With St. Patrick’s Day here, refrigerators in the U.S. will be crammed with extra corned beef and cabbage. Corned beef and cabbage keep well when frozen and it is advised to have sufficient containers ready to hold the corned beef and cabbage.

An idea is to gather friends for the rest of the week and weekend, those you missed seeing on St. Patrick’s day and use up the delicious remaining corned beef & cabbage. The corned beef & cabbage can also be donated to food banks for the less fortunate, if you take care in the preservation process.

The corn in corned beef does not refer to corn, but corn were the large kernels of salt used to preserve the corned beef. The word corned has been part of the English language for over 1,000 years. Ireland used to be the largest exporter of corned beef until 1825. Corned beef & cabbage are not necessarily Irish. The English were consumers of this delicacy too. However, “corned beef” is Irish to the core.

Many new recipes will be added to the older ones, for the left over corned beef & cabbage. New recipes for soup and other foods are popular this time of year, coinciding with St. Patrick’s Day.

Corned beef and cabbage on st patrick's day