What is a Shamrock Shake?
A Shamrock Shake is a delicious dessert served at McDonald’s for a limited time around St. Patrick’s Day. The official ingredients, courtesy of McDonald’s website, are vanilla soft serve, shamrock shake syrup, and whipped light cream. We are huge fans of this shake, but it gets pricey to buy for the whole family, so we figured out how to make them at home! This copycat recipe is easy, uses simple ingredients, and it also tastes just like the original, if not better!
Ingredients in a Homemade Shamrock Shake
Vanilla Ice Cream – The quality of your Shamrock Shake will depend on the quality of your ice cream. Because of that, we like to use a super creamy vanilla ice cream as the base.Milk – Just a little bit of milk gives these shakes the perfect, smooth texture you can drink through a straw! Use whole milk for the best results. Mint Extract – It took a lot of trial and error to get just the right amount of mint flavoring. Too much can make it taste like toothpaste. Additionally, too little mint and the mint flavor gets lost in the vanilla. Trust us on the amounts of mint extract (see recipe card below). Green Food Coloring – Since you are only adding a little bit of food coloring, you can use liquid or gel food coloring. When I am baking cakes I like to use gel, but either is okay for this recipe. Optional Toppings – I like to top my Shamrock Shakes with whipped cream and also a maraschino cherry. You can also top them with chocolate sauce, Andes mints, Oreo cookie pieces, or green sprinkles!
Variations
You could turn this St. Patrick’s Day treat into a delicious and easy dessert for any time of year! Serve them with green and red sprinkles at Christmastime, or use red food coloring to create a delightfully pink Valentine’s Day dessert. Turn it into a chocolate mint shake by adding chocolate syrup at the bottom of the glass before pouring the shake, then drizzle with more chocolate syrup. Delicious!
Oreo Shamrock McFlurry
This year, McDonald’s came out with a new way to enjoy your Shamrock Shake – the Oreo Shamrock McFlurry! It has all the delicious taste of a Shamrock Shake, but blended with crushed Oreo cookies. I haven’t tried one yet, but they sound amazing. Both the Shamrock Shake and the Oreo Shamrock McFlurry came out at the end of February.
Low-Calorie Version
If you are counting calories, then we have a low calorie version as well. Make your Shamrock Shake with low-fat vanilla ice cream (we love Dreyer’s Slow Churned), fat-free milk, and a bit of real sugar. A McDonald’s small Shamrock Shake has 530 calories, and a large is 820 calories. With those changes, this recipe is 393 calories per serving.
More Irish Recipes for St. Patrick’s Day
If you’re looking to create an authentic Irish feast to celebrate the luck o’ the Irish this year, then try a few of these favorite recipes:
The Donovan’s Irish PastiesIrish Soda BreadSlow Cooker Irish Beef StewInstant Pot Corned Beef and CabbageCorned Beef Sandwiches
How to Make a Shamrock Shake
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