There’s nothing more flattering than hearing from people in the UK that your restaurant is a home away from home. Fun fact — the names of popular British foods are misleading, especially to us Americans. Jokes aside, they are delicious and always a good idea to include in your menu.
They will attract foodies who love trying new and exciting cuisine. Plus, you’ll also see patrons from the UK, provided you keep it authentic. We recommend starting with this list. It consists of common British foods from our neighbors across the Atlantic Ocean.
Yorkshire Pudding
There’s one thing that people all over the world love — a good pudding. But for the Brits, it’s the Yorkshire pudding. Now, if you’re in America, you’ll assume they are referring to the milk-based, sweet dessert. Nope! It is sweet, but this famous English food is more bread-based than milk-based.
This North English dish can go with anything if you don’t mind being creative with your palette. It’s even a good combination with meat and gravy. Sometimes, you can even stuff it with different ingredients. You can make this pudding with flour, eggs, milk, or water — whatever floats your boat!
Sunday Roast Dinner
The Yorkshire pudding is a good way to prepare your stomach for what comes next — the Sunday roast dinner. Yes, these two popular English foods go together, and believe it or not, people eat them on Sundays.
Here’s a bit of a history lesson. The Christians from the UK would fast before going to church on Sunday. After service, they break the fast with a large and hearty meal. This probably explains why this dish contains roasted meat, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, and vegetables.
The meat can be beef, but you can also use lamb or pork. You can include Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, parsnips, carrots, peas, or cauliflower for the veggies. In other words, whatever you can find from a nearby grocery store.
Now, to make it truly British, you have to pour the delicious gravy over everything. If you see anything dry, give it a good ol’ serving of gravy. What’s so important about the gravy in these popular English dishes? Well, it has the juices of the meat. And this, with the potatoes, mashed or roasted, is a heavenly combo!
Oh, and before we forget, we recommend serving the Sunday roast dinner with onion gravy, mint sauce, or apple sauce.
Cornish Pasty
Looks can be deceiving, especially when you come across a cornish pasty. What do you think is inside these famous English dishes? Congratulations if you guessed meat or potato-based fillings, because that’s correct.
They came from Cornwall, a town with a large working population. Miners loved these dishes because they could carry them in their pockets. Usually, people like to fill their pockets with candy, but we guess people from Cornwall had other ideas.
This is still the national dish of Cornwall, even though it is only a county — go figure!
Full English Breakfast
Do you want to have only one meal that’ll keep you full until the sun goes down during the weekend? We recommend giving the full English breakfast a go. And boy, they really weren’t kidding when they included ‘full’ when naming this meal.
When you order this dish, expect grilled tomatoes, toast, English sausages, eggs, bacon, baked beans, and black pudding. The best part is that all of this comes on one plate.
Remember how we started by saying British food can often be misleading.
Black pudding is one of those popular UK foods. For the non-Brits, it is a type of blood sausage made from pork’s blood, fat, and grain. When you break it down like this, it doesn’t seem appetizing. But, in British culture, this is their staple.
Naturally, every family has their own variations of the English breakfast. Some people will swap the buttered bread toast for fried bread. But no English breakfast is complete without a cup of tea.
Toad in the Hole
Tell us the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear ‘toad in the hole.’ Bet you didn’t expect it to be sausages with Yorkshire pudding batter. The origins of this famous food in England go back to the 17th century. We guess it was such a different time that toad in the hole made sense.
Once you pour the Yorkshire pudding over the sausages, you must bake them in the oven. Put loads of onion gravy after you bake this dish and enjoy.
This dish goes well when it’s winter. Pretty sure you can eat it during summer!
Spotted Dick
Never judge a dish by its name, especially popular British dishes! The spotted dick, which may come as a surprise to you, is a British dessert. It consists of currants or raisins, flour, and sugar. But, there’s one more surprise — it also contains suet. If you don’t know what it is, it is fat that comes from a sheep’s kidney or loins.
Before you take a bite, make sure it has loads of custard. You need milk, sugar, and egg yolks to make custard. You can also include cream. Make sure you add vanilla to give it that delectable flavor. We also suggest some cornflour to keep the eggs stable.
Trust us, you’ll be a fan of this dessert with the first bite alone!
Pie and Mash
You only need minced beef and mashed potatoes to make this popular food from the UK. You also have to add liquor to your plate. Now, don’t get your hopes up because this liquor has nothing to do with alcohol.
It is a parsley-based sauce containing corn flour, butter, chicken stock, pureed garlic cloves, and parsley leaves. Back in the day, i.e., a long, long time ago, the British used eels instead of minced beef.
Shepherd’s Pie
The first time you bite into the shepherd’s pie, it’s normal to expect some form of dessert. But since this is a British dish, it has nothing to do with sweet treats. Instead, it has minced beef or lamb, peas, and mashed potatoes.
There are all sorts of variations, which highlight why this is one of the popular foods in the UK. Apparently, people made this dish from leftover meat from the Sunday roast dinner.
The name of this United Kingdom’s popular food comes from minced lamb. Make sure the top layer, i.e., the one with mashed potatoes, gets a golden hue. Bonus points if you get the minced meat to bubble.
Fish and Chips
What is the most popular food in the UK? According to Statista, Fish and fish is the most popular food in the UK. In other words, fish and chips are as British as you can possibly imagine. You’ll see thousands of fish and chips shops everywhere you go in the UK. Now, we would like to make one thing clear for non-Brits about the most eaten food in the UK.
Chips refers to French fries, not the bag of potato chips you see in every supermarket.
