13 Best St. Patrick's Day Cookies Recipes
Baking homemade St. Patrick's Day cookies is a great way to incorporate some delicious green food into your holiday celebration.
Whether you crave classic sugar cookies, chocolate, pistachio, matcha, or mint, we have a St. Patrick's Day cookie recipe for you!
From elaborately decorated festive treats to the quick and easy, you’ll find the perfect cookie recipe for every level of baker—even if it’s your first time.
Have I got a St. Patrick’s Day Cookies recipe for you!
What You Need to Make St. Patrick's Day Cookies
Of course, every recipe is different, but most of the basic equipment is the same.
Electric Mixer
Most of these recipes instruct you to use a stand mixer with a paddle attachment. Do not fret if you don’t have one—a hand mixer will work fine.
Baking Sheets
You can use whatever you have, sheet pans (rimmed pans) or cookie sheets. Whichever you choose, it’s best to line them with parchment paper or a silicon mat. And have your prepared baking sheet ready before you start the recipe you’ve chosen.
Wire Rack
Wire racks help cool your cookies quickly and keep them from overcooking on the pan once they’re done baking.
Bowls
You’ll need a dry-ingredient bowl and a wet-ingredient bowl. Even if you’re using the large mixing bowl of a stand mixer, you’ll need a separate bowl to combine your dry ingredients.
Pro tip: Mix your wet ingredients together in a large bowl because you’ll slowly add the dry ingredients to this same bowl.
St. Patrick's Day Cookies Recipes
Enjoy these yummy cookies with a homemade shamrock shake or another one of your favorite St. Patrick’s Day Drinks!
1. Pot of Gold Cookies
Pot of Gold Cookies photo by Semi Homemade Kitchen
Main ingredients: Boxed cake mix, eggs, vegetable oil, unsalted butter, vanilla extract, powdered sugar, milk, gold food coloring, green food coloring, Reese’s miniature cups, rainbow sour belts, and optional decorations.
If festive cookies is what you’re after, try making these St. Paddy’s cake mix cookies! Cake mix cookies are perfect for frosting and decorating.
Mini Reese’s cups on top make cute pots of gold and the sour rainbow belt is the perfect finishing touch on these delicious cookies.
Pot of Gold Cookies Recipe
2. Peppermint Snowball Cookies
Peppermint Snowball Cookies photo by Homemade Hooplah
Main ingredients: All-purpose flour, unsalted butter, powdered sugar, peppermint extract, green gel food coloring, and mini chocolate chips.
Classic snowball cookies are also known as Mexican wedding cookies, Italian wedding cookies, and Russian tea cookies. Always delightful, they are eaten at celebrations throughout the year. They’re even enjoyed as traditional Italian Christmas cookies too.
With a minty green center, these cookies are perfect for St. Patrick’s Day, but you can also make them in December as a Christmastime sweet treat. This is such an easy recipe, you’ll want to make these cookies all the time!
Peppermint Snowball Cookies Recipe
3. St. Patrick’s Day Shamrock Sugar Cookies with Buttercream Frosting
Shamrock Sugar Cookies photo by The Baking Chocolatess
Main ingredients: All-purpose flour, baking powder, unsalted butter, granulated sugar, egg, vanilla extract, almond extract, confectioner’s sugar, heavy cream, green food coloring, and green sprinkling sugar.
Of the two sugar cookie recipes we list, this one has the more classic sugar cookie dough. The cookie is sweet, buttery and crumbly—everything a sugar cookie should be.
Topped with green buttercream, these shamrock cookies will be a hit at any St. Paddy’s Day party. And they are fun to make! If you prefer royal icing to buttercream, just make the switch.
Shamrock Sugar Cookies Recipe
4. St. Patrick’s Day Sour Cream Sugar Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting
Sour Cream Sugar Cookies photo by Saving Talents
Main ingredients: All-purpose flour, baking soda, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, sour cream, powdered sugar, milk, cream cheese, and optional decorations.
This sugar cookie recipe incorporates sour cream and cream cheese into the dough. While perhaps not traditional, this approach may be even more delicious. Try both this recipe and the previous one and let me know which you think makes the best sugar cookies.
The cream cheese frosting is so delicious, you’ll want to put it on everything! To make it green, just add a little green food coloring.
St. Patrick’s Sour Cream Sugar Cookies Recipe
If you love the taste of sugar cookies, make Sugar Cookie Truffles!
5. Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies photo by Organically Addisson
Main ingredients: All-purpose flour, unsalted butter, granulated sugar, light brown sugar, egg, vanilla extract, mint extract, baking soda, green food coloring, Andes mints, and chocolate chips.
Like the perfect chocolate chip cookie, these are soft in the center with golden brown edges. If you love chocolate-mint ice cream, this will be your favorite cookie for St. Patrick’s Day!
Pro tip: Wait until a soft dough forms before adding the mints and the chocolate chips.
Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe
6. Chocolate Mint Biscotti
Chocolate Mint Biscotti photo by The Monday Box
Main ingredients: All-purpose flour, unsalted butter, granulated sugar, baking powder, vanilla extract, mint extract, eggs, mint chips, cocoa powder, semi-sweet chocolate chopped or broken into small pieces, espresso powder, mini semi-sweet chocolate chips, melting chocolate, and sprinkles.
