5 ways to use up that HP sauce

HP sauce: there’s a good chance you once bought it for a recipe and it’s been sitting untouched in your cupboard ever since. Here’s how to use it up.

I don’t know what the contents of your kitchen cupboards look like, but mine are packed full of products I hardly ever use. From HP sauce, Madeira, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce and ginger syrup to tahini, verjuice, oyster sauce, miso and curry pastes in every colour of the rainbow. All ingredients I once bought for a specific recipe, only never to look at them again. Sound familiar? I thought so. That’s why here are five ways to use up that bottle of HP sauce:

With your grilled cheese

Jamie Oliver is the undisputed king of the cheese toastie. Why? First of all because he spreads everything you can spread under butter under the butter as well, secondly because he piles on so much cheese it’s frightening and thirdly because he simply fries his toastie in a pan. Duh. And as befits a good Englishman, he serves his grilled cheese not with ketchup, but with HP sauce.

In your Bloody Mary

Next time you make a Bloody Mary, bring out that dusty bottle of HP sauce. As far as we’re concerned, there’s no general recipe (the ultimate Bloody Mary is too personal), but you can add the necessary complexity with a few drops of HP sauce. Of course, you can also use Worcestershire sauce, but don’t you need to use up that HP? Besides, unlike Worcestershire sauce, HP is also suitable for vegans, because it contains no anchovies. Win-win, then.

With your full English

Egg, sausage, mushrooms, tomato, beans and, not to forget, bacon: with an English breakfast in your stomach, you won’t need to eat anything else for the rest of the day. Just like the English, you eat it with a generous dollop of HP sauce for an extra savoury kick.

Also read: 5 Jamie Oliver quotes

On your bacon butty

And now that we’re talking about bacon: a sandwich with bacon – in other words, a bacon butty – is a true English staple classic and can’t do without brown sauce. This sandwich is so beloved in England that, together with the Sunday roast, it came joint first in a poll about the best of Great Britain.

To glaze your spare ribs

You can also use HP sauce to glaze your spare ribs. Do this during the final stage of cooking. Are you preparing the spare ribs using the 3-2-1 method on the EGG? Then cook them for about another hour so the flavours of the sauce can really soak in and the sauce caramelises. Going for the quick method and boiling the ribs in stock first? Then glaze them for around ten minutes.