Sure, but it won't be the same. A proper British/Irish banger is much less seasoned than even an American hot dog.

I've often wondered exactly what type of sausage is used for this, kept forgetting to ask here. Hope you get an answer. I just wonder if their breakfast sausage is the same basic recipe as ours?

No -- a plain brat is probably the closest IMO. But it won't be the same!

I just wonder if their breakfast sausage is the same basic recipe as ours?

If you leave out all the spices/seasonings, pretty much. It used to drive me crazy when I lived in London- all those gorgeous big sausages at breakfast with no flavor at all, not one bit.

BTW, I had a chance to try real bangers again last year (I played for an Irish trade show and they gave me an extra gift bag with a lot of frozen meat products in it), and the bangers were just as bland and awful as I remembered from 40 years ago.

IME, British sausages are nothing like what is available here!! The seasonings, even for breakfast sausages, is very different. I have bangers and mash often (my British upbringing) but a local grocery imports authentic British bangers. And Uli's (a local artisan sausage producer) also carries them but I prefer the real British ones.

The meat used in traditional English bangers is typically pork. But 'banger' is just a colloquialism that is applied to any sort of cased sausage.

ETA: the sausages are seasoned and with what and how much depends on the type. They just are not the same or intense a flavoring as one would expect if used to Americanized sausage. But "bland" or awful..........not in my book and American sausages can't hold a candle to them!!

mrsjack, I would use any variety of sausage you like for this.

But "bland" or awful..........not in my book and American sausages can't hold a candle to them!!

For freshness, I would agree, sometimes, but otherwise we'll have to agree to disagree on that. :)

Recipe for British sausage.

https://www.englishbreakfastsociety.com/bangers-sausage-recipe.html

Recipe for American breakfast sausage.

https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/ba-breakfast-sausage

There is no fennel, red pepper, or garlic in British sausage, so it would taste bland to American tastes. There are several spices in British sausage that are not in American breakfast sausage. Nutmeg for one.

ETA: I had made a chicken copy of Dean's sausage out of Gadsden, AL (not Jimmy Dean) for my FIL when he was put on a restricted no pork or beef diet. He liked it, but had to add even more fennel to the patties.

OK you poked a sleeping bear lol!!

No brats or Italian. They are not "bangers". Nothing compares to a British sausage and I have yet to find anything here that is even close. There is no variety here, it's all the same. Brats, Italian or breakfast sausage. And I agree...not bland or awful.

I grew up in Leicester, which is home to the largest outdoor market and food hall in Europe. These photos are from one of the vendors.

https://www.thespruceeats.com/all-about-british-sausages-4149604

Yep, as I said above, no fennel, red pepper, or garlic. That is why British sausage tastes different from American breakfast sausage. That doesn't even get into all the other types used here.

Fennel, red pepper and garlic? No, they are not in traditional "bangers".

To me that is more Italian.

And Bangers and mash is sausages. Not "patties" let alone chicken.

Hmmm.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/476360194/british-home-sausage-making-starter-pack?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_d-home_and_living-food_and_drink-herbs_and_spices_and_seasonings-other&utm_custom1=11c71501-5854-4072-b350-bf81718e2f5e&utm_content=go_270949355_21143593835_69017174315_pla-306107311609_m__476360194&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_tnxy5_V3wIVUZJbCh2oKA-5EAkYASABEgKKf_D_BwE

It is in all Southern breakfast sausage, I did not say it contained chicken. I said I came up with a copycat sausage that tasted the same, with the same spices, as normal pork sausage without the pork, which he couldn't have, substituting chicken.

It is in no way Italian. I buy Italian sausage also, it is different. Sausage here can be in a casing, made flat in patties (like a hamburger) (which is the way he liked his), or just loose ground in a package.

http://deansausage.com/products/

https://www.jimmydean.com/products/fresh-sausage

http://www.johnsonville.com/lines/italian.html

We have dozens of kinds of sausage available here (SoCal), but you have to go to British specialty stores to get authentic bangers.

Like with any other popular food, there's poor, average and really good preparations. I know things have improved in English cooking since I spent any time in the country, but IMO the hamburgers at the time were truly disgusting. They all tasted the same, and weird, with odd seasoning, if any, and more like steamed and gray rather than grilled and caramelized (seared). OTOH, the sausages were pretty good, if they weren't also gray and steamed, which was popular. Sometimes they were pan fried in their own fat, or grilled, and much better.

Sincere apologies to the OP.

I thought we were talking about British Sausages.

Jimmy Dean, whilst based in North Carolina, is owned by the conglomerate Tyson Foods.

Southern sausage? May I suggest Neese's Sausage? In Greensboro, North Carolina, which is the hometown of my husband.

Plllog while in London in '79 we got a "hamburger" that looked awfully pink! Asked about it the guy replied "well it's made out of ham, right?"

Here's hoping the food is better this spring when we go than it was 39 years ago! Of course I was preggers at the time and fried food wasn't my favorite thing!

mrsjack- don't forget the neeps! (turnips)

Bevthebrit, you do know that forty years ago you couldn't buy any of those fancy sausages in your pic in England, not even in Harrods Food Hall or Fortnum & Mason? A lot of things have changed in recent years from what traditional British cooking used to be.

