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It’s fun to color foods for special occasions, but on a whole foods diet, regular food colorings just do not make the grade.
It’s always hard for me to take my kids to the grocery store and see them oogle the multi-colored “foods” and feel like I’d love to make them something fun like that, but knowing that I don’t want all those mystery chemicals going into their bodies.
And we love fudge, but regular fudge being loaded with white sugar and other things that aren’t great for us, leave my feeling less healthy than I’d like to once I’ve indulged.
Luckily:
- I’ve got a healthy fudge option for you that’s loaded with nutritional goodness
- God’s provided plenty of colorful options for us creation so we don’t need to lean on Aluminum Lake #3, Red No. 40 and the like
.
For Saint Patrick’s Day this year, why not have some Dairy-Free Fudge colored with–
parsley (and no, you won’t taste it 
!)
You get a nice festive treat with added nutritional punch.
This recipe is one that I adapted from a Grain-Free Foodies’ recipe. It is extremely easy as is and if you have a high-powered blender, like the Vitamix, I have an even easier option for you!
Oh, and if you’d like other Healthy & Delicious Fudge Recipes, check out:
Saint Patrick’s Day Dairy-Free Fudge
Ingredients:
2 c coconut oil (use expeller pressed if you wish to avoid coconutty flavor)
1 c nut or seed butter (I used pumpkin seeds as this adds a bit of green tone to the coloring)
1/2 cup sweetener (any equivalent sweetener, (liquid or granulated) to taste will work, of course reducing the amount if using stevia extract. One scoop = 1/32 tsp! Use the healthiest sweetener you can.)
1/2 c dried parsley flakes
2 t vanilla
1/4 t salt (I recommend Real Salt)
Method:
1. Melt coconut oil in small saucepan. Add remaining ingredients to blender, add coconut oil and blend until smooth.
2. Pour into an 8×8 baking pan and freeze until solid.
3. Store in refrigerator to prevent softening.
Note: For Vitamix owners, there is no need to melt the coconut oil. Simply place all ingredients in the blender and process until smooth. You will find that making it in the Vitamix yields a fudge with a lighter green color and a somewhat smoother texture.
A nice sweet way to celebrate this holiday that is near and dear to my heart.
To find our more about Saint Patrick’s life, and to see my connections to the Emerald Isle, read my post on Saint Patrick’s Day ~ History and Simple, Healthy Celebrations.
What is your favorite treat to eat on Saint Patrick’s Day?
Linked to Life as Mom and Simple Lives Thursday.
This post contains affiliate links. For my disclosure, read here.
I would have never thought to add parsley. Amazing.
I was so pleased to find that it worked! I had heard of using kale before for natural coloring, but not parsley!
Thanks for including the article by Chuck Colson; i should have read this on the 17th ! I will have to try the green treat just to remember this great man.
Oh, if i did want to make it a dairy fudge with raw milk, do you have an idea of whether i need to omit or add anything. I wouldn’t mind raw eggs either. Thanks!
As long as your recipe calls for milk, I don’t think it matters. I do think that most fudge recipes call for evaporated milk though so plain raw milk will not be thick nor sweet enough.
Chuck Colson is another great man too, isn’t he?
How would I adapt this to make green frosting for cupcakes? Not the fudge recipe, but the green color from parsley.
Hi Faith! I would just blend the parsley into your frosting in a good blender. Otherwise, you could powder the parsley in a blender first and then mix it into the frosting gradually until you have the color that you want. Hope that helps! I’ll probably be doing the same with frosting this year for my kiddo’s hockey celebration this year since they are on Team Ireland
.
Thanks! My baby turns one soon and I would get LOTS of flack from my SAD eating family if his birthday cake did not have colored frosting
Oh, I sooo hope it turns out well for you! We should exchange photos of the finished product!
I don’t have that much parsley on hand can I use 1/2 cup of kale instead?
You can use kale, but kale is a cruciferous veggie and I’ve read quite a bit about cruciferous vegetables eaten raw being bad for your thyroid. I’d just not worry about it for St. Patrick’s Day, but I wouldn’t eat it daily
. Hope you enjoy it!
I was just thinking Bout how to food color for my 2.5 yo. Up until now I have always done shades of pinks and purples from berry puree for his big sister, but he is getting old enough that this wont work too much longer. Thanks for the tip. I was also thinking of some powdered stevia. Maybe a combo of the 2 and reduce the other sweetener woukd work!
The stevia & other sweetener combo would almost for sure be fine. It’s a very forgiving recipe. Enjoy!
I will have to try this recipe, thank you!!
You’re welcome! Hope you like it!
I wonder if you could use spinach instead of the parsley? I know you can use it in smoothies to make them look green, without the flavor. I have a bunch I need to use up!
You sure can, but raw spinach is another one of those veggies that is not great to eat frequently if you have a tendency towards thyroid issues so I try to limit it. Hope you enjoy it! – Oh – you’ll of course have to adjust how much to use. The color strength will be different and raw vs fresh issue will be there as well. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
I am so excited to make this fudge. I studied, ahem, water color in Ireland for a month and your post brought back such good memories. My grandfather’s last name is Magee and he was born in Boston to Irish immigrants, if that gives you any indication of my heritage. I love the mother land!
Okay, so I just made the pumpkin seed butter and it is GREEN. Genious! I never knew!
I hope you like it. I think my bean fudge is better – but I think this is pretty good cold. My family just told me that they think it needs tweaking. Sigh. I hope it’s good enough!
Bean fudge??? Is that here as well? I am new to your sight, obviously. Via Traditional-Foods
The “batter” for the fudge tasted good so far. I used rapadura so it has the ugly 70′s brown/green color. Lol.
Kristen recently posted..You Are What You Eat…and BUY.
Welcome
! Here’s the recipe – you’ll love it! Silky Bean Fudge.
Beets are very good for coloring, as well. I would think blueberries would be a nice color for the Mom above looking for colors for her son, but they may be purple as well. Do you have any good white sugar free frosting recipes?
Great tips! There are other coloring options on my Easter Fudge and Blue Food Coloring posts. Blueberries do color things purple
. I do have one or two good frosting recipes. What kind of sweetener would you like to use? One of them is a yummy carob but no post on it yet.
Yum! We added 1/2 cup of cocoa powder and used mint leaves from our garden that we had dehydrated last summer. (didn’t end up green because of the chocolate, but we all agreed that was worth it!!)
Also did 1/4cup of honey and a little bit of stevia…perfect!
thanks for a great, easy recipe. (oh, and my 11 yr. old daughter made the whole thing by herself, using the vitamix)
I LOVE the added cocoa! I was just working on mint chocolate brownies myself today. (Not a winner yet. Sigh.) It’s such an easy recipe, isn’t it! Tell your daughter “good job!” for me.