20 Recipes for Your All-Night Beltane Party

Beltane is the old Gaelic festival that heralds the beginning of spring, a “thank fuck the ice is going to stop!” all-night party. Traditionally celebrated with fairs, dancing, bonfires, and of course, lots and lots of drinking, its an excellent excuse for a party even if you aren’t some flavour of pagan.

Fresh, seasonal food, old fashioned recipes (or at least ones that nod to it), honey and dairy are all traditional elements of the holiday. Dairy because Ireland and Scotland were cattle cultures and Beltane was about purifying the herd, honey because Celts really fucking like honey. It’s also a traditional night to get down and dirty in honour of, ahem, generative forces, so sexy food has a place on the table too.


Beltane Bannock

A traditional oatcake eaten on the day. There are some folk rituals attached to it described at the link as well if you’re into that.

Watercress, new potato & salmon salad

Tricolore salad

Spring Cabbage with Mustard Seeds

Rhubarb crumble and cream


Yogurt and pomegranate dessert with honey

Dressed spring cabbage

Garlic and rosemary infused roast pork

Super spring salad

Strawberry Spring Salad with Lemon Dijon Vinaigrette

Onion and Goat’s Cheese Tart

Welsh Chicken and Leek Pie

Twice Baked Potatos with Irish Chedder

Beltane Caudle

Often served over the bannock but can be eaten in other ways.

Spring beef and potato stew

Toasted spinach, wild garlic and taleggio

Bacon Wrapped Chicken in Garlic and Herb Butter

Green Gazpacho

Lemon and Ricotta Cheesecake

Baked Apricots with Honey

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Siobhan

Siobhan has degrees in information management and medieval history making her lots of fun at parties. She's written for Dirge, Biscuit and Diva and is currently working on a book on the supernatural women of Ireland for Wolfenhowle Press (and if you want to help feed her while she works on it you can check out her patreon here.

Siobhan has written 34 articles for us.

8 Comments

  1. I opened your post this morning whilst having tea before going to the market to get groceries for Beltane!!!

    I’m making things ahead for tomorrow night….spiced caramelized onion/pine nut/goat cheese/chard tart, with roasted pepper/asparagus/kalamata olive/shaved pecorino/tarragon salad, and followed by dark chocolate mousse (which I may or may not fancify depending on time, but it’s really good even when I make it plain…and I have v.good dark chocolate to make it with)….my name is Breton-celtic (Gaelle), and I’m half French so I like having the mix in there.

    We traditionally toast with sparkling drinks with sweet woodruff in them, so I’m going to see if ours is blooming yet! I’ll bring in some flowers as well as lighting candles and the mini-hearth too.

    Happy Beltane Siobhan!!

  2. All my pagan friends moved away, so I’m celebrating alone this year and I may have to just make a bunch of these for myself and drink a lot of wine. That baked potato is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, so that’s definitely on the list. I may also make the Beltane Bannock for breakfast! Someday I’ll celebrate with a group again, but for now… I feast. (P.S. Atlanta witches, hmu.)

  3. I have weird but fun suggestion for cheese cake.

    Instead of graham crackers use flavoured cheerios such as oh say honey nut cheerios for the crust

    2 1/2 cups cheerios
    3 tbsp brown sugar firmly packed
    1/3 cup butter melted

    Method
    Pre-heat over to 350/176 degrees
    Crush cheerios to sort of almost a loose powder preferably with a food processor
    Using a fork in a medium size bowl mix first the sugar with the crushed cheerios.
    Then stir in butter with yes the fork til well blended
    Trust the fat of the butter and press the mixture into your the bottom of an un-greased pan
    Bake for 8-10 minutes till it becomes more of a gold brown more than a vague light tan it went in as
    Cool completely and use for a thick cheesecake or ice box pie, don’t try to make like old fashioned apple pie or something with this crust.

    Happy Beltane and thank you Siobhan for this round up because oh gosh I’ve always wanted to try bannock and that recipe doesn’t look hard the way scones look hard. I love oatmeal.

  4. Might try making the toastrd spinach, wild gatlic and taleggio and the goat cheese pastries forsunday brunch sometime. X

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