You may know biscotti as an Italian breakfast pastry, but these are definitely a St. Patrick’s Day cookie!
Fun Italian food fact: Breakfast in Italy is usually just a pastry or some cookies and a cup of coffee. So feel free to make these your St. Patrick’s Day breakfast as well as your dessert.
Chocolate Mint Biscotti Recipe
7. Green Velvet Cookies
Green Velvet Cookies photo by Practically Homemade
Main ingredients: Chocolate cake mix, cream cheese, butter, egg, green food coloring, and powdered sugar.
These chocolate cookies are made easier by using a boxed cake mix. So if you don’t have time for lots of ingredients or intricate decorating, these are a quick way to make chocolaty green cookies for St. Patrick’s Day.
Pro tip: Wait for the cookies to cool completely before dusting with powdered sugar.
Green Velvet Cookies Recipe
8. St. Patrick’s Cookies and Buttercream Dip
St. Patrick’s Cookies and Buttercream Dip photo by XOXO Bella
Main ingredients: All-purpose flour, baking soda, unsalted butter, granulated sugar, eggs, icing sugar, vanilla extract, milk, green food coloring, and sprinkles.
Not big on decorating, or don’t have a piping bag? Green buttercream makes a fun cookie dip. Just serve it in a small bowl with some shamrock-shaped cookies and you have an easy dessert for St. Patrick’s day. Of course, if you don’t have a shamrock cookie cutter, you can use a cookie with any shape.
Another thing I love about this recipe is that because the cookies aren’t frosted, they store easily at room temperature in an airtight container or freezer bag.
St. Patrick’s Cookies and Buttercream Dip Recipe
9. Matcha Cookies
Matcha Cookies photo by A Mummy Too
Main ingredients: All-purpose flour, baking powder, slightly salted butter, caster sugar, egg, vanilla extract, matcha powder, and dark chocolate chunks.
Matcha is a natural way to make cookies green! I fell in love with matcha cookies at Vista Verde Ranch just outside of Steamboat Springs. They were one of the many reasons why Vista Verde is one of my favorite foodie destinations in Colorado.
For a change of pace, make matcha white chocolate chip cookies. Just replace the dark chocolate chunks with white chocolate chips.
Matcha Cookie Recipe
10. St. Patrick's Day Thumbprint Cookies
St. Patrick’s Day Thumbprint Cookies photo by Maria’s Mixing Bowl
Main ingredients: All-purpose flour, butter, sugar, vanilla extract, white-chocolate almond bark, sweetened condensed milk, green food coloring gel, and St. Patty's Day sprinkles.
Thumbprint cookies really are made by placing balls of dough on a baking sheet and pressing your thumb into each ball to make an indent. The indents in these St. Patrick Day cookies are filled with melted white-chocolate almond bark that has been colored green. A few fun green sprinkles makes them extra festive.
Pro tip: You can change the filling color depending on the holiday. I love red ones for Valentine’s Day.
St. Patrick's Day Thumbprint Cookies Recipes
11. Pistachio Green Crinkle Cookies
Pistachio Green Crinkle Cookies photo by The Perks Of Being Us
Main ingredients: All-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, butter, sugar, eggs, pistachio compound, green food coloring, and powdered sugar.
In addition to matcha, pistachio is another natural food that just happens to be the color green. This recipe makes the color a little more intense with food coloring.
Making crinkle cookies is easier than it looks. Cookie dough balls are rolled in powdered sugar before baking. During the baking, the sugar hardens and cracks to make the “crinkles.”
Pistachio Green Crinkle Cookies
12. Lucky Charms Cookies
Lucky Charms Cookies photo by Sweet Fix Baker
Main ingredients: All-purpose flour, Lucky Charms cereal, baking soda, granulated sugar, unsalted butter, egg yolk, and vanilla extract.
This is every leprechaun’s favorite cookie! For anyone who’s a fan of Lucky Charms cereal, these cookies are a must.
A soft chewy cookie with marshmallow charms pairs perfectly with a glass of milk.
Lucky Charms Cookies
13. Nutella Puff Pastry Shamrocks
Nutella Puff Pastry Shamrocks photo by Drugstore Divas
Main ingredients: Puff pastry sheets, Nutella spread, and green sugar sprinkles.
Fun French food fact: Although Nutella is an Italian cuisine original, the French eat more of it than any other country—even Italy. And now these cookies give Nutella an Irish twist.
The best part? These are the absolute easiest cookies on the list to make. Spread Nutella on your puff pastry rolled-out dough. Bake, sprinkle, and voila—the perfect treat for St. Patrick’s Day!
Nutella Puff Pastry Shamrocks
Why Celebrate St. Patricks Day with Cookies?
March 17th honors Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. Originally a religious feast in Ireland, the day has evolved into a vibrant global celebration of Irish culture and heritage.
Today it is one of America’s favorite holidays for fun. Annual parades are held in many U.S. metropolises, including San Francisco, Boston, and New York City. We embrace the tradition of wearing green, and we break out the shamrock decorations—a symbol used by Saint Patrick himself.
But best of all we celebrate with food and drink. It’s a day for corned beef and cabbage, green beer, and green desserts and cookies!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
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