Frozen green peas deliver 17.6 grams of fiber per dollar. Fresh broccoli crowns deliver 6.1. That’s about 2.9 times more fiber for the same money, based on USDA figures and July 2026 prices, and it’s the widest frozen-versus-fresh gap in our vegetable set. The honest caveat: peas are the star of the freezer, and a $1.58 bag of carrots is right behind them.
| Frozen green peas | Fresh broccoli crowns | |
|---|---|---|
| Fiber per $1 | 17.6 g | 6.1 g |
| Fiber per 100 g | 4.5 g | 2.6 g |
| What you buy | 32 oz bag | per lb |
| Price | $2.32 | $1.94 |
| Cost per 100 g | $0.26 | $0.43 |
Source: USDA FoodData Central + single-store US prices, July 2026. Full methodology at /methodology/.
How much more fiber does frozen actually buy?
Peas against broccoli is a slightly unfair fight, so compare the same vegetable both ways. Frozen broccoli florets: 9.5 grams of fiber per dollar. Fresh broccoli crowns: 6.1. About 1.6 times more fiber, identical vegetable, one aisle apart.
The mechanism is boring. That pound of fresh crowns ran $1.94, or roughly 43 cents per 100 grams. The 32 ounce bag of frozen florets ran $2.87, which is about 32 cents per 100 grams, and the frozen florets also test a little denser at 3.0 grams of fiber per 100 grams against 2.6 for the fresh crowns. Cheaper per gram, more fiber per gram. Nothing mysterious.
Peas take it further. At 4.5 grams of fiber per 100 grams and 26 cents per 100 grams, frozen green peas hit 17.6 grams per dollar, the best number any vegetable posted in our fiber per dollar study. You can dump a couple of handfuls straight from the bag into a 20 minute bean and rice skillet. No thawing, no chopping, no guilt about the crisper drawer.
Is it the whole freezer aisle, or just the peas?
Just the peas, mostly. Here’s where the rest of the vegetables landed:
| Vegetable | Form and price | Fiber per $1 |
|---|---|---|
| Frozen green peas | 32 oz bag, $2.32 | 17.6 g |
| Carrots (whole, bagged) | 2 lb bag, $1.58 | 16.1 g |
| Green cabbage | per lb, $0.78 | 14.6 g |
| Sweet potatoes | per lb, $0.98 | 13.9 g |
| Frozen green beans | 32 oz bag, $2.18 | 11.2 g |
| Frozen broccoli florets | 32 oz bag, $2.87 | 9.5 g |
| Frozen chopped spinach | 12 oz bag, $1.18 | 8.4 g |
| Frozen shelled edamame | 12 oz bag, $2.12 | 8.3 g |
| Chopped kale (bagged) | 16 oz bag, $2.48 | 7.5 g |
| Fresh broccoli crowns | per lb, $1.94 | 6.1 g |
The tidy “frozen beats fresh” headline falls apart in row two. Bagged whole carrots at 16.1 grams per dollar beat every frozen bag except peas. A 78 cent head of green cabbage at 14.6 beats frozen green beans, frozen broccoli, and frozen spinach. Meanwhile the bag of pre-chopped kale, which reads like the virtuous choice, manages 7.5.
So the real split isn’t frozen versus fresh. It’s cheap staples versus everything sold in a convenient small package.
When is fresh produce still the right buy?
Whenever texture is the entire point, and whenever you’re buying the cheap end of the fresh aisle.
Nothing in the freezer makes a slaw. Nothing in the freezer roasts with browned edges. Frozen vegetables come out of the bag already blanched and full of ice crystals, so they go soft, which is fine in soup and disappointing on a sheet pan. That $1.94 pound of fresh crowns earns its price the moment you want actual crunch in a vegetable stir fry.
And the cheap fresh staples are genuinely good value. Green cabbage at 14.6 grams of fiber per dollar is one of the better deals in the store, which is why a pot of cabbage soup costs almost nothing to make. Carrots keep for weeks in the fridge. Sweet potatoes at 13.9 sit on the counter and ask for nothing.
What actually belongs in the cart?
Buy the frozen version of anything you plan to cook into something. Peas, green beans, spinach, broccoli for soup. Buy the fresh version of anything you plan to eat raw, roast hard, or slice thin. Carrots, cabbage, whatever you’re actually going to finish.
Then be honest about the third category: the fresh vegetables you buy because they look responsible and then throw away nine days later. Those score zero grams of fiber per dollar, and no ranking table can save them. If that’s a familiar pattern, the freezer is doing you a favor by being patient.
For the broader picture on where vegetables sit next to beans and grains, our produce fiber ranking covers the full fresh set, and the budget fiber guide turns these numbers into a week of meals. If you want the non-fiber side of the argument, we also wrote about when frozen produce beats fresh on everything else.
