Simply lamb, beef, oats, onions and spices, nothing more, nothing less. Haggis is basically like an oaty, spicy mince and a great source of iron, fibre and carbohydrate with no artificial colours, flavourings or preservatives. Each haggis maker will have a slightly different recipe, but this is the way our Grandfather made it and we think it’s the best tasting recipe there is! Our vegetarian haggis is a combination of healthy fresh vegetables, mushrooms, pulses, oats, onions and seeds. It is approved by the vegetarian society and is suitable for vegans, but is loved by meat-eaters too.

The biggest myth of all, in a way, is that haggis belongs to Scotland alone. Haggis is actually a very ancient, global dish. Going back thousands of years, when hunters returned with their kill they would cook-up the parts of the animal that needed eaten first. The fresh offal would be chopped and mixed with cereal and herbs and cooked over the fire in the ready-made saucepan (the stomach). Hey presto – the first haggis. Many cultures actually had haggis made from different animals depending on what was being hunted and we like to think of haggis as the celebratory dish that everyone shared after the big hunt!

So why is haggis so closely associated with Scotland? The answer lies in poetry and a Scottish writer called Robert Burns. When he wrote his eight-verse ‘Address to a Haggis’ he had no idea that it would be repeated around the globe every January at haggis-fuelled suppers, but after his death in 1796 his friends organised a Burns Supper in his honour and the tradition continues to this day. Burns unwittingly elevated haggis from its humble origins to something iconic so we like to think of him as the patron saint of haggis. While the 25th January is an important date, don’t forget that haggis is a wonderfully flexible dish and can be eated on any day of the year. Visit our recipe pages to find a multitude of recipe ideas.