Did you know this dish didn’t originate in the UK, even though it is the most popular food in England? You can trace its roots to Jewish migrants from Spain and Portugal.
Initially, they prepared the fish by following the Pescado frito recipe from southern Spain.
People even call fish and chips chippy. When you eat this classic street food, it comes with battered and fried fish and chips. There’s also grease-proof paper under the UK’s most popular food.
The common condiment you’ll add to this the most popular dish in the UK is malt vinegar. However, this isn’t real vinegar. Instead, it is a non-brewed condiment. This sauce contains water, ethanoic or acetic acid, food coloring, and flavorings.
The fish is usually cod, but you can also use plaice and haddock. You coat the fish in batter and deep fry it until it becomes golden brown. You can also serve these UK popular foods with peas, usually pureed ones.
We will ask this question one more time, ‘What is the most popular food in the UK?’ Just scream the answer as loud as you possibly can!
Scotch Egg
The Scotch egg is a classic British food. All you have to do is boil an egg and wrap it in sausage meat. Wait, don’t eat it just yet because you still have to cook it. Make sure you bread this snack and deep fry it. You can also bake this famous food in the UK if you like cooking your meals this way.
Several other cultures have a similar variation of this. In Indian and Middle Eastern cultures, there’s Nargis Kofta, which consists of breaded eggs.
If you can find any pickled onions or red cabbage, put it on your plate with Scotch egg, and enjoy!
Trifle
You’ll always make room for dessert, no matter how full you feel, especially when you see a trifle. It just seems like endless layers of mouthwatering dessert. And for good reason. The base usually consists of sponge fingers, which you can soak in sherry.
Fruit jelly is a must because that’s what the Brits expect inside the most popular English food. You need loads and loads of custard to go with this dessert. Whipped cream is also a must in this dish and must be on top.
You can dive in after creating all these layers because the United Kingdom’s most popular food requires zero baking.
Eton Mess
The further you go into this list, the hungrier you’ll get, especially when you see the Eton Mess. It’s really simple to make the UK’s favorite food and hard to go wrong.
You need strawberries or other berries like raspberries, ample amounts of whipped cream, and meringue. The dish is true to its name because it looks like a mess when you combine all the ingredients.
Summer is the best time to enjoy the United Kingdom’s favorite foods.
Bangers and Mash
One thing is for sure — these popular British meals have nothing to do with music, especially the banger bit. But it is pretty delicious, especially if you find one in a bar. Bangers are another word for sausage, a term that became popular in World War I. This is because the sausages during this period popped while cooking.
Well, it’s not what you’re thinking. The main reason was that the sausages had more water than meat.
The traditional way to prepare this dish is with Cumberland sausage, but you can use lamb, beef, or pork sausage. As usual, you serve bangers with mashed potatoes and peas. Don’t forget to drench this dish with onion gravy.
Christmas Pudding
When it’s the holiday season, it’s time to pull out the recipe for Christmas pudding from the 17th century. It is a staple in British homes and has all the ingredients a pudding requires.
Dried fruits, alcohol, suet, dark sugar, and spices like nutmeg. Steam this dessert and leave it in a cloth to enhance the flavors. It’s best to eat this mouthwatering dessert after a glorious Christmas dinner.
Haggis
Sometimes, it’s better to not ask what’s in a dish before ordering it, especially Haggis. This dish comes from Scotland and is the country’s national dish.
Why should you not ask what’s in it? Good question, and here’s why — you need a sheep’s stomach as the casing. You stuff it with stock, suet, onions, a sheep’s lungs, liver, heart, and oatmeal. Oh, don’t forget the seasoning.
Now, you’d imagine the flavor to be interesting. Yes, you’re correct because the taste is rich, and the texture is nutty. Individually, all the ingredients seem like they won’t be delicious. But, once you put everything together, we recommend serving it with boiled and mashed potatoes and swede.
Steak and Kidney Pudding and Pie
You’ll never expect what you’ll find in a steak and kidney pudding pie. Sure, you know it has steak, so if you guessed beef, you got the first part.
The kidney part of the favorite food in the UK comes from beef and cow kidneys. Wait a minute, don’t you have to make the pudding and the pie? Yes, you do, and you use the same ingredients for both. The only difference is how you cook the pudding and the pie. You steam the pudding while the other is in a traditional pie.
Crumble
The Brits sure do love their desserts because once you try the crumble, there’s no going back. You put fruit, like apples, but not just any apple. This recipe requires Bramley apples because that’s what makes it unique.
Add sugar and cinnamon, and put everything in a baking tray. Cover the dish with breadcrumbs, which you can make with butter, sugar, and flour. Put in your oven and bake until the top turns golden brown.
The apples should be soft. This common food in the UK goes well with cream or custard. But combine both if you want to savor every bite.
Cream Tea
Finally, cream tea is another UK popular food and the last one on this list. The tea should preferably be Earl Grey with a spot of milk or lemon. True to British tradition, it comes with scones, clotted cream, jam, and butter.
Now, when you eat the scone, you need to cut it in half. Add butter, jam, and clotted cream to each half of the scone.
Looking for another way to keep your cafe booming besides serving the most popular meals in the UK homes? Consider offering free guest WiFi because it gets people to stay and keep coming back. They can work remotely, check in on friends, and post photos of your mouth-watering British food to social media.
With Beambox’s WiFi marketing services, you can gain valuable customer data while your guests browse the internet. Our services allow you to learn about your target audience and serve them better. Moreover, you can promote exclusive offers and increase awareness about the new items on your menu.
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