Black Eyed Peas Recipe (with Ham) (2024)

FAQs

What meat goes best with black-eyed peas? ›

This Southern Black Eyed Peas Recipe is the perfect soul food meal for New Year's, Sunday dinners, or any celebration. This dish is made with a rich broth using smoked turkey, ham hocks, bacon, or salt pork for amazing flavor.

How long does it take to cook ham hock? As a rough guideline, cooking ham hock for 2-3 hours yields the best results.

Place beans in a large pot and cover them with 4 inches of chicken stock. Simmer, covered, for about 1 hour. Start checking after 45 minutes to see if they are tender and add more broth or water as necessary to keep them covered.

Canned black-eyed peas are best in recipes that don't require slow cooking or a long cook time, which can make them mushy. If you're using canned black-eyed peas, simply rinse them in a colander to remove any liquid from the can as well as excess salt. Then you're good to go!

Black-eyed peas and collard greens are often a go-to dish during New Year's celebrations because they're said to bring luck and prosperity. The tradition has a long history; one of the first records is found in the Talmud, a central text of Rabbinic Judaism.

Classic Hoppin' John Ingredients

Bacon: While you'll often find most Hoppin' John recipes calling for a ham hock, we find that, at times, it can overpower the dish. Instead, we recommend using thick-cut slices of bacon—you'll end up with crispy pieces of salty goodness without compromising on taste.

Ham hocks are usually sold pre-cooked, and often smoked. If you get a smoked hock you may want to soak it overnight to get rid of some of the saltiness. Otherwise, they are ready to use. You can braise a ham hock, trim it up and serve it as a meat course.

To make sure that the meat is clean before boiling, rinse each of the ham hocks with cold water in your kitchen sink. This will help remove any impurities from the meat and cut down on the fatty residue that will float to the top while the ham hocks boil.

Ham hocks can be cooked separately or braised in the dish provided enough time is allotted for the connective tissue to break down. The meat can then be picked off the bones and removed from the skin, but the skin is delicious too, if cooked long enough.

Drain them the next day and bring them to a boil in cold water, then reduce the heat so the water barely simmers: dried black-eyed peas can overcook, and a rolling boil could cause them to break apart. Taste the peas often to check their doneness: They should be creamy but retain their shape.

How do you know when black-eyed peas are ready? ›

Yellow pods

The yellow pod stage is ideal for shelling and cooking black eyed peas. At this point, the peas are mature and plump with high water content. Shelling is very easy at the yellow pod stage. They cook quickly (10 minutes) in a boiling pot or stir fry with a lid to help cook them.

Place 1 cup black eyed peas and 4 cups water in a large pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the beans are tender. This will take about 45 minutes.

"If you rinse your beans thoroughly, you will have a consistently flavored product, but if you do not rinse them, different amounts of salt will remain in the dish each time you cook it, and it will be hard to cook consistently," he says.

Add flavor with broth, bouillon, and stock.

I like to add a variety of broth/stock to give flavor to these peas. For a milder flavor, use chicken or vegetable broth. For a richer flavor, use beef. Here are several options for adding flavor with broth/stock.

Black-eyed peas are often packaged in 1- or 2-pound bags. One pound of dry peas is about 2 cups. One cup of dry black-eyed peas makes 3 cups of cooked peas (6 servings).

Smoked Paprika: To make authentic vegan black eyed peas I replace the smokiness from smoked pork, or ham hock, with smoked paprika.

Cornbread, often served with black-eyed peas and greens, represents gold. For the BEST chance of luck every day in the year ahead, one must eat exactly 365 black-eyed peas, no more or less. Black-eyed peas eaten with stewed tomatoes represent wealth and health.

Often referred to as hoppin' john, black-eyed peas and collard greens are commonly eaten as part of a Southern tradition to bring forth good luck and prosperity in the new year.

I decided to go with the Fried Chicken as an entree with sides of mac and cheese and black eyed peas. I also added a side of fried okra as I had never tried it and wanted to branch out at least a little bit.