Blood Sausage substitute

Best substitute

Black Pudding, Boudin Noir, Morcilla or Kaszanka

Use the same amount as the blood sausage you are replacing

Best for Himmel und Erde

Close match

The honest answer is that nothing tastes like blood sausage, because nothing else has the iron-y mineral note that blood gives it. The genuine swaps are the other regional versions, which are all effectively the same food and go 1:1: black pudding, boudin noir, morcilla, Polish kaszanka or Korean sundae. Failing those, liverwurst or Braunschweiger comes closest in dark richness, and a coarse pork sausage fried hard into patties gets the texture and none of the depth. In a dish like Himmel und Erde, a substitute gives you a good plate of food that is missing its point, and that is worth knowing before you start.

Other blood sausage substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Liverwurst or Braunschweiger
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by weight
The nearest option that contains no blood.
What changes
It shares the soft dark richness and the organ-meat depth, but it is spreadable rather than sliceable, so it browns and slumps where blood sausage crisps and holds. Chill it hard, cut thick slices, and cook it gently. Add a pinch of allspice and plenty of black pepper.
Best for
Himmel und Erde, with fried apple and mashed potato, butcher's plates
Prep. Chill thoroughly, slice 1.5 cm thick, and warm gently in a pan rather than frying hard.
It will not hold a slice in a hot pan the way blood sausage does. Accept a softer result rather than raising the heat.
3Coarse Fresh Pork Sausage with Allspice and Black Pepper
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by weight
Formed into thick patties and fried hard, this gives you a savoury, crisp-edged, fatty disc that sits in exactly the same place on the plate.
What changes
There is no iron note, no dark colour and much less depth, so the meal becomes lighter and simpler. The least-bad option if what you need is rich fried sausage next to apples and potato.
Best for
Himmel und Erde, breakfast plates, with mashed potato and onion
Prep. Squeeze the meat from its casings, mix in 1/4 tsp allspice and 1/2 tsp black pepper per 8 oz, form thick patties, fry hard for a real crust.
Fry hotter and longer than you would a normal sausage. The crust is doing the work the blood normally does.
4Haggis or a Lamb Offal Pudding
Different taste
Use the same amount
Texturally very close to black pudding: oaty, crumbly, peppery and rich, and it fries in slices the same way.
What changes
The flavour is sheepy and much spicier rather than mineral, so the plate tastes warmer and more peppered than iron-y. A reasonable stand-in wherever black pudding was intended.
Best for
full breakfasts, with fried egg, with neeps and potato
Prep. Slice cold, dust lightly with flour, and fry 2 to 3 minutes a side to set a crust.
Dusting with flour helps it hold together, since haggis is looser than blood sausage.
5Spanish Chorizo
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by weight in stews
Only for stews and braises, where morcilla and chorizo already appear side by side.
What changes
It is dark red, fatty and deeply savoury and it stains the broth the way morcilla does, but the flavour is paprika and garlic to the front rather than mineral. In a bean stew it works beautifully; on a breakfast plate it is plainly a different thing.
Best for
bean stews, fabada-style dishes, lentils, rice dishes
Prep. Slice and render in the pan first so the fat and colour flavour the whole dish.
Use semi-cured cooking chorizo rather than the hard slicing kind, which will not render.
6Vegetarian Black Pudding or a Beetroot and Black Bean Patty
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
Gets the dark colour and, from the beetroot, a surprising amount of the earthy mineral impression.
What changes
What is entirely absent is the fat, so it needs oil and hard frying to develop a crust, and the result is sweeter and softer than the original. Commercial vegetarian black puddings, made with oats and beetroot, are the better of the two.
Best for
vegetarian breakfasts, with fried apple, on toast
Prep. Fry in a good film of oil over medium-high heat, 3 minutes a side, and do not move it while the crust forms.
Season more assertively than you expect, with black pepper, allspice and a little salt.
7Omit It and Add a Smoked Pork Element
Taste and texture differ
Use omit, plus 1 smoked ham hock or 4 oz bacon for every dish
In a bean stew, a cassoulet, a fabada or a lentil pot, dropping the blood sausage and adding a smoked ham hock or a piece of bacon keeps the dish coherent, because what the blood sausage was mostly contributing there was salt, fat and dark savoury depth.
What changes
On a breakfast plate or in Himmel und Erde it is a visible absence and you would be better off with liverwurst.
Best for
bean stews, lentil dishes, cassoulet, soups
Prep. Add the hock at the start of the simmer so it renders and salts the whole pot.
Do not add salt until the hock has simmered an hour; it releases plenty on its own.

What is Blood Sausage?

Blood Sausage is a sausage set with pig's blood and a starchy filler, which cooks to a dark, dense, crumbly-to-sliceable pudding, sold as Blutwurst or Schwarzwurst in Germany, black pudding in Britain and Ireland, boudin noir in France and morcilla in Spain.

Cooking tips

Blood sausage is already cooked, so all you are doing is heating it and building a crust. Cut 1 cm slices, medium heat, a little fat, 2 to 3 minutes a side, and turn it exactly once. Poking and flipping repeatedly is what makes it crumble into the pan.
Chill it thoroughly before slicing and use a thin sharp knife. Blood sausage at room temperature smears rather than cuts, and thin slices fall apart no matter how careful you are.
Fry it in its own pan, or last. It sheds dark fat that discolours anything cooked alongside it, which is why a mixed breakfast usually has the black pudding at one end of the pan.
It is rich and salty and needs sweetness and acid next to it: fried apple, apple sauce, mashed potato, pickled onion, mustard. If you swap in something milder such as a plain pork sausage, keep the apple but ease off any added sugar or the plate tips sweet.
Check the casing before slicing. Natural casings are edible once fried, but some blood sausages are sold in plastic or synthetic casing that must be peeled off first. If it looks like plastic, it is.
Warming it whole in barely simmering water, the traditional German method, keeps it soft and sliceable; frying it makes it crisp and crumbly. Match the method to what the recipe expects, because the two eat quite differently.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave it out?

In a bean stew or on a mixed platter, yes, especially if you add a smoked pork element such as a ham hock to keep the depth. In Himmel und Erde, a full Irish or English breakfast, or a German butcher's plate where the blood sausage is the point, leaving it out changes what you are making.

Is black pudding the same as blood sausage?

Yes in every practical sense. Black pudding is the British and Irish version, usually bulked with oatmeal, while German Blutwurst tends to be meatier and flecked with cubes of fat. They substitute for each other one for one in any recipe.

What can I use if I do not want to eat blood?

Liverwurst comes closest for richness and colour, a coarse fried pork sausage gets the texture, and a vegetarian black pudding made with oats and beetroot gets the look and some of the earthiness. None of them tastes like the original, and it is fairer to say that than to pretend otherwise.

Why does mine fall apart in the pan?

Usually one of four things: it was too warm when sliced, cut too thin, moved around too much, or the pan was not hot enough to set a crust before the inside softened. Thick slices, well chilled, medium-high heat, one flip.

Is blood sausage safe to eat without cooking?

It is sold cooked, so it is safe cold and is eaten that way on German bread platters. It is much better warmed through. Treat an opened package like any other cooked charcuterie: keep it refrigerated and use it within a few days.

Related substitutes

More meat & protein substitutes

Blood Sausage substitute

Other blood sausage substitutes

2Liverwurst or Braunschweiger

3Coarse Fresh Pork Sausage with Allspice and Black Pepper

4Haggis or a Lamb Offal Pudding

5Spanish Chorizo

6Vegetarian Black Pudding or a Beetroot and Black Bean Patty

7Omit It and Add a Smoked Pork Element