St. Patrick's Day Countdown: Breakfast Boxty
Written by Ciaran on Mar 02, 2026 | 0 Comments
We’re counting down the days to March 17th with an offer and a potato-stuffed recipe for you every day until St. Patrick's Day. Check back in with us each day to see what’s up next!
A potato by any other name…
Pan Boxty getting notions with a sprinkling of parsley.
Photo Credit: Marco Verch (CC-BY 2.0)
Now, I know what you are thinking... boxty, or bacstaí as it’s known in Irish, looks VERY like the potato cake recipe from Day 1! And you would be right… but also wrong. Boxty can indeed be similar to potato cakes, bread, or farls, as they can be served off the pan as a sort of pancake.
But boxty is made a little differently than our option on Day 1, with the distinction of including raw, grated potato as well as mashed potato. And unlike potato cakes, it can also be baked or boiled as well as griddled, something captured in an outdated rhyme that you may have heard:
“Boxty on the griddle, boxty on the pan, if you can’t bake boxty, sure you’ll never get a man.”
The rhyme certainly doesn’t fit these days, but I suppose it gives an indication of the importance of this recipe, something confirmed by over 2000 references to boxty in the National Folklore Collection!
An entry in the The School's Collection of the National Folklore Collection from a Miss Maura Meehan, 11 years old, describing the boxty of her local area in Leitrim.
Photo Credit: Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
The name boxty is thought to come from the Irish, arán bocht tí, meaning "poor house bread”, with another possibility the word bácús, meaning "bakehouse." A staple from the north midlands, especially Cavan, Leitrim, Longford, Sligo, Donegal, Fermanagh and Tyrone, it has certainly grown in stature, and it's now common to see boxty on the menus of posh restaurants all over the island and farther afield!
And for those not keen on cooking, there are ready-made versions stocked in many shops around Ireland, including Drummully and McNiffe's, which make several types of boxty to choose from! We are more typically a potato cake house because our kids prefer them, but my wife Jane occasionally makes boxty for breakfast or tea, served with a fried egg. They are also delicious drizzled with honey or butter or simply sprinkled with a little sugar. Of course, you could get fancy with it and have them with scrambled eggs and smoked Irish salmon to really kick off the festivities in style!
They are also a traditional food for the feast day of another Irish patron saint, but we're sure St. Brigid wouldn't mind if you choose to serve them on St. Patrick’s Day!
Ingredients
- 300g mashed potato
- 300g grated, raw rooster potato (you can peel them if you like, but you can also include the peels for a bit more roughage if you have your spuds well scrubbed)
- 250g plain flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 350ml buttermilk
- A generous pinch of sea salt
- Irish Butter for frying
Method
- Grate your raw potato into a cloth and squeeze out as much liquid as you can manage
- Add your now-quite-dry grated potato to your mashed potato, flour, and baking soda, and mix through with a fork until it is all an even consistency.
- Slowly add in your buttermilk until you get a nice, thick batter. Depending on how much liquid you squeezed out of your potato, you may need a little more or a little less than the recipe calls for.
- Season to taste with sea salt and black pepper if you are going for a savory version!
- Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat, then melt a small dab of butter before using a tablespoon to add a few dollops to the pan.
- Fry for a few minutes on each side until golden and cooked through, then remove from the pan and repeat until your batter is gone.
- Serve hot with whatever accompaniment you fancy. Eggs, honey, smoked salmon… pretty much everything goes with potatoes!
What's Next?
Check back in with us tomorrow for Day 3 of our St. Patrick’s Day countdown, or open door Number 2 of our 17 Days of celebratory offers!
Brigid's and Celtic Crosses
Looking for a subtle Irish symbol to add a piece of Ireland to your St. Patrick's Day look? A St. Brigid's cross is a distinctive choice while a Celtic Cross, particularly one with strong links to the man of the hour, is a symbol of our isle recognised the world over.
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Ciaran
My Irish Jeweler
Born in Co. Antrim and reared in Dublin, I was fascinated with Gaelic culture from an early age. I suppose it's not surprising given my mother inherited a grá for the Irish language from my grandfather, an Irish school headmaster. And that grá continues! My brother and sister are now Gaelic teachers here in Ireland, my niece is an award winning Irish dancer, and I proudly work to share Irish culture through our Irish and Celtic Jewelry at My Irish Jeweler!
I love researching and reading about the history of Irish design. It's at the core of what we do here at My Irish Jeweler. I find much of it so interesting that I have to share what I find. I hope you enjoy it!
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