British recipes
These British recipes are comfort food done properly: pies with real pastry, puddings with custard, and a breakfast that takes the whole pan. It is cooking for cold evenings and long weekends, and most of it is simpler than its reputation.
Make bangers and mash on a weeknight, beef Wellington for an occasion, cullen skink when it is raining and a full English at the weekend, then apple crumble or banoffee pie to finish. Each recipe gives exact amounts, scales to your table and turns into a shopping list everyone in the house can see.
22 recipes
Beef Wellington🇬🇧 British recipes · Dinner · 4 h
Full English Breakfast🇬🇧 British recipes · Breakfast · 35 min
Bangers and Mash🇬🇧 British recipes · Dinner · 50 min
Banoffee Pie🇬🇧 British recipes · Dessert · 3 h
Apple Crumble🇬🇧 British recipes · Dessert · 1 h 10 min
Crumpets🇬🇧 British recipes · Breakfast · 2 h
Baked Apples🇬🇧 British recipes · Dessert · 1 h 5 min
Bread and Butter Pudding🇬🇧 British recipes · Dessert · 1 h 30 min
Cauliflower Cheese🇬🇧 British recipes · Side dish · 50 min
Colcannon🇬🇧 British recipes · Side dish · 40 min
Cullen Skink🇬🇧 British recipes · Lunch · 45 min
Irish Soda Bread🇬🇧 British recipes · Side dish · 1 h 5 min
Irish Stew🇬🇧 British recipes · Dinner · 2 h 50 min
Sticky Toffee Pudding🇬🇧 British recipes · Dessert · 1 h
Chicken and Leek Pie🇬🇧 British recipes · Dinner · 2 h 30 min
Kedgeree🇬🇧 British recipes · Breakfast · 1 h 5 min
Lancashire Hotpot🇬🇧 British recipes · Dinner · 3 h 30 min
Toad in the Hole🇬🇧 British recipes · Dinner · 1 h 15 min
Cottage Pie🇬🇧 British recipes · Dinner · 2 h 35 min
Macaroni Cheese🇬🇧 British recipes · Dinner · 55 min
Shepherd’s Pie🇬🇧 British recipes · Dinner · 1 h 55 min
Steak and Ale Pie🇬🇧 British recipes · Dinner · 5 h 30 min
What is traditional British food
British cooking grew out of a cool, damp climate and a thrifty kitchen. Potatoes, dairy, oats and smoked fish run through it, and many classics started as ways to use what was left: bread and butter pudding turns stale bread into a baked custard, and colcannon, from across the Irish Sea, makes a meal of potato and cabbage.
Dishes keep their places with them. Cullen skink is named after a fishing village in Scotland, and crumpets belong to English teatime. Newer puddings fit the same mould, which is why banoffee pie, built on biscuits, toffee and cream, sits so easily beside the older ones.
Pastry, gravy and custard: the skills that matter
Three things make or break British cooking. Pastry has to stay cold and crisp: beef Wellington is chilled firm at every stage so the base does not go soggy, and the chicken and leek pie has a hole cut in its lid to let the steam out.
Gravy should come from the pan, not a packet. The onion gravy for bangers and mash is built on slowly cooked onions and stock, with the sausages’ roasting juices stirred in at the end for flavour.
Custard is only milk or cream, eggs and sugar cooked gently. It sets the bread and butter pudding, and it is what apple crumble is served with.
How to time a full English and plan a British dinner
A full English is mostly a timing problem. Bacon, sausages, black pudding, tomato, mushrooms, eggs and beans all cook at different speeds, and the recipe here puts them in an order that gets everything to the plate hot at the same moment.
For a dinner party, beef Wellington does most of its work ahead: the mushroom duxelles and the wrapped parcel can be made earlier and chilled, leaving only a short, hot bake. Serve cauliflower cheese alongside and banoffee pie, which waits happily in the fridge, for pudding.
Crumpets are a slower treat than they look. The batter needs time to rise before it goes into rings on the griddle, so make them on a quiet afternoon and toast any leftovers the next day.
Frequently asked questions
- What is in a full English breakfast?
- A full English is a cooked breakfast of bacon, sausages, eggs, black pudding, tomato, mushrooms and baked beans, usually with toast and tea. It is a weekend or café meal rather than an everyday one. The version on this page takes about 35 minutes. Black pudding is a blood sausage, and it can be left off any plate where it is not wanted.
- What is cullen skink?
- Cullen skink is a thick Scottish soup of smoked haddock, potato and onion cooked in milk, named after the fishing village of Cullen on the Moray Firth. It is thickened by mashing half of the potato into the soup rather than with flour, and the recipe on this page is gluten-free.
- What is banoffee pie made of?
- Banoffee pie has a base of crushed digestive biscuits, a thick layer of dark toffee made from condensed milk, sliced bananas and a heap of softly whipped cream, finished with grated chocolate. The name joins banana and toffee. It was created at the Hungry Monk, a restaurant in Sussex. Allow about three hours in total.
- What goes with bangers and mash?
- Onion gravy is the essential part, made from slowly cooked onions, stock and the sausages’ roasting juices rather than from a packet, as in the recipe here. Buttered greens or peas are the usual vegetable. For a change, serve the sausages on colcannon, mashed potato folded with savoy cabbage and spring onions, which brings the greens and the mash together.