This green oatmeal is the perfect St. Patrick’s Day breakfast recipe. Made with spinach, oats, bananas, milk it’s a festive and healthy start to the day.

Chicago dyes their river green for St. Patrick’s Day so I figure me making green oatmeal really isn’t that crazy, right?

It feels a bit crazy or maybe just over the top, for me at least.

I’m the person that really doesn’t care about this weird holiday yet this year alone I’ve made Bailey’s ice cream, Reuben soup and re-published this healthy shamrock shake all for the holiday.

I think the driving factor behind all these St. Patrick’s Day recipes is really my hatred of green food dye (or any food dye for that matter – don’t even bring up red velvet recipes with me) and this underlying determination to show people that it’s not a necessary ingredient to properly celebrate with the Irish.

So, here we are with a couple of bowls of bright green oats and me trying to convince you to blend some spinach into your breakfast on March 17th before you stuff your face with corned beef later on.

Which if you’re going to do so, I highly recommend corned beef tacos over the traditional corned beef and cabbage thing. 

How Do I Make Green Oatmeal?

This green oatmeal recipe is really just a basic bowl of oatmeal. 

The trick to getting the vibrant green color is simply blending baby spinach with milk and a banana until smooth.

That becomes your cooking liquid and from there you make oatmeal on the stovetop like you would any other oatmeal recipe.

It’s very similar to my green spinach pancake recipe in that regard.

I added chia seeds, vanilla extract and some optional collagen peptides (vanilla protein powder works too) for added protein to my bowl and then topped with peanut butter, mini chocolate chips and some walnuts.

The recipe is flexible though, add-ins can be customized to your liking and the same goes for the toppings.

Green sprinkles could be fun for kids to really up the festivity of this easy breakfast.

Can You Taste The Spinach?

Since this breakfast is basically a spinach oatmeal recipe, you’d think it might taste that way but I promise you cannot taste the spinach.

The banana does a really good job hiding any spinach/vegetable flavor and the vanilla extract and toppings really ensure it.

What Kind of Oats Should I Use?

Make sure to use rolled oats in this green oatmeal recipe. You don’t want those 1-minute or quick cooking oats, use regular old fashioned oats.

Can I Use Steel Cut Oats?

Yes, steel cut oatmeal will work for this green oat recipe but the cooking time will need to increase and you might need a bit more milk. 

I’d recommend starting with the recipe as is and just adding some more plain milk as it cooks if the oatmeal is getting too dry before the oats are tender.

You could always do a combination of rolled + steel cut oats like in this strawberry oatmeal recipe too.

What Other Green Recipes Can I Make for St. Patrick’s Day?

If you want to check out some more green recipes that don’t use any food dye whatsoever try these matcha shortbread cookies, matcha mint chocolate chunk ice cream, avocado cake donuts, blueberry avocado pancakes, creamy broccoli soup, no bake lime avocado tart or, this detox green smoothie.

Hopefully that’s enough to convince you to step away from the food dye and take advantage of all the real food ingredients that can make your St. Patrick’s Day food festive!

If you’re looking for more oatmeal recipes for the rest of the year, don’t miss Baked Turmeric Oatmeal, Apple Butter Carrot Cake Oatmeal or Slow Cooker Chocolate Cherry Steel Cut Oatmeal.

Or, check out my oats page for every oatmeal recipe – there’s a ton ranging from slow cooker recipes, to Instant Pot oats, baked oatmeal and traditional stove-top oats.