Peas substitute

Best substitute

Shelled Edamame

Use the same amount by volume as the peas you are replacing

Best for fried rice

Different taste

Young green soybeans, sold frozen and already podded.

Other peas substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Frozen Sweetcorn
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by volume
Kernels from the freezer, the most likely thing to already be in the house.
What changes
Best for
pot pies, fried rice, chowders, shepherd's pie, chicken and rice bakes
It matches the two things people actually notice about peas, which are the little pockets of sweetness and the scattered specks throughout a dish. Sweetcorn is sweeter still and crunchier, and the colour goes from green to yellow, so a pot pie loses its green flecks entirely. It suits creamy and cheesy dishes especially well. Add from frozen in the last few minutes so the kernels stay firm.
3Finely Diced Green Beans
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by volume, cut into pea-sized pieces
Green bean pods chopped small so they scatter like peas.
What changes
Best for
pot pies, stews, vegetable medleys, curries, casseroles
The best option when you want green colour and a bit of bite without added sweetness. Cut them to about the size of a pea so they distribute properly rather than sitting in clumps. They are grassier and much less sweet than peas and they stay crisper through a bake, so a shepherd's pie made with them tastes fresher and greener but less comforting.
4Asparagus Tips or Broad (Fava) Beans
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by volume
Two spring vegetables that fill the same seasonal role.
What changes
Best for
risotto, spring pasta, salads, pea and mint style dishes, soups
In a spring dish these are the elegant answer. Asparagus tips are greener and more mineral and cook in two or three minutes. Broad beans are meatier and slightly bitter, with a distinct skin you should slip off after blanching if the pods were large, which is fiddly but transforms them. Neither has the pea's candy sweetness, so add a pinch of sugar to a pea and mint soup made with either.
5Sugar Snap Peas or Snow Peas, Sliced
Different texture
Use the same amount by volume, thinly sliced
Whole edible pea pods, so the same plant in a different form.
What changes
Best for
stir-fries, salads, noodle dishes, quick sides
Same flavour family and the same sweetness, which makes them the best taste match here. The texture is the difference: they are crisp and crunchy rather than soft with a pop, so slice them thinly across the pod to make them scatter properly. Excellent in a stir-fry or a salad, and wrong in anything creamy where the crunch is jarring.
6Cooked Green Lentils or Tinned Petits Pois
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by volume
The pantry-only options for when the freezer is empty.
What changes
Best for
stews, pot pies, curries, soups, budget cooking
Tinned peas are still peas, just much softer, duller in colour and saltier, so drain and rinse them and add them at the very end or they disintegrate. Cooked green lentils are the more interesting fallback: earthy rather than sweet, they hold their shape well in a stew and add real body, though the dish will read brown-green instead of bright green and taste noticeably more savoury.

What is Peas?

Peas is Peas, sold as green peas, garden peas, English peas, petits pois or simply frozen peas, are the sweet round seeds shelled from the pod of the pea plant and cooked as a vegetable rather than dried as a pulse.

Cooking tips

Before substituting, notice that peas are doing three separate jobs and decide which ones you need. They deliver small bursts of sweetness, a soft texture that pops rather than crunches, and scattered green colour through a dish. They contribute no fat, no acid and very little savoury depth. If sweetness is the point, as in a pea and mint soup, corn or sugar snaps are your best swaps. If colour and scatter matter most, as in a pot pie, diced green beans or edamame are better.
Frozen peas are usually better than fresh, which is worth knowing before you go hunting. Peas convert their sugar to starch within hours of picking, so supermarket fresh peas in the pod are often starchier and blander than peas frozen within a couple of hours of harvest. This applies to substitutes too: frozen edamame and frozen corn are excellent.
Add peas and most substitutes at the very end. They need two to four minutes from frozen, and long cooking is what turns bright green peas into grey-khaki ones with a mealy texture. In a stew, stir them in after the heat is off and let the residual warmth do the work.
Do not boil peas in heavily salted water for long, and never cook them with acid until the end. Lemon, vinegar and tomato all dull the green pigment, so a pea risotto finished with lemon should get the lemon off the heat at the last moment.
Petits pois are simply smaller, sweeter, more tender peas rather than a different vegetable, so they substitute for garden peas 1:1 and vice versa. If a recipe specifically wants petits pois for delicacy and you only have standard garden peas, cook them a minute less and consider crushing some of them lightly to soften the effect.
For a pea puree or a pea soup, most substitutes fail because they do not blend to the same smooth sweet green. If that is the dish, frozen peas are worth a trip to the shop. The one honest alternative is a blend of broad beans with a handful of spinach for colour and a pinch of sugar for sweetness.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave the peas out?

In most cases yes, because peas are usually a supporting component rather than the structure of a dish. A pot pie, fried rice or shepherd's pie all work without them, just with less sweetness and no green flecks, and you should add a little more of the other vegetables to keep the filling volume right. The exception is anything named after them, such as pea soup, risi e bisi or pea and mint puree, where the peas are the dish.

Can I use dried split peas or chickpeas instead of green peas?

Not as a direct swap. Yellow and green split peas are mature peas that have been dried, so they are starchy and earthy rather than sweet and they break down into a puree when cooked, which is why they make split pea soup and not a side of peas. Chickpeas are a different legume entirely, much larger and firmer. Both are fine additions to a stew but neither gives you the sweetness or the pop of a green pea.

Are frozen, fresh and tinned peas interchangeable?

Frozen and fresh are interchangeable 1:1, and frozen are often sweeter because they are processed within hours of picking while fresh shelled peas lose sugar quickly. Tinned peas are a bigger change: they are fully cooked, softer, duller olive-green and packed in salted water, so drain and rinse them, add them at the very end, and reduce salt elsewhere in the recipe.

What is the difference between garden peas, English peas and petits pois?

Garden peas and English peas are two names for the same thing, the standard shelled green pea. Petits pois are simply a smaller, younger, sweeter and more tender grade of the same pea, popular in French cooking and often sold frozen or in jars. They swap 1:1 in both directions, with petits pois needing a minute less cooking. All three are distinct from sugar snap and snow peas, where you eat the pod.

What is the best pea substitute for fried rice?

Frozen sweetcorn or shelled edamame, both added straight from frozen in the last two minutes so they keep their bite. Corn matches the sweetness and edamame matches the size and pop. Finely diced green beans or thinly sliced sugar snap peas also work well and keep the dish green. All of them behave the same way peas do in a hot wok, which is to say they need almost no time at all.

Related substitutes

More vegetables & aromatics substitutes

Peas substitute

Other peas substitutes

2Frozen Sweetcorn

3Finely Diced Green Beans

4Asparagus Tips or Broad (Fava) Beans

5Sugar Snap Peas or Snow Peas, Sliced

6Cooked Green Lentils or Tinned Petits Pois