Is it Lorne Sausage or Square Sausage? We asked the members on our Scottish Scran Facebook, and there was much debate, alongside all sorts of extra names too!
“Slice” or “Sliced“, “Square Slice” or “Flat Sausage” or our new favourite, “Squasage”, were a few of the other suggestions as well.
But whatever name you decide to go with, this simple but tasty meat square is a Scottish classic and is just perfect packed inside a morning roll or as part of a full Scottish breakfast.
For the rest of the recipe, we’ll mostly refer to it as Lorne or Lorne sausage since that seemed to be the most popular, but rest assured, we’re well aware of all its wonderful names!
What is Lorne Sausage made of?
Lorne sausage is a Scottish food traditionally made from minced meat often beef and pork, spices and rusk or breadcrumbs.
Unlike a traditional sausage, a Scottish square sausage has no casing, which means it’s easy to make at home. Due to it’s lack of casing Lorne sausage is made as a whole, then sliced into squares. Perfect for rolls, sandwiches and full Scottish breakfasts.
We thought it was about time we came up with our own Lorne sausage recipe.
Scroll to the end or use the table of contents to be taken straight to the Printable Recipe Card.
- What is Lorne Sausage made of?
- Where does Lorne Sausage come from?
- Why is it called Lorne Sausage?
- Things you’ll need to make this Lorne Sausage Recipe
- Ingredients for this Homemade Lorne Sausage Recipe
- How to make Lorne Sausage – Step by step method
- Printable Lorne Sausage Recipe Card
- Other Scottish Breakfast Recipes to Try:
Where does Lorne Sausage come from?
The exact origins of Lorne sausage, like many traditional Scottish foods, is unclear. It’s likely it was in the latter 19th century when metal tins also became more popular, and it would have been cheaper to shape the sausage in these than in a casing.
Why is it called Lorne Sausage?
Of course, there is contention about the origins of the name “Lorne Sausage” as well. A popular story is that it was because of Glaswegian comedian Tommy Lorne, who made jokes about square sausages looking a bit like doormats.
However, there is evidence of advertisements from butchers for “Lorne Sausage” at least 6 years before Tommy Lorne was even born.
More likely is that it was named for the extinct district of Lorne, which was part of what is now known as Argyll and Bute, although there is no direct evidence for this either.
Another option is that it was named for the Marquess of Lorne, which was the name given to the son of the Duke of Argyll.
The Marquess of Lorne, in the late 19th century, was well-known for marrying one of Queen Victoria’s daughters, so it’s possible the sausage was named for him for some reason. I mean, who doesn’t want a sausage named after them?!
The truth is we’ll never know, but however it happened, the name has stuck in many households and shops across Scotland.
So let’s get to making our own Lorne or Square Sausage Recipe then!
Things you’ll need to make this Lorne Sausage Recipe
- Loaf tin to pack it into – we have one like this
- Cling Film or Beeswax wrap – we used cling film as we had some in our draw, but you could use a beeswax wrap to stop it from sticking to the tin as well
Ingredients for this Homemade Lorne Sausage Recipe
- 450g (1lb) minced beef
- 450g (1lb) minced pork
- 250g (1.5 cups) breadcrumbs (not fresh)
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 tsp salt ( add to taste)
- 1.5 tsp coriander
- 0.5 tsp nutmeg
- 0.5 tsp mace
- 120ml (0.5 cups) cold water
Using the right meat
You need to use meat that has a high percentage of fat, otherwise the sausage will be dry. Often these sausages shrink a lot when cooked as the fat content is high!
We used meat that was 20% fat and would say this should be a minimum.
Breadcrumbs or Rusk?
Using breadcrumbs or rusks also means the sausage won’t be dry and chewy. They help to absorb moisture. We used natural breadcrumbs in our Lorne sausage recipe, but you could also use rusk.
Rusk is a cereal ingredient made of wheat flour versus breadcrumbs, which are dried bread.
It’s often used to bulk up sausages and used when a large number of sausages are being prepared. We found breadcrumbs to be just as good, if not better, but you can use either.
How to make Lorne Sausage – Step by step method
Line your loaf tin or whatever you’re using to make the square sausage, with clingfilm, with enough hanging over the edges to wrap over the opening once you’ve put the sausage meat in it.
Add all the ingredients to a bowl and use your hands to thoroughly combine.
Squash the sausage meat into the loaf tin as densely as possible. If you have any left over, you can set it aside to make meat patties out of it!
