Traditional Irish Breakfast

You’re not likely to find a traditional Irish breakfast on many menus in the United States. Although some traditional American breakfasts (like Denny’s Smoked Sausage Slam) offer the same amount of food (and meat), a few items on the Irish menu might make some brunchers this side of the Atlantic a bit squeamish.

Black pudding is one of these items. Unlike American-style sweet pudding, this delicacy is more like a sausage in appearance. Made from onions, suet, pork, oatmeal, and flavorings, its most notable ingredient is blood, usually pig’s. Blood gives the pudding its color. White pudding, also on the breakfast menu, is made without it.

This hearty breakfast could definitely soak up the boozy remains of a whiskey-and-beer-filled St. Paddy’s Day—if your morning-after stomach can tolerate sausage rich in hemoglobin. Here’s what the whole shebang entails:

Two eggs: Cooked to order, but traditionally scrambled or fried.

Irish sausage: Pork sausage such as Donnelly’s.

Irish bacon: Similar to Canadian bacon, Irish bacon is soft, not cooked to a crisp like American bacon.

Black pudding: Since making your own blood sausage requires access to pig’s blood or dried blood (both relatively hard to come by), ready-made pudding, sliced thickly and gently grilled, is probably your best option when making the Irish breakfast.

White pudding: Again, ready-made may be easier to find than pork casings. Slice and grill.

Sliced tomato: cooked in bacon or pudding fat. 

Fried potatoes: cooked in bacon or pudding fat.

On the side: Irish breakfast tea with milk, sweet Irish butter, brown bread, and Irish preserves.