Our Ultimate Guide to St Patrick's Day Pizza

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

We plan to celebrate St Patrick's Day with our favourite food on 17^th March. pizza! Gather up your family and friends and party on with some of these ideas: 

Colcannon Pizza

Colcannon is a traditional irish dish made from mashed potatoes, kale or cabbage, and lots of butter or cream.

It’s also known as ‘champ’ with scallions or spring onions instead of the cabbage.

Although often served as a side dish with meat, it works a treat on pizza. Spread a thin layer of colcannon, and pep it up with a scattering of smoked bacon and a handful of crumbled blue cheese.

Or try with caramelised onions. go all out and caramelise those onions in Guinness. Here's the full recipe for our Ultimate St Patrick's Day Pizza.

Corned Beef and Cabbage Pizza

This is a classic Irish dish, and also a great pizza topping. Saute some sliced onion and sliced cabbage in butter until soft. spread over a pizza base, sprinkle over cheese and chopped corned beef, then cook this bad boy up.

Potato Pizza

Another Irish staple, the humble spud and one of our favourite pizza toppings.

Jamie Oliver makes a cracker of a pizza with potato, mozzarella, rosemary, thyme and tomato sauce.

Or if you're in need of something fast after a fill of Guinness, how about crisps on pizza? We stumbled across this recipe online and tried it out - pesto spread over pizza dough, topped with a handful of cheddar cheese, a layer of crisps (got to be tayto of course), another drizzle of pesto, sliced red onions and mozzarella. trust us. It is amazing.

Bangers and Mash Pizza

What’s not to love about a layer of creamy mashed potatoes, thinly sliced sausages, fior de latte mozzarella and some dollops of those Guinness soaked caramelised onions? 

We especially love Clonakilty irish pork sausages for their rich, meaty flavour.

Go Green On Your Pizza

Well, St Patrick's Day is all about the colour green after all, and there are loads of green pizza toppings to choose from.

• add finely chopped, blanched spinach to your pizza dough and turn it green
• scatter a handful of spinach, rocket or fresh basil over a cooked pizza
• garnish a cooked pizza with slices of avocado
• spears of blanched broccoli toast up a treat on pizza
• lay some asparagus spears over a creamy white sauce base
• dollop fresh pesto over a cooked pizza
• a handful of olives or capers (or both) for a green and salty fix

Irish Cheese

Get adventurous and try some of these Irish cheeses instead of mozzarella on your pizza. 

 Semi Hard Cheese

• Coolea is a mild and creamy gouda style cheese, hand made in co.cork, with a nutty, caramel flavour.
• Carlow, another gouda style cheese, has a mild and delicate taste, and also comes in a few flavoured varieties such as tomato and basil, chilli and cumin.
• Cais dubh, meaning 'black cheese', is a sharper, tangy gouda style cheese from a cheese making couple in County Cork.

All work a treat on a pizza. try with prosciutto and sprinkle a handful of rocket or a dollop of mustard over the pizza when cooked.

Blue Cheese

• Cashel Blue is a really popular irish creamy blue cheese with a mild and tangy flavour, made from cow’s milk.
• Bellingham Blue is a richer and spicier blue cheese handmade from cow's milk.

Try these with spinach and bacon, or sliced potato, red onion and apple.  

Soft/Semi Soft Cheese

• Durrus, handmade in cork from cow’s milk, has a buttery, earthy flavour and melts nicely over a pizza.
• Another cow's milk cheese, Gubbeen, can be bought young or aged, and has a buttery, nutty flavour, developing deeper earthy notes as it matures.
• St Tola is a creamy, salty goats cheese with a black ash rind that adds a subtle smoky flavour. It has a high melting point, so keeps a good shape when cooked so ideal for to decorate with a shamrock shaped slice of cheese.

The Irish half of the Babadoh team regularly hit up Maegden for their cheese feasts while the Scottish duo pick up a lot of these cheeses in their local cheese monger I.J.Mellis.

There you have it, a few ideas to get your pizza juices flowing and help you celebrate st patrick's day with an irish twist to your pizza.