Wrap the clingfilm over the top so it’s fully covered and place in the freezer for 2 hours, or until firm enough to slice.
Note, you should not use pre-frozen meat for this recipe as meat should only be frozen and thawed once. Alternatively, leave it in the refrigerator for 24 hours until it is firm.
Remove the sausage from the tin using the clingfilm to lift it out and then cut into 1cm slices.
You can use it immediately, put it in the fridge to be used within the next two days, or put pieces of baking paper between slices and place them in a container to fully freeze and pull them out to use as you wish.
Cook in a frying pan for a few minutes on each slide or grill, and then serve in a morning roll with your choice or sauce, as part of a full Scottish breakfast or even in your Stovies!
Printable Lorne Sausage Recipe Card
Easy Homemade Lorne Sausage Recipe
This simple but tasty meat square is a Scottish classic and is perfect packed inside a morning roll or as part of a full Scottish breakfast
Unlike a traditional sausage, a Scottish square sausage has no casing which means it’s easy to make at home, hence why we thought it was about time we came up with our own Lorne sausage recipe.
Ingredients
- 450g (1lb) minced beef
- 450g (1lb) minced pork
- 250g (1.5 cups) breadcrumbs (not fresh)
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 tsp salt ( add to taste)
- 1.5 tsp coriander
- 0.5 tsp nutmeg
- 0.5 tsp mace
- 120ml (1/2 cup) cold water
Instructions
- Line your loaf tin, or whatever you’re using to make the square sausage, with clingfilm, with enough hanging over the edges to wrap over the opening once you’ve put the sausage meat in it.
- Add all the ingredients to a bowl and use your hands to thoroughly combine.
- Squash the sausage meat into the loaf tin as densely as possible. If you have any leftover you can set aside to make meat patties out of it!
- Wrap the clingfilm over the top so it’s fully covered and place in the freezer for 2 hours, or until firm enough to slice.* Alternatively, leave it in the refrigerator for 24 hours until it is firm.
- Remove the sausage from the tin using the clingfilm to lift it out and then cut into 1cm slices.
- You can use it immediately, put it in the fridge to be used within the next 2 days, or put pieces of baking paper between slices and place them in a container to fully freeze and pull out to use as you wish.
- Cook in a frying pan for a few minutes each slide or grill and then serve in a morning roll with your choice of sauce, or as part of a full Scottish breakfast!
Notes
*Note: You should not use pre-frozen meat for this recipe as meat should only be frozen and thawed once.
Using High Fat Meat
You need to use meat that has a high percentage of fat, otherwise the sausage will be dry. Often these sausages shrink a lot when cooked as the fat content is high! We used meat that was 20% fat and would say this should be a minimum.
Using Breadcrumbs or Rusk
Using breadcrumbs or rusks also means the sausage won’t be dry and chewy. They help to absorb moisture. We used natural breadcrumbs in our Lorne sausage recipe, but you could also use rusk.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
12Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 276Total Fat: 13gSaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 66mgSodium: 209mgCarbohydrates: 15gFiber: 1gSugar: 1gProtein: 23g
Other Scottish Breakfast Recipes to Try:
- The Perfect Scottish Morning Rolls Recipe
- What is a Full Scottish Breakfast? And How to Make The Best One!
- Homemade Scottish Fruit Pudding Recipe
- How to Make Porridge – The Perfect Scottish Porridge
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I wish I could get a more sort of square tin for this.
Loaf pans are more rectangular. Any ideas please
That’s a tough one. It depends on what you’re able to find online and locally of course. When you slice your sausage you could always cut it square and use the cut off pieces in stovies?
You can use a square long life Milk Carton with the top cut off, it only needs cling film on the top, to seal it. Have fun
Excellent idea, we know exactly the carton you mean too!
Ingenious idea. In US I could use a half n half carton. Thanks for the inspiration.
Glad we could help plant the seed!
There are bread tins that have covers that are square. They are called ‘pullman loaf pans’ in the US, and might be ‘pain de mie’ pans other places. Would work great.
Hi all, as a Scottish butcher of 40 years I am amazed at some of the questions and issues. Hopefully I can clear up a few.
Lorne slice, known as flat or square sausage is made in a trapezoid shaped tin, yes that’s it a loaf tin, smaller at one end and wider at the other in the vertical plane. It is never actually made square.
Traditional mix of meat is 50% beef and 50% pork with a fat content about 15 to 25 % for standard lorne.
