St Patrick's Day Pancakes (how to make them green, but healthy)

St. Patrick's Day pancakes have to be green, right?  I know it sounds gross, but trust me, with a few healthy ingredients, you can make your favorite pancakes green without any impacts to flavor and texture.  I made my St. Patrick's Day pancakes with my protein recipe, but you can use whatever recipe you prefer.  

The easiest way to make your pancakes green is food coloring 

Well it goes without saying that green food coloring is the best way to make any food green, but hear me on this - artificial food colorings are notorious for having weird chemicals that can act as endocrine disruptors and can also have deleterious health implications for children. 

With that, if you're going to use a food coloring product, please READ THE LABELS.  Anything that looks like this -  (the ingredient profile of McCormick's food coloring) - WATER, PROPYLENE GLYCOL, FD&C YELLOW 5, FD&C BLUE 1, AND PROPYLPARABEN (PRESERVATIVE) is best avoided.

A quick search on Amazon for natural food colorings brought up this option, but there aren't many.

3 Ways to make your St. Patrick's Day pancakes green using healthy, natural ingredients

Matcha Powder 

Made from the shaded leaves of the camellia sinensis plant, matcha is the purest form of green tea. The bright green powder can be used to make tea, but is also a great addition to smoothies, chia pudding and protein pancakes of course! Less is more when making matcha tea due to the bitter taste, but it’s pretty mild when used in baking, so feel free to use a full teaspoon with each serving of this protein pancake recipe. Matcha powder is best known for it’s cancer fighting antioxidants, but it also boosts memory, concentration and increases energy and endurance.

Spirulina

made from a blue-green algae, spirulina does not taste as gross as it sounds. The deep green colored powder is much like matcha in that it’s best consumed in smoothies, puddings or baked into protein pancakes. Spirulina is rich in iron and b-vitamin complex and it’s also a decent source of protein (ideal for non-meat eaters). People often use this supplement for everything from improving memory, increasing energy and metabolism, to lowering cholesterol, preventing heart disease, and improving digestion and bowel health. A full teaspoon will turn your ProCakes into a deep, mossy green without any impact to flavor.

Raw Spinach

believe it or not, spinach will not make your protein pancakes taste like a garden salad. When added to smoothies and baked goods, spinach will increase the creamy texture of food without impacting flavor. For this option, you will need a food processor to blend the spinach with the pancake mixture to ensure the green color is evenly distributed. Use 1 to 2 small fistfuls of spinach to get a nice green color.

Protip: Using sunbutter to make St. Patrick's Day Pancakes green does not work

I read somewhere on the internet that sunbutter reacts with baking powder in a way that can turn baked goods green once cooked. Sadly, in the case of my recipe, it did not. It may have something to do with the brand of baking powder used in the product, but save yourself the trouble of trying this option (although they tasted really good!).

The Sad Reality of  St. Patrick's Day Pancakes 

Ultimately what I found that even though every one of these options tasted great and enhanced the nutritional benefit of the protein pancakes, none of them look pleasing to the eye, so most of the pictures for this project didn’t make the cut.

Maybe St. Patrick's Day Pancakes with Green Icing is a better idea

A much prettier option is just to make a fun green icing with 1/2 a teaspoon of matcha and a sachet of stevia mixed with a 1/4 cup of thick plain greek yogurt (we used Fage 2% here).

Want more St. Patrick's Day protein treat ideas with protein?  Try these: