Unlike English peas and garden peas, you eat sugar snap peas pod and all. While you do not have to shell these peas, you might need to trim them. Prepackaged fresh or frozen sugar snap peas come trimmed, but those bought in bulk or harvested from your garden need a few quick steps to ready them for cooking and eating. This technique works for sugar snap and the related, flatter snow peas. Green, snap, string or wax beans also benefit from this method of trimming.

Place the peas in the colander and rinse under running water to wash off and drain any dirt or debris.

Place a sugar snap pea pod on its side on the cutting board.

Cut off both tips of the pea pod using the knife.

Grasp the string from the side of the pod and gently pull on it to remove it. Discard the string and the pea pod tips.

Place the trimmed pea pod in a storage container and repeat with the remaining pods.