OMG, plllog, those hamburgers. When I was there in the early 1970s there was a restaurant in Knightsbridge called the Great American Disaster that sold USian-style burgers--quite expensive, but otherwise, we just pretended burgers didn't exist.

Having said that, I generally found the food was very good if you chose well, and there are things I miss even now. But not bangers or breakfast sausage.

Neeps!!#....what does that have to do with bangers

Who cares about 40 years ago. And those are not "fancy". I am talking about a local market.

Bev, "fancy" meaning any kind of sausage different from your iconic, cheap British banger, which is a plain meat, usually pork, fairly thick, wet enough to to bang, not highly seasoned. My local market doesn't display the sausages on tables, but there are just as many varieties. And there's a sausage store where they just make sausage.

As to 40 years ago, this forum runs to the "mature" side, and a lot of us have depth of experience that reaches back in time, for a more colored and nuanced base of knowledge. My point in bringing up the generic bangers of prior years and comparing them to the hamburgers (beef, not ham LOL!) was to talk about similar origins in English cookery.

There's no reason other than nostalgia to eat bangers and mash, when one could be eating merguez and duck fat fingerlings. But that's now.

Mrsjack, is there any particular reason you want to make bangers and mash? At its core, it's basically cheap fast food, the equivalent of our burger and fries.

Well said, plllog.

Yesterday I was watching a French youtube food guy who came to NY on a trip and met up with a pair of evidently-popular American floggers. They casually remarked that the US has no culinary traditions whatever, which stunned me for a moment. Then I reflected and considered that yeah, as far as they're concerned, that's how they see it, because they have lived entirely on the other side of that broken line. Sad really. The French guy ate things like everything bagels with blueberry cream cheese (!) and pepperoni pizza and highly over-decorated doughnuts, so no doubt he went back to France agreeing with them.

Oh, and my point about the pictured sausages is that using Mexican Chili Sausage may doubtless produce a yummy meal, but it won't be classic Bangers and Mash.

Plllog, the British stores do not have authentic bangers. They are made in the USA. USA, does not mean English.

I live in south Florida with "British stores" that charge an arm and a leg for British food. Sausage roll, pork pies etc.

The "mature side"....!

"There's no other reason than nostalgia to eat bangers and mash". We are all nostalgic for foods we grew up with. My husband is from north Carolina and misses good bbq.

"Is there any particular reason you want bangers and mash" yes we want bangers and mash!##

Depends on your British stores. Now that you mention it, I think one closed, but I'm talking about places that import British food. I've never bought the bangers nor inspected them thoroughly, but it would be silly to have USA made ones unless they were having a problem getting a permit to import meats.

LOL, Writersblock, about the culinary traditions! Every country I've visited has its own version of weird crap like that poor Frenchman was eating. I think part of the issue is that we don't have a unified culinary tradition. Which France doesn't really have either. While there is a stodgy haute cuisine, the various regions in France have distinctly different food traditions. We just mix ours up block by block and get fusion on the corners.

I like sausages! All kinds, pork, turkey or chicken. Breakfast, italian, brat...links, loose ground. :) But when I make Bangers and mash with a beefy onion gravy. I use "british style" aka Bangers in my grocery. Not many stores carry them at all. A few stores will sometimes carry them around St Patty's day. Our Haggen store is carrying them year round now.

My husband is a hot italian or brat, highly seasoned preferer. I like the simple season of the "british style".

Bangers and Mash are what I would call "comfort food". I love it occasionally.

There is a local company that makes what they call a British Banger sausage and that is what I buy when I have a craving.

One last time. Bevthe Brit, You need to start at the top and carefully read the OP and the comments in order.

The OP wanted to know what sausage to use. Several commented. My first comment was a link to a recipe for British sausage for bangers and a link to a recipe for American breakfast sausage. I stated that to me the difference was three of the main seasonings in American, that was not in British bangers AND that was why they (bangers) seemed bland to Americans used to our breakfast sausage.

You seemed confused and called it Italian sausage, so I included two links to American breakfast sausage and one to a common Italian sausage. That is in no way to say that is all that is available, just the first ones that popped up in search.

This frankly is getting boring with you determined to misunderstand the comments and I am unfollowing this thread.

It has been interesting to learn about the difference in seasonings. I have seen it produced on several of Ramsey's cooking contest shows, but of course the actual ingredients were never given.

Sherry, I am sorry that you find this thread "boring". What you stated is your opinion. Frankly, there are much better British chefs/cooks than Gordon Ramsey. I suggest you expand your repotoire.

Oh, you unfollowed. Never mind.

I am not sure why anyone is jumping on Bev........she DID answer the OP's question as to whether or not Italian sausage or brats could be substituted for real English bangers in bangers and mash. And of course they can but it will be a entirely different flavor profile and not an authentic rendition of the actual dish.

btw, the UK has a very long tradition of sausage making - Cumberland sausages have been popular for nearly 500 years!! - so photos like Bev showed are not at all uncommon and most definitely were on offer in a wide array 40 years ago........other posters seem to indicate that this is a new tradition. It is not! They have been available - especialy regionally - throughout my lifetime!! In fact, there are some 470 different types of sausages - many formed by hand - made in the UK today.

