Skip to content

Scrapple substitute

Best substitute

Livermush or Liver Pudding

Use the same amount by weight, slice for slice as the scrapple you are replacing

Best for breakfast plates

Close match

The best substitutes are livermush or liver pudding if you can find them, since they are the same idea from a few states south, or fried mush and polenta slices when you want the crisp-outside, creamy-inside texture without the pork. For a plain breakfast plate, breakfast sausage patties cover the savoury pork role, though you lose scrapple's soft interior entirely.

Other scrapple substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

Substitutes for Scrapple with ratios

  1. 2Fried Cornmeal Mush

    Different taste

    Use the same amount slice for slice

    Stiff cooked cornmeal chilled in a loaf pan, sliced and pan-fried, which is scrapple with the meat left out.

    What changes
    Best for
    breakfast, serving with syrup, vegetarian plates, under fried eggs

    Texturally this is a genuinely excellent match, since the crisp crust and soft interior come from the cornmeal in the first place. What you lose is all the pork: it tastes mild and cereal-sweet rather than savoury and peppery. Cook the mush in chicken or pork broth instead of water and season it with sage, black pepper and a little salt, and it moves a long way toward scrapple.

  2. 3Polenta Slices

    Different taste

    Use the same amount slice for slice

    Firm cooked polenta, or a tube of ready-made polenta from the supermarket, sliced into rounds and fried.

    What changes
    Best for
    breakfast, quick weekday cooking, gluten-free plates

    The tube version is the fastest route to scrapple's texture with zero effort, and it crisps beautifully in bacon fat. It is coarser and more distinctly corn-flavoured than scrapple and completely unseasoned, so fry it in rendered pork fat and hit it with salt, pepper and a pinch of dried sage as it comes out of the pan.

  3. 4Breakfast Sausage Patties

    Different texture

    Use the same amount by weight

    Bulk or preformed fresh pork sausage seasoned with sage and black pepper.

    What changes
    Best for
    breakfast plates, biscuit sandwiches, hash

    The right swap when what you actually need is a savoury pork item next to the eggs. The seasoning is close, since sage and pepper define both, but sausage is all meat and stays firm and springy, so you lose the soft, almost pudding-like centre that people either love or hate about scrapple. It also gives off far more fat in the pan.

  4. 5Goetta

    Different texture

    Use the same amount slice for slice

    The Cincinnati German cousin of scrapple, made with pork, beef and steel-cut oats instead of cornmeal.

    What changes
    Best for
    breakfast plates, frying in slices, sandwiches

    Very close in spirit and handled identically in the pan. The oats give it a chewier, nuttier bite where scrapple's cornmeal is finer and smoother, and the beef in the mix makes it taste a little heavier. If your grocery store carries goetta but not scrapple, use it without hesitation.

  5. 6Braunschweiger or Liverwurst, Pan-Seared

    Taste and texture differ

    ¾ the weight of the scrapple

    Soft spreadable pork liver sausage, cut thick and browned in a dry pan.

    What changes
    Best for
    sandwiches, breakfast when nothing else is available

    This is the least-bad option rather than a good one, and worth being honest about. It carries the liver and pork flavour but has no starch to hold it together, so thick slices soften and want to fall apart, and it never develops a real crust. Use a very hot dry pan, do not move the slices, and expect something spreadable rather than crisp.

What is Scrapple?

Scrapple is a loaf of seasoned pork scraps and broth thickened with cornmeal and buckwheat flour, known in Pennsylvania Dutch country as pon haus or panhaas, chilled until firm then sliced and fried so it turns crisp and brown outside while the middle stays soft and almost custardy.

Cooking tips

  • Slice scrapple and every substitute here about 3/8 inch thick, no thinner. Thin slices dry into hard crackers before the centre ever gets creamy, which is the single most common mistake and the reason people think they dislike scrapple.
  • Fry it in a well-preheated pan in bacon fat or oil and then leave it alone for four or five minutes per side. Scrapple and its cornmeal-based stand-ins are fragile until a crust forms, and poking or flipping early is what makes slices crumble.
  • Chill the loaf hard before slicing, straight from the fridge. This applies double to homemade cornmeal mush, which needs at least four hours and ideally overnight in a loaf pan before it will hold a clean slice.
  • If you are replacing scrapple with plain mush or polenta, borrow the seasoning rather than the shape. Sage, black pepper, a little marjoram and salt are what make scrapple taste like scrapple, and cooking the grain in pork or chicken broth rather than water does more for the flavour than anything you add at the table.
  • Scrapple is traditionally eaten with something sharp or sweet against it, usually apple butter, maple syrup, ketchup or mustard. Whatever substitute you use, keep that contrast, because these are rich fatty slices that fall flat without it.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave the scrapple out?

Usually yes, because scrapple is almost always a breakfast side rather than an ingredient inside a larger dish. Swap in whatever savoury breakfast item you have, such as sausage, bacon or fried potatoes, and the meal still works. The only time it truly matters is in a recipe such as scrapple hash or a scrapple sandwich where it is the main event.

What is scrapple actually made of?

Pork trimmings and offal simmered into a broth, which is then thickened with cornmeal and usually buckwheat flour, seasoned with sage, black pepper and marjoram, and set into a loaf. The starch is the point, and it is why cornmeal mush or polenta substitutes for the texture better than any pure meat product does.

Is scrapple the same as livermush?

They are close relatives rather than the same thing. Both are pork-and-cornmeal loaves that get sliced and fried, but livermush is a North Carolina product with a much higher proportion of liver, so it tastes distinctly more mineral. Livermush and liver pudding are the best one-for-one replacements available.

Why does my scrapple substitute fall apart in the pan?

Almost always because it is too warm, sliced too thin, or moved too soon. Chill it thoroughly, cut slices a good 3/8 inch thick, get the pan properly hot before the slice goes in, and then do not touch it until a crust has formed and it releases on its own. Liverwurst-based swaps will always be fragile because they contain no starch.

Is there a vegetarian version of scrapple?

Fried cornmeal mush is the honest answer, and it is a real dish in its own right in the same part of the country. Cook the cornmeal in a well-seasoned vegetable broth, add sage, pepper and a little soy sauce or mushroom powder for savoury depth, chill it in a loaf pan, then slice and fry. You get the exact texture, and the seasoning does the rest.

Related substitutes

More meat & protein substitutes

Need a different ingredient?

Browse the full index, or the rest of this category.

Browse all substitutesMore meat & protein