What to Cook With a Bag of Frozen Peas

Every freezer has one: a bag of peas, opened, folded over and clipped, a third full. If you keep asking yourself what to cook with a bag of frozen peas, the useful answer is that peas are a late-addition ingredient in almost every desi dish that calls for them. They go in near the end, cook for a few minutes, and brighten whatever was already in the pot.

Here are six dishes from our recipe library that use them, with exactly when the peas should hit the pan.

The rules for frozen peas

A few points hold for any recipe:

• No thawing. Add them straight from the freezer. Thawed peas go soft and wrinkled.
• Add late. They are usually sold already blanched, so they often need less time than fresh peas. In our keema matar, the peas cook 8 minutes, and the recipe notes fresh peas may need 10. Check one for softness rather than trusting the clock.
• Do not boil hard. A hard boil turns the peas grey-green and mealy. A gentle simmer keeps colour.
• Cold peas drop the pan temperature. If you are frying, add them after the liquid is already simmering, not into hot oil, which spits.

Dish one: aloo matar (about 45 minutes)

Our aloo matar is the standard answer. Fry onion with garlic and ginger, then tomatoes with turmeric and chilli, until the oil separates. Add 400 g (0.9 lb) cubed potatoes and 1.5 cups (360 ml) of water, covered, for 12 minutes. Then add 150 g (1 cup) peas for another 8 to 10 minutes until both are tender. Finish with garam masala and rest 2 minutes.

Notice the order: potatoes first, peas in the second half. Put them in together and the peas turn to paste before the potato is done.

Dish two: matar paneer (about 35 minutes)

Matar paneer cooks 150 g (1 cup) of peas in half a cup of water for 6 minutes in a tomato masala, then adds 250 g (9 oz) paneer cubes for 5 minutes of gentle simmering. The fast version of dinner for four.

Paneer is the quick part and the peas set the timing, so start the peas the moment the masala's oil separates.

Dish three: keema matar (about 60 minutes)

Minced meat with peas is a Sunday-lunch classic. In ours, 500 g (1.1 lb) mince fries about 8 minutes until no pink is left, then cooks covered with tomato, yogurt and spices for 20 minutes until it is tender and cooked through to at least 71 C (160 F). Only then do 200 g (1.5 cups) peas go in for 8 minutes.

If the pan looks wet at the end, uncover and cook until it is dry. Rest it covered for 5 minutes before serving with roti or paratha.

Dish four: matar pulao (about 55 minutes)

Matar pulao is the simplest one-pot rice. Soak 400 g (2 cups) rice for 20 minutes, fry sliced onion in ghee, then add ginger-garlic, bay leaf, cardamom and cinnamon. Peas and garam masala are fried briefly, then rice, salt and water at about 1.5 times the rice volume. Cover tightly and steam on low heat about 20 minutes.

Frozen peas work well here because they cook through during the steam. If you want them firmer, scatter them over the rice just before covering instead of frying them first.

Dish five: sabzi pulao (about 50 minutes)

If you also have a carrot and a potato, sabzi pulao uses 100 g of peas with 150 g potato and 100 g carrot, fried 4 to 5 minutes before the drained rice goes in. Add water about one finger-width above the rice, then cover and steam on dum (a sealed, low-heat finish) until done, and rest 5 minutes before opening. Our post on dum without dough shows how to seal a lid with foil if it does not fit tightly.

Dish six: egg fried rice with peas (about 25 minutes)

Egg fried rice uses 60 g (1/2 cup) each of onion, carrot and peas with 300 g (2 cups) of cold rice. The peas go in after the onion, stir-fried on high heat until just tender, before the cold rice.

Day-old rice works better than fresh rice here. Cool leftover rice quickly, within about 1 hour of cooking, and keep it in the fridge for no more than 1 day before frying. Heat it until steaming hot all the way through.

Storing the half-bag. Press the air out of the bag, fold it over, clip it and keep it in the coldest part of the freezer, not the door, where the temperature swings every time someone grabs ice. Peas that were thawed and refrozen turn mushy, so only take out what you will cook. If the bag already looks frosty, you can still cook them, but expect a softer texture and use them in a pulao or mince dish, where texture matters least. A bag that has clumped into one block has usually thawed at some point, so break off what you need and judge the smell before using it.

Which dish for which night

If you want to see which of these your kitchen can already make, tick the peas and what else you have in the Degchi pantry try-out.