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7 Green Ingredients + Dishes to Enjoy on Saint Patrick’s Day

Food

Mon, March 11

St. Patrick’s Day is around the corner and green is the signature color! Maybe you are hosting or going to a St.

Patrick’s Day party? Maybe you’d like to make a St. Patrick’s Day-themed, dinner, dessert, or snack? You don’t have to be Irish to embrace this holiday. Here are some green foods that are so delicious you just might think you’ve found a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

1. Pasta

If pasta is your favorite go-to meal, you can use spinach fettuccini, which is delicious and festive, or use any noodle and top it with fresh pesto sauce! Pasta is a great weeknight meal, as it is quick and easy to make, and it can be full of flavor and color.

Spinach fettuccini noodles can be eaten with any type of sauce on top, but Alfredo/cream sauce is delicious and does not add any other color to the pasta, so it still counts as green food. For an easy pesto sauce, use these ingredients: fresh basil, garlic, Parmesan cheese, pine nuts, and olive oil.

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2. Avocados

Whether as a snack, a side, or a meal, guacamole and chips are a delicious, healthy, and easy-to-make dish. Especially for taco night, guacamole makes a perfect side dish. You can also kick off your St. Patrick’s Day with avocado toast for breakfast!

The only ingredients needed to make guacamole are avocados, lime, and salt, with optional tomatoes and onions. Avocado toast is also very easy to make: mash your avocados in a bowl with a pinch of salt, toast your bread until golden brown, and scoop your mashed avocado onto the bread. For additional flavor, you can add other things to your avocado mash like garlic, herbs, or an egg on top of the toast.

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3. Salads

Green vegetables are the perfect way to celebrate the holiday’s designated color. Vegetables can be eaten by themselves, but why not throw together an easy and tasty salad and make a full meal out of it? You can even add a green apple for a sweet and tart component!

A common and easy salad to make is kale salad. Kale salad is typically just kale, sometimes with chicken or egg, and some other ingredients like Parmesan cheese, toasted almonds, or dried cranberries. Usually, a delicious dressing made from lemon, olive oil, and garlic is drizzled on top.

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4. Smoothies

Smoothies seem ubiquitous these days, with juice bars and smoothie shops in every town. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, treat yourself to a green machine smoothie.

These smoothies typically include a variety of fruits and vegetables, especially green ones, which gives them such a vibrant green color. They also taste delicious!

A typical green smoothie includes green fruits and vegetables like spinach, kale, kiwi, and broccoli. Non-green foods for a little extra flavor can also be added, such as pineapple, apple, mango, banana, and yogurt for thickness.

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5. Pistachios

Pistachios are a super healthy nut and are a great shade of green. They can be eaten by themselves or put into salads or cookies.

Pistachios can be eaten plain or with a little salt for an easy snack, sprinkled over salads for some extra crunch, ground up and added into sauces or bread dough, and mixed into pastries for some flavor or green coloring.

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6. Baked Goods

Baking is a delicious and easy way to integrate a green color into foods. Cookies, cakes, and cupcakes are a good match with food dye; the batter can be dyed green or the icing can be dyed green. Not only could you make green cake - maybe by using matcha or pistachio flavoring - but you can also have green toppings on these desserts.

Add green food coloring to icing and frosting and, just like that, you have St. Patrick’s themed desserts! Green sprinkles on top of white icing are very festive, too!

For a simple, customizable icing for cookies, combine milk and powdered sugar until desired thickness. Then add food coloring - a little bit goes a long way, so be careful!

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7. Matcha

Whether used as flavoring for something else, or used to make tea, matcha is a delicious and naturally green way to color your food and drink. And if you don’t have matcha on hand, it can be found at most coffee shops and boba shops in the form of tea or a latte.

To make a simple matcha tea, first take as much matcha powder as you would like, add a bit of hot water to it, and whisk vigorously. You can choose to sift the matcha powder before adding water to it, as it does clump easily. Finally, pour in hot water or hot milk to your liking.

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Green, the leading color of St. Patrick’s Day, is fortunately a common color when it comes to food. You can bring St. Patrick’s Day, while traditionally an Irish holiday, to your home with some of these festive recipes!

Starting new, special traditions for holidays, such as making green foods for St. Patrick’s Day, is a great way to celebrate and personalize the day. Try some of these suggestions and inspirations for festive green food and you just might be able to find a little bit of extra luck on St. Patrick’s Day!

Lucy Egan

Writer since Mar, 2024 · 2 published articles

Lucy Egan is a freshman at San Domenico School in Marin County, California. She is interested in animal conservation and enjoys playing tennis, traveling, baking, scuba diving, and reading.

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