Yes, some of these sausages may taste bland to US taste buds that are used to much more heavily or intensely seasoned sausages but they are a long way from awful and it is a bit rude to refer to them that way. If you don't care for them, fine, but consider the offense Americans might take if one of our preferred dishes - like BBQ - was referred to as "awful"!! Besides, bangers and mash is typically served with onion gravy or brown sauce, which enhances the flavor of the dish significantly!

And the term "banger" originated after WWI (not WWII) but for similar reasons.......meat was in short supply so to make it go further, sausages - typical working class fare consumed heavily - were supplemented with fillers and water that caused the sausages to pop or "bang" when heated. Now it is just a popular name for any kind of fresh (not smoked) sausage.

consider the offense Americans might take if one of our preferred dishes - like BBQ - was referred to as "awful"!

I hear foreigners refer to various American dishes as awful all the time. No skin off my nose. Heck, back when I lived in London, British people were always asking me things like, "Is it true Americans eat sweet things for breakfast?" in tones of horror. It made me laugh, not get mad.

so photos like Bev showed are not at all uncommon and most definitely were on offer in a wide array 40 years ago.

But I would definitely want proof that you could buy something called "Mexican chili sausage" anywhere in Britain 40 years ago before I will accept that. That there were many regional differences in sausage, yes. That every little town had its own particular variation, sure. That the sausages in that photo (or anything similar) existed, sorry, not buying it without proof. I don't think you could buy sausage like that in the US back then--just Italian or German or Polish in addition to the most standard breakfast ones, unless maybe you lived in NYC.

LOL!! You focused on one specific type of sausage out of the many (dozens?) shown, most of which are labled as being quite tradtional. So maybe Mexican chili flavored sausages haven't been around for the last 40 years.....big deal! I'm sure with the very cosmopolitan nature of British life today, even in the countryside, you will get different ethnic spins on all sorts of more traditional presentations.

And all that has very little to do with the traditional English banger anyway!!

I'm getting lost in all these arguments. There is a lot of really horrible American barbecue out there. There is also stupendously divine barbecue. And in homes there's also clueless but not too bad barbecue, in addition to bad and good.

For myself, while I know that the term "banger" has spread to mean any kind of sausage, when I say "bangers and mash" I'm talking about the cheap, not highly flavored kind that actually bang. This isn't to exclude all the excellent English sausages that have been made for hundreds of years, or the great number of internationally influenced or imported sausages available now. I questioned why someone who was not a nostalgic Brit (I assumed the OP wasn't or she wouldn't have needed to ask) would want to eat (traditional) bangers because so much other other great sausage is available both in Great Britain and the USA (and I assume Canada, Australia, France, Israel and wherever the rest of us are from).

Trust AnnT to provide the most appetizing photo of a plate of bangers and mash known to man, from vibrant appealing colors down to the visible hard sear. Very different from the pinky and brown unidentifiable sludge I've been served (though most got the sear right). Which tasted fine, btw, but not pretty, and the bangers were too fatty for me to enjoy. After several go rounds I swore off the whole subject.

I notice that the OP has not rejoined this discussion.

The neeps come from my hubby who went to school in Scotland for 7 years (housemate Tony Blair!) He's always talked about bangers neeps and mash. Oh, and then there's Spotted dick!

I like bangers. With mustard. They remind me of traveling in the UK as a poor student back in the 70s and early 80s, when all we could afford was pub food, and we liked it! The last time I was in London, pub food seemed better but significantly dearer. Another British dish I like is boiled tomatoes. I admit I don't know if that is truly English food but seemed like every inn served them for breakfast and I developed quite a liking.

Speaking of English food, an English friend here insists that Portland has no English teahouse. I think she's right. She is looking for a location to open one.

Ah John a proper tea shop is a thing of such delights.....muffins (not American cakey things), crumpets, scones, toasted tea cakes, hot buttered toast.....really good little sandwiches, light and airy cakes and a really good pot of Darjeeling or Assam (my favourites!) Tea. In a pot. Proper. Yum.

Sausages are such comfort food. When I moved here, I missed British sausages so much. French sausages are more coarsely minced and more seasoned. It's hard to eat bangers and mash with a French sausage, but after 30 years I'm just about used to it lol.

To answer the initial question, a brat would be most similar being a finer grind. I don't follow rules. It is the potato and gravy that does it for me...and a nice helping of peas.

I was a student when in England so it has been a while but have fond memories of the sausages. (great for a hangover)

Good and bad sausage in every culture. Don't care for too coarse a grind or too fatty or cheap fillers, cheese, sugars, and so many are way too salty. We make our own.

Well, I live in northern Michigan, so that determines no British specialty shops!! I bought uncooked, plain brats. I will use Ina Garten's recipe for mash and my own recipe for onion gravy. I may never make it again, but have never had it, so it is worth a try. Thanks for all your input.