This month is about all things green- thanks to St. Patrick’s Day! While my family may not be full-on Irish, I love finding little ways to make life a little more special- like celebrating a green day with my kids! We all wear green, I paint the girl’s nails, and we eat green/rainbow food all day!

However, it’s not always easy to find recipes that are green AND kid-friendly AND healthy. It seems that many times you have to go with a less kid-friendly option, like spinach lasagna, or use a bunch of food coloring, which I try to avoid when I can. Well, imagine my excitement when I came across the PERFECT St. Patrick’s Day muffins! They are naturally green- no added food dye necessary; and they are actually pretty healthy, all things considered. And they are absolutely kid-approved!

My son has been going through a cooking kick and I’ve been trying to find recipes we can make together. A friend of mine had highly recommended these muffins, so I persuaded my son to give them a shot. They are basically banana muffins- with a whole lot of spinach in them. I conveniently “forgot” to mention the spinach part to my son ;). He had a blast mixing the flour and sugar and throwing the bananas and vanilla extract in the blender. And then it was time for our “magic” ingredient. When I pulled the spinach out of the fridge my son’s jaw dropped. “WHAT? They have spinach??” I told him to trust me, and he and my younger kids actually got a huge kick out of how green the liquid looked in the blender.

It may have helped that I also took a little liberty and tweaked the recipe a little by adding mini chocolate chips. Nothing gets a kids’ attention faster than chocolate chips, right?

I’ll admit- I had my doubts about this recipe at first. The batter- eh, well, it looks a little less than appealing. And you really do add quite a bit of spinach to the muffins, and I was worried how they’d actually taste…..

When it came time to try them, my son looked at them a little suspiciously, but I purposely gave him a muffin that happened to have a decent amount of chocolate chips on top, which helped convince him to take a bite ;).

The verdict? My kids LOVED these. And I’m not just saying that- they literally ate 2 in one sitting, and the first thing they asked the next morning was if they could have spinach muffins for breakfast. MOM WIN!! I think the only thing I would change is the cook time- I went with the lower cook time, and I still felt the muffins were a little dry for my preferences. I think next time I would try cooking them for a little less time, or possibly add a little more banana to get them a little chewier.

While there is some sugar in this recipe, you’re getting a lot of nutrition with the bananas and the spinach. I also used whole wheat flour to make them a little more nutritious. You definitely don’t need to add the chocolate chips, but it might be helpful the first time for those of your kids who may be a little more suspicious of green foods ;).

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We’ll definitely be making these again and again, and you can bet these are on the menu for St. Patrick’s Day breakfast!