thanks, gents: We love sugar snap peas! [Source]

When purchasing, look for pods that are firm and crisp. They shouldn’t bend but should snap (hence the name). Don’t worry about any white scarring on the pod; it doesn’t affect the flavor, and depending on your point of view, adds visual interest.