Potato Salad with peas and a lemony herb dressing. This zesty potato salad is loaded up with snappy English peas, fresh herbs and so much flavor! A delicious, healthy vegan salad that can be made ahead. Original recipe 4/2012- updated 6/2021
In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. –Margaret Atwood
This spring-inspired salad is hearty and flavorful- packed full of herbs with a little kick from whole grain mustard, lemon zest and capers. The perfect combination of textures and flavors! One of my favorite things to come out of the ground each spring are little baby potatoes. This recipe highlights them deliciously! Paired with snappy English peas, the salad delights the palate.
What you’ll need to make Potato Pea Salad:
- new potatoes or fingerlings
- fresh English peas – Trader Joe’s has these already shucked in a bag.
- fresh herbs- tarragon, Italian parsley,
- scallions
- celery
- capers
- whole grain mustard
- olive oil
- lemon (zest and juice)
- salt and pepper
What type of potato to use?
Any small new potato can substitute for the fingerlings. New potatoes are not an actual type of potato, but rather, a stage in their growth. Think of them as young potatoes. Or spring potatoes. They are pulled out of the ground early, and their skin is still tender and thin, unlike older, fully grown thicker-skinned mature potatoes.
Because new potatoes are uprooted early, they haven’t had the time to convert their sugar into starch, making them taste sweeter. Because they have less starch, their texture is waxy and crisp, and for this reason, they lend themselves to being boiled or steamed, and hold their shape well. Here we are using little fingerling potatoes.
Blanch the potatoes until fork-tender (about 20 minutes), then add the peas to the pot right at the end, giving them a quick 1-2 minute blanch.
Drain and rinse with cold water.
Once cool, slice the fingerlings in half and place in a large bowl.
Chop the scallions, tarragon and flat-leaf parsley.
Place in the bowl, along with the olive oil and lemon zest and juice.
Add the capers, mustard and lemon zest.
Gently toss and season generously with salt and pepper.
The fresh English peas give the salad such a pleasant texture and contrasts nicely with the potatoes.
The Potato Pea Salad will keep 4 days in the fridge!
Enjoy the Potato Pea Salad! Let us know what you think in the comments below!
Other recipes you may like:
- 40 Must-Try Vegan Salads
- Creamy Potato Salad
- French Potato Salad
- Roasted Fingerling Potatoes with Romesco Sauce
- Crispy Herby Smashed Potatoes
- Spanish Potato Tortilla (Tortilla de Patatas)
- Grilled Potato Salad with Black Garlic, Dill and Chives
- Vegan Potato Salad with Mustard Seed Dressing
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Potato Pea Salad
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 20
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 6
- Category: salad
- Method: tossed
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
A spring-inspired salad with Spring peas, fingerling potatoes and a tarragon and mustard seed dressing- serve warm as a side, or chilled as a salad.
Ingredients
Units
- 1 lb fingerling potatoes (or new potato)
- 2 cups fresh English peas ( Trader Joes has shucked peas)
- 1/2 cup chopped celery
- 1 cup Italian parsley, chopped
- 1/4 cup tarragon leaves, chopped
- 4 scallions, chopped
- 1 garlic clove, finely minced (optional)
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- zest from one lemon, plus 1/8 cup lemon juice, more to taste
- 1/2 tsp salt, more to taste.
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
- 1 tablespoon capers
Instructions
- In medium pot, blanch potatoes 20 min or until fork-tender, in salted water. ( I use enough water to cover potatoes by 1 inch, and add a hearty 1 T of salt) When the potatoes are tender add the fresh peas to the pot and blanch 1-2 minutes, until vibrant green and floating. Drain and rinse with cold water.
- Cut the cooled potatoes in half and place in a large bowl with the peas.
- Add the chopped celery, scallions, garlic, parsley, tarragon, capers, whole grain mustard and lemon zest. Add the olive oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper. Give a gentle stir.
- Taste and adjust salt and lemon to your liking.
Notes
If you plan to make it ahead you may want to leave off the lemon juice until just before serving as it can turn the color of the peas slightly gray.
