How to Make Pistachio Bread for the Holidays - Margin Making Mom® (2024)

Pistachio bread is a lovely, festive dessert bread that makes a perfect gift for teachers, neighbors, friends, and family! It’s an easy Christmas treat you can enjoy without a lot of work!

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Well, it’s officially Christmas around here! It may only be mid-November, but we pulled out our decorations yesterday and decked the halls.

I usually try to wait until the weekend before Thanksgiving, but I couldn’t hold out that long this year. 🙂 I always say, Christmas only comes once a year, so why not enjoy it as long as we can? 🎄

At any rate, it wouldn’t be the Christmas season without baking and enjoying lots of holiday treats! Chief among those is this pistachio bread. Or as my children have dubbed it, “Grinch bread.” 😂

They love the fun, bright green color of the bread (what other holiday dessert boats such a hue?

Well, I guess all of our favorite pistachio pudding dessert recipes do–such as pistachio pudding cookies, pistachio ice cream, pistachio sheet cake, pistachio ooey gooey butter cake, pistachio fluff (AKA watergate salad), pistachio whoopie pies, pistachio banana bread, Italian pistachio cake, and pistachio cream pie!!).

And they think it is just so fun. And so delicious!

They gobble this stuff up faster than I can make it.

I love how simple it is to make this pistachio bread during the busy holiday season–it’s basically a doctored up cake mix, so you know it’s quick and easy.

Top it with some sprinkles for more color contrast, and your holiday dessert is ready to go!

Now, obviously, making this pistachio bread is not limited to the holidays–it could certainly be enjoyed year round!

I just think the pretty color makes it the perfect Christmas treat!

And even though my kids call it Grinch bread, you won’t feel anything like the Grinch when spreading Christmas cheer with this tasty bread!

I’ve taken it to several holiday parties over the years and it’s always a hit.

How to Make Pistachio Bread

It’s super easy to make this bread with basic ingredients.

Ingredients You’ll Need:

• Yellow cake mix
• Pistachio pudding mix
• Water
• Vegetable oil
• Eggs
• Green food coloring (optional)
• Sprinkles (optional)

How to Make it:

(Full printable recipe card is available below)

Mix the batter. First, you’ll start with a box of yellow cake mix. Add in some instant pistachio pudding, some hot water, vegetable oil, and eggs.

Need a recipe that doesn’t use cake mix? Try my from-scratch pistachio bread with cranberries instead!

The pudding mix will give the bread a good bit of green color, but if you want to brighten it up a bit, you can add a few drops of green food coloring.

Mix all of that together until it’s smooth and well-combined.

Pour it into two greased loaf pans.

If you’d like, you can add some fun sprinkles on top if you want to take the festive factor up a notch.

Bake the pistachio bread. Bake for about 40-50 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Want to make it in cake form? Check out my easy pistachio cake recipe! Or make pistachio cupcakes!

More Delicious Holiday Recipes You’ll Love:

• Festive Cranberry Streusel Pie
• Easy Eggnog Bread
• Easy Biscoff Loaf Cake from a Mix
• Creamy Speculoos Tiramisu Pudding
• Homemade Peppermint Swirl Marshmallows
• Amazing Gingerbread with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Notes and Adaptations for Pistachio Bread

• This bread makes a really fun, inexpensive, edible gift. Think teachers, neighbors, friends, coworkers, etc. (Obviously, just don’t give it to anyone with a nut allergy in their household). You can bake these in foil loaf pans, either full-size or mini-size, wrap with cellophane and a pretty bow or fun gift tag, and deliver Christmas cheer! Looking for another homemade gift idea? Try these stove top candied almonds and homemade peppermint swirl marshmallows!
• If baking in mini loaf pans, I recommend you fill them no more than halfway full, and start checking on them after 25 minutes of baking, because they will bake a little faster. Check on them every 5 minutes until the toothpick comes out clean.
• These freeze well! Wrap cooled, individual loaves tightly with plastic wrap and pop in the freezer until you need them. This is a great way to simplify your holiday baking, because you can make them ahead of time, or you can pull one out if you have unexpected holiday company!
• The green food coloring and sprinkles are optional, but I like the enhanced colors.
• Add in more pistachios if desired. You can certainly add some chopped pistachios to the batter if you’d like!

UPDATE December 2021:

For years, I made this bread using 3 pudding mixes. However, over the past few years, cake mixes have decreased in size from 18.25-ounces to 15.25-ounces. More recently some mixes have decreased to 13.25-oz.

For some readers, using 3 pudding mixes with the smaller cake mixes has caused their loaves to sink in the middle.

Because I don’t want the recipe to be unreliable, I did additional testing using the smaller cake mixes, and found that using 2 pudding mixes yields the most consistent results now.

If you have had success with 3 mixes in the past, feel free to continue using 3. But for the most reliable results, 2 boxes works well and still provides plenty of pistachio flavor.

I also recommend using 8×4″ loaf pans instead of 9×5″ pans, due to the fact that there is slightly less batter now than in the past with the larger cake mixes.

I tested the recipe in both aluminum and stoneware loaf pans, and both worked perfectly.

Enjoy! 🙂