Best Irish Recipes for St Patricks Day from Colcannon to Irish Stew with Guinness

Our best Irish recipes for St Patricks Day include recipes for a crispy salmon fillet with a rustic colcannon for the classic Irish potato mash made with cabbage or kale, a traditional Irish beef and Guinness stew with cheddar cheese dumplings, an authentic old-fashioned cottage pie, a hearty Dublin coddle, and, in case you have leftover colcannon, our Irish breakfast colcannon with fried egg and crispy bacon.

We’re sharing our best Irish recipes for St Patricks Day on 17 March, and we might be adding one or two more recipes for Irish dishes between now and the Irish holiday, which we love to use as an excuse to cook Irish food. Terence has Irish heritage – along with German ancestry, which explains his lovely of hearty food washed down with a weissbier.

However, I love to take on Irish cooking duties at this time of year. There are a lot of similarities with Irish farmhouse fare and the food my grandmothers’ cooked. My Australian nanna, who married a dairy farmer, made a lot of stews, soups and pies, while the rustic cooking of my Russian-Ukrainian baboushka comes courtesy of her peasant roots in the Ukraine countryside.

I also like to use cooking Irish food as a chance to channel Irish friends who we haven’t seen in years. Food is wonderful for doing that, both the making of it, which provides time for reminiscing and reflection as you’re stirring a big pot of something on the stove, and the enjoyment of eating it and remembering shared meals with dear friends.

Now before you scroll down to our best Irish food recipes for St Patricks Day, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting our work by buying a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever, or buying something on Amazon, such as these cookbooks for culinary travellers or classic cookbooks for serious cooks. We may earn a small commission from your purchase but you won’t pay extra.

Now let me tell you more about our best Irish recipes for St Patricks Day.

Best Irish Recipes for St Patricks Day from Colcannon to Irish Stew with Guinness and Dumplings

Our best traditional Irish recipes for St Patricks Day include everything from an Irish colcannon recipe to a classic Irish beef and Guinness stew with cheese dumplings.Salmon Fillet with Colcannon Recipe and How to Get a Perfect Crispy Salmon Skin

Crispy Skinned Salmon Fillet with Colcannon

This crispy salmon fillet with colcannon recipe is Terence’s take on a heavenly dish that we first tasted at Irish chef Liam Tomlin’s long-closed restaurant Banc in Sydney and it’s next on our list of best Irish recipes for St Patricks Day.

The crispy skinned salmon fillet was cooked to perfection, the colcannon was creamy and rich, and while the red wine sauce seemed an unusual choice, its acidity worked well with a mouthful of the other ingredients.

If you’ve cooked and loved Terence’s creamy mashed potatoes recipe, then you’re going to adore the colcannon – a classic Irish mashed potato dish with kale or cabbage and spring onions, which can entertain other ingredients, such as bacon or pancetta.

Tomlin’s version has pancetta and small grilled prawns mixed in with savoy cabbage and spring onions. I can remember in the restaurant version Tomlin topped the salmon with slices of crispy pancetta as well.

Salmon Fillet with Colcannon Recipe and How to Get a Perfect Crispy Salmon Skin

Classic Cottage Pie Recipe for an Old Fashioned Irish Farmhouse Favourite

One of our best potato recipes, and another of our best Irish recipes for St Patricks Day, this classic cottage pie recipe makes the traditional Irish comfort food dish that’s synonymous with hearty, rustic, Irish farmhouse cooking. A much-loved culinary genre of Irish cooking in recent decades, it embraces some of the most quintessential Irish dishes, such as the traditional Irish stew.

Endearingly old fashioned, this Irish comfort food favourite consists of layers of savoury beef mince and vegetables, and cheesy mashed potatoes, which are baked, and served with buttery green peas. Wash it all down with red wine or Guinness.

Of course, it must be said that cottage pie is not confined to Ireland. We grew up eating cottage pie and shepherd’s pie in Australia. However, there’s no denying the long history of cottage pie in Irish cooking, which includes some of the oldest documented cottage pie recipes.

