43 Recipes To Kick Off Your St. Patrick's Day Celebration

When you think of St. Patrick's Day food, you might think of corned beef and cabbage — but that's just the beginning. Whether you're serving a full sit-down meal loaded with traditional regional dishes or hosting a pub-hopping pre-game, we've rounded up 45 recipes to help you get into the spirit of the holiday. 

It's the day of shamrocks, pots of gold, rainbows, and green graphic tee shirts that challenge "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" in block letters. (Are you feeling lucky yet?) Folks around the world have been celebrating St. Patrick's Day for over 1,000 years, during which time they've paraded, laid down sick shanties on the bagpipes, and literally dyed their rivers green. (Shout out to Chicago foodies.) 

While the way people celebrate may change over the years, one festivity has always remained constant: a feast. Even during the earliest celebrations, since St. Patrick's Day falls during Lent, observant Christian families were officially allowed to ignore Lenten fasting rituals and dig into a meaty, bready, decadent holiday meal. Here are some ideas to help you plan yours.

This side dish is about as Irish as it gets. Cabbage may be a veggie with a characteristic sweet-mild natural taste, but it's anything but boring — especially in this Tasting Table Test Kitchen recipe. White wine and sugar combine for a complex, dimensional, sour-sweet-umami flavor profile and crushed red pepper flakes and caraway seeds add a slightly herbal floral element. 

But, the star ingredient here is Guinness. Super-porous cabbage absorbs the stout's malt-heavy chocolate-coffee flavor for robust roundness. It only takes five minutes of prep time and 15 minutes of cook time, making this recipe ideal if you need to bring a dish to the holiday party but don't have much time to pull something together.

Recipe: Cabbage with Guinness

Bread pudding might seem like the brainchild of English foodies across the pond, but bread and butter is a huge part of Irish cuisine. No traditional full Irish breakfast would be complete without soda bread. This Irish bread and butter pudding only takes a few minutes of prep work, which you can do in advance, and it doesn't require any fancy cooking techniques. 

All the ingredients get layered into a casserole dish and slammed into the oven. Fuhgeddaboutit. This dessert makes hosting easy so you can work on getting that corned beef in the oven. Plus, you can wander off and talk to your guests while the pudding bakes and the kitchen fills with dreamy aromas.

Tasting Table recipe developer Susan Olayinka recommends serving it with hot custard or a scoop of ice cream. French vanilla would add a rich, creamy element, or if you're feeling fancy, rum raisin or butter pecan would pair nicely, too.

Recipe: Irish Bread and Butter Pudding

Au gratin dishes are immediately warming and comforting, and they aren't just for potatoes or cauliflower. The cheesy mouthful makes this cabbage au gratin a good way to get picky eaters to try some veggies. Even for more adventurous eaters, it can be nice to sample a vegetable alongside the other meaty offerings on the St. Paddy's Day dinner table. Gouda, rosemary, and thyme create an au gratin flavor bomb that makes this side dish a nice accompaniment to steak, chicken, or fish.

Recipe: Cabbage Au Gratin

When St. Patrick's Day rolls around in mid-March, the scene outside can look a lot closer to winter drear than pastel springtime. If your holiday falls on a cold or rainy day this year, the king of comfort foods can come to the rescue. If you're planning on hitting the town for your St. Patrick's Day celebration, pre-game with this stick-to-your-ribs dish that'll keep you and your squad warm and full all night long. 

If you're celebrating at home, dinner guests will be just as happy to cozy up with a plate of hot, inviting food. This combination of ground beef, potatoes, and vegetables heats up well for leftovers and only takes 10 minutes of hands-on prep time to assemble.

Recipe: Simple Shepherd's Pie

Get your holiday started first thing in the morning and whip up this corned beef hash for breakfast. It's a hearty and flavorful way to kick off the festivities or to keep them going all week long. This recipe will put all that leftover corned beef in your fridge to good use. Serve with a fried egg and an Irish soda bread scone slathered in Irish butter. (Overkill? We don't think so.) On a weekend, you could even enjoy it with a boozy Irish cream coffee for a fun brunch.

Recipe: Corned Beef Hash

If you hear "cabbage soup" and think "isolated fishing cabin," you've been doing cabbage soup all wrong. This bone-warming cabbage soup is hearty yet super healthy, which can be a nice contrast to some of the more decadent dishes on your holiday dinner table. The combination of cabbage, celery, carrots, and tomato juice makes it a nutrient bomb, which can be very welcome as winter (aka cold and flu season) comes to its highly-anticipated close. 

Sub chicken stock for vegetable stock to easily make this dish accessible to vegetarian dinner guests. Serve with cornbread to complete the meal, or ladle into cups as a first-course soup to kick off a much larger St. Patrick's Day meal to come.