Salad will keep up to 4 days in the fridge!
You can also serve this warm as a side – simply drain the potatoes but do not rinse in cold water, tossing in other ingredients.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: ¾ cup
- Calories: 219
- Sugar: 3.9 g
- Sodium: 313.4 mg
- Fat: 12.9 g
- Saturated Fat: 1.9 g
- Carbohydrates: 22.7 g
- Fiber: 5.2 g
- Protein: 4.9 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
Awesome recipe! I used your vegan mayo recipe on this one, plus added some edamame and pistachios. So easy to make, I am really enjoying this! Thank you!
Sounds perfect Angeli! Thanks for taking the time to review. 🙂
I made this dish and it was great. I didn’t have any tarragon so used fresh basil which worked well. Definitely make again!
Thanks Karen, glad you enjoyed!
Just made this twice in a row with the incredible new creamy Abby potatoes that have just made their debut here in South Africa like little fat fingers. The first time we followed the instructions but found that the lemon juice bleached the fresh peas and made them a strange rather unappetising grey -we had made the salad in advance and chilled it. So the next time we kept the peas separate and only added them at the last minute just before serving. Worked brilliantly!
Oh that is good to note Barbara! Those potatoes sound amazing!
YUMTASTIC!!!! This is so good!
Awesome Lori- thanks so much!
We made this for dinner last night and we loved it! We added pickled red onion and parmesan cheese (vegan) as toppings.
Perfect Lina!
Technically it tasted more like a 3, but that was my fault because I didn’t have grainy mustard and used a tiny bit of Dijon.
Overall, I found it a bit too acidic. I added 1 tbsp of sugar and it mellowed out a lot more in flavour. It still felt like it was missing something though.
Sorry about that Danielle- perhaps it needed a bit more salt to balance the lemon?
Hello, loved your recipe, we made this for our dance associations get together and I wondered if I could reformat and reprint with a link to the original recipe please? We are a voluntary run, non-profit dance group and it would be nice to share your website to the members.
Look forward to your reply, Thanks Ness
Great to hear!
Thank You
I want to make this for Easter but most of my family doesn’t like peas..weirdos. Was thinking of subbing in asparagus. What do you think? Would you blanch them the same as the peas? Thanks can’t wait to make this recipe!!!!
I think that would work fine! Yes, lightly blanch or roast. 🙂
Delicious! I added smoked salmon since my husband had a panic attack their was “no protein” in our dinner. After dinner he declared it our staple! It tasted like poke with the smoked salmon. Loved it!
love it!
This is my second time in making this Salad, and I love it, but this time I put in sweet potato as an extra, just it give it some more colour and I love them!
Love it Jane!
Just wonderbar
Great side for family BBQ on the 4th! Nice to have a side salad without Mayo. Some of my peas were small so we cut the whole pods into thirds which added a nice crunch!
Perfect!
Made this tonight with our haul from the farmers market, using dill as that’s what we had and all I say is wow. Spectacular!!!!
Awesome Lucy!
love this dressing! I only had frozen tiny peas and it was still really good!
Oh good, Mert! Glad you enjoyed and hope you are having a lovely summer. ❤️
Excellent!
Just made this tonight, scrumptious 🙂 Used Jersey potatoes, worked really well.
Im so glad you liked it!
Going to try this, since I have all the ingreedienst!
Yum, this looks delicious!! And thanks to you, I finally know exactly why dirt smells so wonderful haha
What beautiful photos! We are hosting a pea-themed linky party over at 2sisters2cities.com as part of our Fresh Produce Tuesday series. I would love if you linked up your recipe!-m
Thanks Meaghan, I just linked it!
What a mouthwatering spring dish!
thanks!
Sylvia… where do you like to get FRESH peas?
Well, where I like to get fresh peas is from a friend’s garden, or the farmers market, but obviously it’s still a little early here for those options. Right now, there are some fresh peas at Trader Joes. Already shucked in a cute little package….they really hard to pass up. 🙂