So what’s the difference between cottage pie and shepherd’s pie? Because, bewilderingly, there’s a fair bit of confusion about this out there on food sites and food blogs, even though the distinction is very clear: cottage pie is made with beef mince and shepherd’s pie made with lamb mince, which should be evident because, um… shepherds herd sheep not cows.

Classic Cottage Pie Recipe for an Old Fashioned Irish Farmhouse Favourite

Traditional Irish Beef Stew Recipe

This is the best Irish stew recipe for an amazingly rich and deeply flavoured traditional Irish beef stew with a rich gravy thanks to slow-cooking, an easy roux, and half a bottle of Shiraz – and it’s another of our best Irish recipes for St Patricks Day.

Dishes don’t get more Irish than this traditional Irish stew, considered by many to be Ireland’s national dish, making it the perfect dish to cook for St Patrick’s Day, and one of our best stew recipes.

A classic Irish stew is mostly made with lamb these days, but historically, beef, which was considered ‘winter food’, well before the Irish began eating lamb, was traditionally used in stews. This is a stew that calls for slow cooking. I find four hours is best. But it will still taste divine after an hour or two

Traditionally a ‘stew pot’ was used, but we cook our stews in a Dutch oven. We recommend either a Le Creuset Dutch oven if you can afford it or a more affordable Lodge Dutch oven. (We have more Dutch oven recipes here.)

Best Irish Stew Recipe for a Deeply Flavoured Traditional Irish Beef Stew

Classic Irish Beef and Guinness Stew Recipe with Cheddar Cheese Dumplings

Topping our list of best Irish recipes for St Patricks Day is our traditional Irish beef and Guinness stew recipe with cheddar cheese dumplings. The recipe will make you a rich and hearty beef stew made with Ireland’s beloved stout beer, with meat so tender you should be able to pull it apart with a spoon and fork.

This recipe includes a recipe within a recipe for savoury cheddar cheese dumplings that cook with the stew. Though you could serve the beef and Guinness stew with colcannon, mashed potatoes or any vegetable sides.

You’re especially going to love this Irish beef Guinness stew if you enjoy stouts, those strong, top-fermented, dark brown beers that are so dark that they’re practically black. Historically, any stout could be used to cook Irish beef stews, so by all means use your favourite stout if you have some fancy local craft-brewed stuff.

However, Guinness is Irish and it’s a reliably good dark beer, with a lovely tang and creamy barley flavour that’s perfect for this stew. It’s not only the best-known and most widely available Irish stout globally, it’s the oldest Irish stout, first brewed in Ireland in 1759 by Arthur Guinness at his Guinness Brewery at St James’ Gate, Dublin, so it’s rich in history.

Traditional Irish Beef and Guinness Stew Recipe with Cheese Dumplings

Dublin Coddle Recipe with Sausages, Bacon, Potatoes, Thyme and Parsley

If you’re a fan of the comforting combination of sausages and potatoes and you’re looking for a recipe for a hearty snags and spuds dish that isn’t bangers and mash, then try this Dublin coddle recipe.

Our Dublin coddle recipe makes the deliciously hearty Irish stew of sausages, bacon, potatoes and onions cooked low and slow with fresh thyme and parsley. It’s classic Irish comfort food.

Our recipe is fairly traditional with just a few tweaks, including the addition of baby carrots and bumping up the fresh thyme for big herby flavours. Serve with HP sauce, braised cabbage, and Irish soda bread or crusty sourdough.

I make this Dublin coddle in a large deep frying pan, but you could use a skillet or Dutch oven. If you don’t own a Dutch oven yet, we highly recommend buying one. Terence uses his Dutch oven for sourdough baking, while I use it for for soups and stews. A Le Creuset Dutch oven might be the most desirable, but we love the more affordable Lodge Dutch oven.

