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Table of Contents
🗝️ Key takeaways
- The perfect pairing with meaty comfort foods, creamed peas and potatoes is a classic side dish the whole family will love!
- This old-fashioned recipe is a family favorite for Christmas and Easter dinner, but it's easy enough to serve any time of the year.
- Stop boiling the potatoes when they become fork-tender but are still slightly firm—this is not a mashed potatoes recipe, after all.
Tender potatoes and sweet peas coated in a rich cream sauce make a delicious side dish or hot lunch—even if peas aren't your favorite vegetable.
Include the ham to make this a complete meal, or leave it out and serve it with a hearty main dish of your choosing!
🧾 Ingredients
This is an overview of the ingredients. You'll find the full measurements and instructions in the green recipe card (printable) at the bottom of the page.
📖 Variations
- If you can’t find new potatoes at the grocery store or a local farmer’s market, fingerlings or regular red potatoes are good substitutes.
- Fresh peas and frozen peas are both fine in this recipe. You’ll just need to adjust your cooking method a little bit when using fresh peas.
- Evaporated milk makes the creamy sauce extra luscious, but whole milk or regular milk will work as well.
- Enhance your creamy sauce with freshly grated sharp cheddar, Gruyere, or parmesan cheese.
- Leave out the ham if you like, or replace it with cooked bacon for a slightly different flavor and texture.
- In addition to salt and black pepper, you can season your creamy potatoes with fresh herbs. Fresh dill, fresh chives, parsley, green onion, thyme, and rosemary are all delicious choices.
🔪 Instructions
This is an overview of the instructions for the cream sauce portion of the recipe. Full instructions are in the green recipe card at the bottom of the page.
Want more? Click here to learn how to make cream sauce, complete with variations.
- Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Then, add all-purpose flour.
- Blend the butter mixture with a whisk until a thick paste forms, stirring constantly.
- Add the evaporated milk gradually and stir to combine.
- Whisk the mixture until smooth and thickened.
🍴 Equipment
- large pot
- skillet
- whisk
🎥 Video
🥫 How to store leftovers
Creamed peas and potatoes are best eaten fresh off the stove. However, you can refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container for up to five days.
Reheat leftover peas and potatoes on the stovetop in a saucepan over low heat or in the microwave until warmed through.
You might want to add a splash of milk when reheating to help thin out the sauce, which thickens in the fridge.
💭 Things to know
Expert Tip: Boil potatoes in a large pot of salted water until they are tender but not mushy. The potatoes should be soft enough to easily pierce with a fork but still have a little resistance.
- One pound of fresh peas in pods equals about one cup of shelled peas.
- Remember, if the peas are fresh, you'll have to cook them first! I've included instructions on how to do so in the recipe card below.
- Sorry, y’all, but skim milk has no place in a cream sauce! Use evaporated milk, whole milk, regular milk, or heavy cream for the best results.
- Many people love pearl onions, which are a tasty addition to creamed peas and potatoes! Just boil them whole for 5 minutes, then toss in the cooked onions when you add the potatoes to the creamy white sauce.
- Whisk the sauce constantly, or it'll clump and might burn. You can also sift the flour before adding it to make sure your sauce is extra smooth.
👩🍳 FAQs
New potatoes—also called baby potatoes—are young potatoes of any waxy variety that are harvested early (before they grow to full size.) Their potato skins are thin and delicate, and they taste sweeter and are more tender than fully matured potatoes.
Baby red potatoes (aka baby reds), fingerlings, and gem potatoes are best! However, any waxy potato will do, like Yukon golds. If you use full-size potatoes, you’ll need to cut them into bite-sized pieces. I don’t like using russet potatoes because they don’t boil well and get mushy.
Absolutely! Heavy cream will make an even thicker, creamier sauce. Just halve the amount of all-purpose flour in your roux so your delicious white sauce doesn’t get sludgy.
Fresh garden peas are best in creamed peas and potatoes, but frozen peas work, too. Avoid canned peas, which are soggy and mushy.
📚 Related recipes
- Be sure to try this vintage crunchy pea salad with cashews!
- Ready in just 30 minutes, Steakhouse Creamed Spinach is a simple side dish that’s rich and delicious yet low-carb and gluten-free!
- Ditch the canned cream corn and make my easy Southern Creamed Corn from scratch—the sweet country flavor is impossible to resist.
- Buttery, luscious, and surprisingly addictive, Creamed Cabbage is a vintage recipe made with just five basic ingredients!
🍽️ Serve with...
If you choose to leave out the ham from this recipe, then Southern Baked Ham with Coke is a good meat dish to serve with it. The spicy Coca-Cola glaze makes the ham extra juicy and flavorful!
My old-fashioned Cloverleaf Rolls recipe makes sweet, buttery dinner rolls that are perfect for sopping up extra sauce from your creamed peas and potatoes.
Round out your meal with a slice of Lemon Pudding Bundt Cake! The pudding and buttermilk create a dense, moist cake, and the tart lemon glaze gives it a fresh, tangy flavor.
📞 The last word
Creamed peas and potatoes are one of the most creamy and comforting meals I can think of. It never fails to sweep me back all those years to my aunt's kitchen.
If you click on the number of servings in the recipe card you can adjust the measurements up or down for the exact number of servings you need.
If you love this recipe please comment below and give it 5 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
📖 Recipe
Creamed Peas and Potatoes
Print Pin Recipe Rate RecipeIngredients
- 1 ½ pounds new potatoes, quartered if larger than a ping pong ball
- 12 ounces green peas, freshly shelled or frozen
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 cups evaporated milk
- 1 ½ cups leftover ham, diced
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- If peas are fresh then barely cover them with salted water, and simmer over medium heat until tender, about 7-10 minutes.
- Drain and set aside.
- Place potatoes in a large pot and cover with salted water.
- Bring to a boil over medium high heat.
- Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until fork tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.
- Drain and set aside.
- Melt butter in the same saucepan over medium heat.
- Whisk in flour.
- Cook for 2 minutes stirring constantly.
- Gradually whisk in milk, stirring constantly until smooth and slightly thickened.
- Add in frozen peas.
- Allow to simmer gently for a few minutes, or until peas are heated through.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Add potatoes and ham (and peas if you cooked them from fresh).
- Simmer, stirring often to make sure the sauce doesn't stick to the pan, until potatoes are heated through, about 5 minutes.
- Serve immediately.
Notes
- One pound of fresh peas in pods equals about one cup of shelled peas.
- Sorry, y’all, but skim milk has no place in a cream sauce! Use evaporated milk, whole milk, regular milk, or heavy cream for the best results.
- Whisk the sauce constantly, or it'll clump and might burn. You can also sift the flour before adding it to make sure your sauce is extra smooth.
Nutrition Facts
Nutrition information is estimated as a courtesy. If using for medical purposes, please verify information using your own nutritional calculator. Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
This recipe has been tested several times. If you choose to use other ingredients, or change the technique in some way, the results may not be the same.
Courtenay W Lancaster says
I've had creamed peas and I've had creamed potatoes but never together. This is so good! I added chopped onions carrots and added roasted chicken . Thanks Marye for a great meal