Steak lorne is 100% beef mince with a fat content of 10 to 15% but more water is added.
Lorne can be cut after being chilled for 24 hours with a sharp knife but always wet your blade in chilled water before each cut so that it doesn’t drag on the meat.
The mace is intrinsic but the coriander is not. Lorne made in the islands and far north of Scotland often used pork meat from pigs that were fed with additional fish bones and heads etc which left a rather, almost gamy taste to the meat and coriander was used to disguise this.
Lots of white and black pepper is the main key, don’t overload, but don’t skimp.
Also as far back as the 10th century, lorne slice was adapted to make ham slice.
Basically the same recipe except you dont add salt but replace it with 150g of smoked rindless bacon, streaky or back, per 1000g of pork & meat mix.
Finely dice the bacon or better blitz it with the water and add to your mix.
Best grilled as it can catch a little to the pan when cooked.
Hope this has been of assistance to you all.
DavyF the Scottish Butcher
Ooops, should have proof read, I meant the 20th century.
Thanks for all of the info Davy, we’re sure this has been a great help.
Thanks Davy for the great tip regarding ‘mace’. I’m off to get some now. 😊
P.s. Any good tips for butcher’s spice recipe please? 😋😋
Hi in reply to your question the reason you need a long tin is that once it has been prepared, it can then be removed from the tin and sliced into around 15 slices,
this is where another user friendly name comes from which is Slicey .
Cheers
Ernie
Hate coriander can I substitute anything else or just leave it out , Regards Kiwi Scot .
I hate coriander too, and I honestly couldn’t taste it in our recipe because it blends nicely with the rest of the ingredients. By all means leave it out to avoid disappointment and then maybe experiment with other spices once you’ve tasted it. – Phil
Lorne Sausage doesn’t usually contain pork (50% to 80% Beef mince, Rusk and spices)
Cheers
Scott
Thanks for the comment Scott, Lorne can be beef as you say or a mix of pork and beef or even just pork, if you like. The choice is down to you.
Cheers,
Phil & Sonja
I made the lorne sausage but it needs salt, there was no mention of salt in your recipe.
Thanks for your comment Margaret, we’ve added a wee bit of salt to the recipe but it is always to taste.
And, make sure you cook the bit you are tasting before you taste it! Don’t want anyone getting ill from tasting.
Other than the 1 tsp salt or to taste mention?
I made mine to the letter but when trying to slice it was just falling apart any ideas ?
Hi Wendy,
It could be a number of things, the meat needs to be very tightly packed in and frozen long enough. Another stumbling block we found was using mince with a high enough fat content or trying to cut the slices too thinly.
Either mix is too dry, not chilled enough or try in freezer to make it colder but not frozen & use a sharp knife.
Could try dental floss: cut a piece about half again as long as the edge you’re going to slice, wrap a couple of times around fingers of each hand at each end, and slice down slowly. The sausage needs to be firm but not frozen for this to work.
I keep (non-minty) dental floss in the kitchen drawer.
Been living in Ireland for so long and never even considered making my own! The coriander, is this leaf or powder form?
No time like now! It’s powder form 😀
Back to the lady who hates coriander. It should be pointed out that coriander powder is ground coriander seeds, which have a lemony flavour, not coriander leaf which (in my opinion) tastes like cheap soap. Two totally different products and tastes. She probably didn’t realise that.
Any recommendations for substituting Mace? I can’t get it here – i have googled and it suggested all spice or nutmeg (which is already in it!!)
Hi! You can just add a little more of either of those instead as there isn’t really another suitable substitute!
What bread do you use? I’m in the US, I’d welcome any suggestions?
Hi Alex, Do you mean the breadcrumbs? We just used natural breadcrumbs bought from the store, Paxo I think. Any store-bought one will work though- Phil
Just found your recipe yesterday and decided to give it a try as it’s so overpriced here in Oz. Easy to make, followed instructions by the letter. Left it to freeze a little more than three hours, was easy to slice. Cooked a couple of slices today and it was perfect. One recommendation for next time, I would add a little more spice. This will be my go to recipe now rather than spending a fortune for a Scottish butcher in Sydney to sell us it. Thank you.
Spices are such a personal thing and always open for adaptation to suit your taste, so pleased you like it so much! Thank you for the lovely comment, do apologise to your butcher from us!
I am wanting to make Lorne sausage so badly but I don’t have any Mace. Can I double the nutmeg or is there something else I can use?
