England (such as this one in Islington, London, with a "breakfast served all day" sign) typically serves the full breakfast throughout the day. There is no fixed menu or set of ingredients for a full English breakfast.
Bubble and squeak is a traditional accompaniment but is now more commonly replaced by
hash browns. Black pudding is a type of
blood sausage originating in the British Isles. It is made from
pork or occasionally beef
blood, with fat or
suet, and a cereal. Its high proportion of cereal, along with the use of certain herbs, such as
pennyroyal, distinguishes it from other blood sausages. Bubble and squeak is an English dish made from cooked potatoes and cabbage, mixed together and fried. Its name, according to the
Oxford English Dictionary (OED), alludes to the sounds made by the ingredients when being fried. A poll by
YouGov in 2017 found the following to be on more than 50% of 'ideal' Full English breakfasts: bacon; sausage; beans; bread (either toast or fried); eggs (fried, scrambled or poached); hash browns; mushrooms (fried or grilled); and tomatoes (fried, grilled or tinned). Black pudding was the least popular of the traditional ingredients, chosen 35% of the time, As nearly everything is fried in this variant of the meal, it is commonly known as a "fry-up". In the UK it is sometimes referred to as a "
Full Monty". One theory for the origin of this term is that British Army general
Bernard Montgomery, nicknamed 'Monty', was said to have started every day with a "Full English" breakfast while on campaign in North Africa during the Second World War.
Vegetarian or
vegan alternatives can be made or are available in cafes and restaurants.
Meat alternative sausages and bacon may often be used, with either scrambled
tofu Headquartered in
Hertfordshire, England, it is "... dedicated to the history, standards, and cultural tradition of the [full] English breakfast." and the organisation of an annual English Breakfast World Championship "open to anyone, anywhere", with entries to be submitted by email, or via a direct message on social media.
Scotland There are some distinctively
local elements of the full
Scottish breakfast, including Scottish style or
Stornoway black pudding,
Lorne sausage, Ayrshire middle bacon and
tattie scones. Commonly, a full Scottish breakfast is offered on a menu as an 'all day' dish. Lorne sausage, also known as square sausage or slice sausage, is a
traditional Scottish food item made from
minced meat,
rusk and spices. Although termed a
sausage, no
casing is used to hold the meat in shape, hence it is usually served as square slices from a formed block. A tattie scone (tottie scone) or potato scone is a regional variant of the savoury
griddle scone, and is especially popular in Scotland. Tattie scones are typically made with
mashed potato and a small quantity of plain flour. Occasionally a full Scottish breakfast will also include
haggis,
white pudding,
fruit pudding Wales Two key ingredients that distinguish the full
Welsh breakfast from the other "full" variants are
cockles and
laverbread. The common cockle (
Cerastoderma edule) is a
species of edible saltwater
clam, a
marine bivalve mollusc in the family
Cardiidae, the cockles. It is found in waters off Europe, from Iceland in the north, south into waters off western Africa as far south as Senegal. Laverbread is a
purée made from
laver, an
edible seaweed (littoral alga) consumed mainly in
Wales as part of local traditional cuisine. It is often mixed with oatmeal and fried. Fried laver with cockles and bacon was the traditional breakfast for mine workers in the
South Wales Coalfield, but a breakfast in that area may have also included Welsh sausages, mushrooms and eggs. In modern Welsh breakfasts, smoked fish may be included instead of black pudding. Soda bread is a variety of
quick bread in which
sodium bicarbonate is used as a
leavening agent instead of
yeast; its basic ingredients are
flour, sodium bicarbonate,
salt, and
buttermilk. Different versions of it can be found all over Ireland, north and south. A potato farl is a form of
flatbread in which
potato flour or
potato replaces a portion of the regular
wheat flour, although the wheat flour can also be replaced with another flour such as rice or chickpea for a gluten-free version. Traditionally, the
dough used to make a potato farl is rolled into a flat circle, cut into quarters, and then baked. Boxty ( or ) is a traditional Irish
potato pancake. The "
breakfast roll", consisting of elements of the full Irish breakfast served in a
French roll, has become popular in Ireland due to the fact it can be easily eaten on the way to school or work. Traditionally, an Ulster fry includes
soda farls and
potato bread. An Ulster variant of the
Scotch pancake is a frequent addition to those two items, and can be used to soak up egg yolk. Soda farls are farls made from soda bread. but three of the nine Ulster counties, namely
Cavan,
Donegal and
Monaghan, are in the
Republic of Ireland. In 2021, Jim Murty, travel journalist, wrote in his
blog that he used to eat Ulster fry as a youth in Donegal, and, "when on best behaviour", still did so in Monaghan (and in
Belfast, Northern Ireland). In 2024, a business in
Inniskeen, Monaghan, defeated four other finalists for the title of Best Ulster Fry in County Monaghan. which accepts entries from all nine Ulster counties, plus an additional entry from Belfast. First held in 2023, the Ulster Fry World Championships are part of the annual
Donaghadee Summer Festival in
County Down, Northern Ireland. The organisers of the World Championships specify the ingredients for entries in that competition as being bacon, eggs, sausage, soda bread, and potato bread.) may be included in the dish. Traditionalists therefore also rule out baked beans, and consider hash browns to be an abomination, even though at least the former are increasingly popular as inclusions. where it is referred to, sometimes, as a "full Australian breakfast", "big fry", or "big fry-up", and, more frequently, as a "Big Breakfast", or "big brekkie". The variant has been described as a "quintessential Aussie dish". ==See also==