Dublin Coddle Recipe with Sausages, Bacon, Potatoes, Thyme and Parsley

Fish Pot Pie Recipe for Mini Potato and Salmon Pot Pies

This classic fish pot pie recipe makes mini mashed potato and creamy salmon pot pies baked in individual ramekins. Delicious as they are, these adorable salmon pot pies are also very versatile. You could replace the salmon with a white fish, combine types of fish, add prawns or mussels or both, and add spices such as nutmeg to the creamy salmon.

Fish pies are perfect for holidays such as St Patricks Day or Good Friday and creamy salmon pies are the best fish pies as far as I’m concerned. Even better than a pie with pastry, particularly if you prefer to spend more time around the dining table with loved ones than in the kitchen, is a pot pie – a pie without pastry that’s baked in a small pot or ramekin.

If you’re celebrating St Paddy’s Day this week or planning ahead for Easter and on the lookout for easy fish recipes for Good Friday and you have salmon and potatoes, then look no further than this classic Irish fish pot pie recipe for mini mashed potato and creamy salmon pot pies made in individual ramekins.

These little salmon pot pies may look simple but beneath the crispy cheesy lid are layers of buttery mashed potatoes infused with fresh fragrant herbs that sandwich a layer of chunky salmon pieces simmered in a rich creamy sauce. All the pies need is a classic garden salad on the side. You’ll find more of our best salmon recipes here,

Fish Pot Pie Recipe for Mini Mashed Potato and Salmon Pot Pies with Crispy Melted Cheese

Irish Beef and Guinness Pie Recipe with Potato Mash for Mini Meat Pies Made in Ramekins

Our Irish beef and Guinness pie recipe with potato mash is one of our easiest pie recipes. It will make you delicious little meat pies made in ramekins and it’s another of our best Irish food recipes for St Patricks Day.

This recipe is intended to use up any leftover Irish stew and mashed potatoes or colcannon leftovers if you’ve been cooking Irish food and they are so delish.

We use a store-bought puff pastry block that’s divided into 10 portions of layered sheets, which work out perfectly for four mini ramekin pies. One sheet is used to create the pie base and sides, another sheet used for the pie lid and the off-cuts of the round pie lids are used to fill gaps if the first pieces didn’t quite reach the rims of the ramekins.

Don’t forget to pierce a small hole in the pie lid and brush on the egg wash. Set the timer for 30 minutes, though we found that while our little pies were ready at 30 minutes, they needed a few more minutes to brown nicely on top.

Irish Beef and Guinness Pie Recipe with Potato Mash for Mini Meat Pies Made in Ramekins

Irish Colcannon Recipe with Fried Egg and Crispy Bacon

Our Irish colcannon recipe with fried egg and crispy bacon makes an Irish breakfast colcannon – or brunch colcannon if you prefer, which we created for our Weekend Eggs series of quintessential eggs dishes from around the world.

It makes a deliciously rich traditional Irish colcannon dish of mashed potatoes with butter, milk, cabbage, spring onions, and bacon, and we top the colcannon with a fried egg and crispy bacon. It’s one of those dishes that are even better with a fried egg on top.

Our best tip to making this Irish breakfast colcannon recipe is one that every bacon lover should know. If you’re stir-frying any vegetables for a dish where bacon is also going to be fried, cook the bacon first. Bacon fat is magic.

When making your mash remember to slowly add the warmed milk a splash at a time over medium heat. Make sure each splash is fully incorporated before adding the next. It really adds to the creamy texture. Also, Irish colcannon has a rustic texture.

So while we push the potatoes through the potato ricer we don’t use the tamis to get the potato mash ultra fine, as it doesn’t need to be as creamy as a French mash, as we’re adding the cabbage mixture to it, which will give it texture. This is easily another of our best Irish recipes for St Patricks Day.

Irish Colcannon Recipe with Fried Egg and Crispy Bacon for Weekend Eggs, the Irish Edition

Please do let us know if you make any of our best Irish recipes for St Patricks Day as we’d love to hear how they turned out for you.