Thanks
Sorry, just read above and answered my question.
Mace is available from amazon..
I’m thinking about using the Lorne Sausage recipe as a filling for scotch pies. Will that be forbidden?
Nothing is forbidden in our book. Give it a go, and let us know what you think!
Hi Phil. I come From Greenock & all the dutchers there sell onion Slice! It’s a nice twist! So take your recipe but when makeing it add choped fried onions! Just chop onions finely fry it till just cooked then cool add to your Lorne mix! Band you have onion slice, beautiful!
Thanks for the recipe for Lorne sausage not had this for years! I’ll have a go at making it. As it’s BBQ season I might make some into burgers. Or meatballs to have with pasta.
Now I have the recipe who knows😋
Regards to the tin, I have 1lb loaf tins which I purchased on eBay. You can also by a reasonably sized tin from Salisbury’s.
“However, there is evidence of advertisements from butchers for “Lorne Sausage” at least 6 years before Tommy Lorne was even more.”
Do you mean before he was born?
In all my many years, I have never heard anyone in Scotland call it “Lorne Sausage”.
You’ve maybe just not talked to the right people Ken. 😉
As a retired professor of Linguistics, we’re sure you’ll understand the pragmatics behind food being given different names by different people in different areas etc. Thanks so much for your continued support, we hope you enjoy making our recipes. – Phil
Thanks for pointing this out. It was corrected as suggested! Do feel free to let us know of any other typos. We do our best, but they do slip through! – Phil
In all my years I have most certainly known this as Lorne sausage , was called this regularly in the highlands , where I grew up , try on a bap with fried onions and brown sauce !!
Frying the onions right now. You’ve made us so hungry!
I grew up in Glasgow and my mum always called it Lorne sausage.
Q. do you think I could incorporate lorne mix into a hot water crust and bake it in the oven?
That is a very good question. We don’t see why not, but we would really only try this the first time with a meat thermometer to make sure the Lorne mix is cooked through. There may be some trial and error involved, do let us know how you get on.
So pleased to find this, my first batch is in the freezer cooling now and I can hardly wait for tomorrow morning! I upped the pepper a little and used Allspice as I couldn’t find mace anywhere locally. I’m going to make your tattie scones to have with it.
We’re so glad you’ve found us too! Hope it all works out for you.
Phil
I’ve made this recipe using all beef and substituting ground pork rinds instead of the bread crumbs making it a keto recipe. It turned out great!
That’s awesome thanks for letting us know!
Hi, your recipe sounds amazing, I have 2 strapping teenage boys who would devour the whole thing in one sitting!! Could I use pin oats instead of breadcrumbs or would they dry it out? Many thanks x
Haha a double batch then! I think they would be a bit crunchy as I’m not sure they would cook properly. You could try normal oats (like porridge oats) but we’ve never tried it so not sure how it would go. You can always make fresh breadcrumbs by toasting bread and then blending it.
I appreciate your relaxed attitude. The food purity police who make the “it’s not genuine because it’s not made exactly like my gran” drive me nuts! I made a batch with half pork and half ground venison because that’s what I had. It was as good as any I ever ate in Dundee!
That’s a great mix. Thanks for your kind words, we do our best to please everyone 😉
I used to get sausagemeat fom the butcher and mould it into various shapes according to the children’s requests – round, square, diamond, donut (ring) etc. It made no real difference but made an ordinary meal more exciting for the children. No need to get fancy, just simple tricks encourage children to eat well.
i always use brown sauce on a lorne sausage/ bacon/egg sandwich but if having a full plate fry up i use tom sauce
I’ve looking for a recipe for many years, without really knowing what I was looking for, let me explain and please don’t be offended. Many years ago I had a Macca’s sauage Mc muffin and I loved it. I have tried many ingredients even taking pork sauages out of their casing. No joy, hadn’t thought to is pork and beef, canyou suggest another herb apart from coriander, I detest the smell and taste of it. What do you think of Fennel seeds or fresh sage. I’m excited to try this and it could be the end of an almost impossible search. Thankyou guys
To Lindi
I suspect you are referring to fresh coriander leaves because you call it a herb
This recipe calls for ground coriander seeds… totally different from the herby leaves .
James T Kirk
This is just American meatloaf with different spices and no ketchup. That’s probably where Americans got the meatloaf idea – from the Scots. Scottish sausage sounds like SPAM only a lot tastier.
So what you mean is two different American recipes maybe started life as a tasty Scottish one?