Recipe: Old-Fashioned Cabbage Soup

You heard us right. Introducing: Irish nachos. Have you two met before? (We sort of doubt it.) Instead of tortilla chips, Irish nachos use crispy potato slices as the vehicle for toppings. From there, Irish nachos look pretty identical to Mexican ones. Cheese, sour cream, shredded meat, sliced jalapenos, diced onion, cilantro, guacamole, and other toppings get heaped on. The result is something like a reimagined baked potato; an appetizer your St. Paddy's Day party guests won't soon forget. 

Recipe: The Best Irish Nachos

Fusion restaurants have been having a moment over the past few years. Maybe there's a Vietnamese-American spot in the city that you frequent on weekends. Or, maybe the Jewish-Polish deli down the street has won your heart (and your stomach). These Reuben Egg Rolls could be described as a "fusion" dish ... but it might be more accurate to lump them into the "when worlds collide" category. 

Admittedly, this one might seem like an odd pairing. But, roll your leftover corned beef, sauerkraut, and some Swiss cheese into a crunchy egg roll wrapper and get back to us on that skepticism. This reimagined Reuben egg roll makes the list for Adaptation of the Year — and, at your St. Patrick's Day party, they very well might land you the crown for Appetizer of the Year, too.

Recipe: Reuben Egg Rolls

After dinner and dessert, you probably don't want guests to rush off just yet. (Or, perhaps more accurately, there are a few select friends that you'd probably like to visit with for a little longer into the night.) Hot toddies are essentially hot honey tea spiked with whiskey, typically garnished with a fresh lemon wheel and a cinnamon stick. 

Wrap your hands around a steaming mug, migrate the party to the living room, and cozy up with guests to digest. Plus, lemons actually aid in digestion, which might come just in time after a massive meal of cabbage and garlic. Feel free to get creative with other garnishes, too: dried orange wheels, star anise, dried juniper berries, and thinly-sliced apples all fit nicely in a toddy.

Recipe: Warm and Cozy Hot Toddy

Fittingly for St. Paddy's Day, pierogis pair well with common holiday sides like sauerkraut, fingerling potatoes, and roasted root vegetables. For even more convenience, you can fill those pierogies with your leftover mashed potatoes. If you're like many modern home cooks and don't have the time to whip up a massive quantity of homemade pierogi dough, premade potsticker wrappers will work just fine. Swing by your local pan-Asian supermarket to find them.

Recipe: Homemade Pierogi

When you think of labor-intensive dinners, there's probably a good chance that chicken and dumplings is high on that list. "Homemade dumplings for forty? No problem!" said no home cook ever. But, this version is a different story. It even uses minimal dishes — all you need is one large Dutch oven (plus a knife and cutting board, if you want to get technical). Most notably, it takes less than 30 minutes and still delivers a slow-cooked flavor. How is it possible? Try it for yourself and find out.

You can get creative with the presentation here, too. Sop up the thick chicken gravy with a few of those biscuits we talked about a little bit ago. Or, skip a step and simply chop up a few potato rolls to use as the dumplings.

Recipe: Shortcut Chicken and Dumplings

Traditional Irish beef stew, meet French flair. This recipe comes from Tasting Table recipe developer Molly Madigan Pisula, who took inspiration from French beef bourguignon. What makes this version stand apart from the traditional recipe is red wine and bacon. According to Pisula, adding bacon to Irish stew lends an immediate smokiness and savory dimensionality. 

For the wine, Pisula suggests a medium-bodied merlot, nothing too overpowering. Plus, this recipe is super aromatic. Impress your guests by letting it simmer right around the time folks start walking through the door. 

Recipe: Old-Fashioned Beef Stew

If there's ever a time when foodies go all-in on cabbage, it's St. Patrick's Day. So far, we've traversed the cabbage world and seen it boiled, sauteed, and stirred into mashed potatoes. Now, we're ready to get frying with this classic Irish veggie with Southern flair: We're talking bacon and butter. The saltiness of the bacon complements the cabbage's natural sweetness. It pairs nicely as a side dish alongside a meaty entrée, especially lighter ones like roasted chicken. This accessible dish could also be a good way to introduce picky eaters to cabbage.

Recipe: Southern Fried Cabbage

The time has come to camp it up, no holds barred. Introducing: the neon shamrock green frosted cupcakes straight out of your wildest Irish dreams. These little beauties have green Funfetti frosting, sprinkles, and foil-wrapped Rolo candy "pots of gold." A box of pistachio-flavored pudding mix makes the cupcakes themselves green and ultra-moist. 

Make the kids go wild and delight their tiny hearts. Become the favorite aunt. Give them all a sugar rush and send them home with their folks. Or, go back to your apartment and enjoy the rest of the leftover cupcakes yourself; you deserve it. 

Recipe: St. Patrick's Day Cupcakes

This grilled cabbage deviates from the "classic St. Patrick's Day" flavor-scape of largely mild comfort foods. It can be a welcome departure for more adventurous palettes. Recipe developer Sher Castellano recommends serving this grilled cabbage with chimichurri for a flavorful punch. In case you haven't tried it before, chimichurri is an acidic sauce made from parsley, vinegar, garlic, and olive oil. 

Grilling as a technique prevents tender cabbage from becoming inedibly gummy, which can happen during boiling. The simple preparation also showcases cabbage's freshness as a produce item that stays more or less consistent year-round while other vegetables come in and out of season. Plus, as with any holiday party, stepping outside to grill can be a lifesaving technique for catching a solo moment when you have a full house of people.

Recipe: Grilled Cabbage

This recipe is super easy and hands-off but does require a bit of time. According to recipe developer Miriam Hahn, Instant Pots take around 14 minutes to be warmed through and ready to use. But, you can do all your prep work while the appliance is heating up, and you only have to be present for the 10 minutes it takes to chop the potatoes and peel them. No stirring, no monitoring, and no risk of a pot boiling over. You can (and maybe should) physically walk away and mingle with your guests and friends while those potatoes get tender.

The secret ingredient here? Mayonnaise and sour cream. The sour cream adds a zing and combined, the ingredients create major moisture and a creamy texture. 

Recipe: Creamy Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes

When you think about a fix-it and forget-it meal, there's probably a pretty low chance that you're thinking about lamb. But, believe it or not, this impressive entrée is deceptively easy to prepare. These slow-braised lamb shanks are a one-pot meal that you can assemble and leave alone to cook. Cooked in a red wine sauce with rosemary, carrots, and onions, it's a sophisticated and hearty dish with a very special-occasion feel. 

Granted, in total the shanks take roughly three and a half hours to complete. But, only 25 minutes of this is hands-on work; the rest is magical, transformative, slow-braising cook time. We think you'll find that the extra patience is a small price for the payoff.

Recipe: Slow-Braised Lamb Shanks

Arguably, the star of the modern St. Patrick's Day celebration isn't even St. Patrick himself — it's corned beef. The dish is the focal point of the holiday dinner table. This recipe from the Tasting Table Test Kitchen pulls out all the stops, starting with a six-day brine in whole allspice and juniper berries, curing salt, brown sugar, and more. Every two days when you revisit that corned beef to stir the brine, you'll be reminded of the party to come and get excited all over again. 

When St. Paddy's Day finally arrives, that corned beef gets cooked for three whole hours until it's fall-apart tender. Serve with grilled cabbage, mashed potatoes, generously-buttered rolls, and a pint of Guinness (or three).

Recipe: Corned Beef

Unlike regular beef stew, the Irish iteration is traditionally made with mutton, lamb, or goat — none of which are probably available in your local supermarket's deli aisle. What brings this beef Irish stew to the next level is a cup of Guinness, which tenderizes the meat and imparts an almost caramelized-like flavor. Fair warning: This slow-cooking stew demands a fairly hands-on preparation with a lengthy cook time to boot, so if you're planning on making it, be sure to set aside enough time to not have to rush before guests arrive.

Recipe: Beef Irish Stew

This not-too-sweet dessert shares the same ingredients lineup as an Irish Car Bomb shot: Guinness, Irish whiskey, and Irish cream liqueur. These mini cakes are flavored by the coffee-chocolate taste of Guinness, so you can quite literally have your cake and eat it too. As a fun surprise for guests, the treats burst like a lava cake with molten boozy chocolate filling, so be sure to serve them warm. Then, add a scoop of ice cream, if you're feeling crazy.

Recipe: Guinness Cake with Irish Cream and Whiskey

"But isn't cabbage a little boring?" the critics ask. Alas, we pity foodies with questions like this — they've never tried these Roasted Cabbage Wedges before. To do it, a head of cabbage is sliced into thick wedge shapes and roasted on a baking sheet in the oven, which brings out the veggie's natural sweetness. 

Then, those wedges are hit with a lemon-garlic sauce with a slightly spicy red pepper flake kick. Finally, the leaves are stuffed with feta cheese crumbles. With this recipe, cabbage is anything but boring, and making it this St. Patrick's Day can be a great way to get picky eaters to try the vegetable. Recipe developer Hayley MacLean recommends serving it with an au gratin dish or rice pilaf.

Recipe: Roasted Cabbage Wedges