Sanguinaccio is the Italian word for blood sausage, and in the north it is a soft, dark, gently spiced link of pig’s blood bound with bread soaked in milk, studded with cooked pork fat, sometimes with grated cheese, raisins or pine nuts, poached and then fried and eaten with polenta. The diagnostic detail is the bread-and-milk binder with the sweet spices — cinnamon, nutmeg, clove — which puts it closer to a French boudin noir than to the grain-heavy Irish or rice-heavy Spanish puddings.
There is no single sanguinaccio. Lombardy’s marzapane uses bread or potato; Friuli’s sanganèl goes with polenta; Tuscany’s version is biroldo, with head meat and wild fennel; Puglia’s mixes blood with brain. This recipe is a northern composite, and says so. The south’s famous sanguinaccio dolce — a Carnival pudding of blood and dark chocolate — is described in the Notes.
Use blood from a licensed, inspected source, keep it cold, and cook the sausages to temperature. I have not made this one yet; it is a composite of the Italian regional descriptions and standard blood-sausage practice (Marianski), and it is untested.
Ingredients
BLOOD AND BINDER
- 1 litre (34 fl oz / 1,050 g) fresh pork blood, from a licensed source, stabilised (stirred, or with the supplier’s anticoagulant)
- 150 g (5 oz) day-old white bread, crusts off, torn
- 250 ml (1 cup) whole milk
FAT AND AROMATICS
- 600 g (1 lb 5 oz) pork jowl or belly, skin off
- 200 g (7 oz) onion, finely chopped
- 30 g (2 Tbsp) lard or butter
- 60 g (2 oz) grated Grana Padano or Parmigiano — optional, Lombard
- 50 g (⅓ cup) raisins, soaked and drained — optional
- 40 g (¼ cup) pine nuts — optional
SEASONING (for the whole batch, about 2.4 kg)
- 36 g fine salt (about 1.5% of the mix)
- 4 g ground black pepper
- 2 g ground cinnamon
- 2 g ground nutmeg
- 0.5 g ground cloves
CASING
- 36–40 mm hog casing
Directions
Key ingredients
- In the collection: blood from a licensed slaughterhouse or meat supplier, kept at 0–4 °C and used within two days. Frozen blood works; thaw it in the fridge and whisk smooth. The nearest relatives in the collection are Boudin Noir (French Blood Sausage) and Blutwurst mit Graupen (German Blood Sausage with Barley).
- Cook the fat first: simmer the jowl or belly in salted water 45 minutes until tender, cool, and cut into 5 mm dice. Pre-cooked fat stays as soft, distinct cubes; raw fat would render out during poaching and leave holes.
- Soften the onion: in lard over low heat, 15 minutes, until sweet and translucent but not brown. Raw onion stays crunchy and sharp inside a poached sausage.
- Soak the bread: in the warm milk until soft, then mash smooth. This is the binder; it makes a soft, sliceable set without grain.
- Mix: whisk the blood, then combine with bread, onion, diced fat, cheese, raisins, pine nuts, salt and spices. The mixture is a loose, dark batter. Fry a spoonful in a small pan to taste for salt and spice — the last moment to fix it.
- Fill loosely: using a wide funnel or the stuffer with the plunger barely pressed, fill the casing two-thirds full and tie into 15–20 cm links with space between. Blood mixtures expand as they set; a full casing bursts.
- Poach gently: lower into water at 80–85 °C (176–185 °F), never boiling, for 30–40 minutes. Prick one with a needle: clear or brown juice means set; red liquid means more time. Probe: 71 °C (160 °F) at the centre.
- Chill: lift into cold water for 10 minutes, dry, and refrigerate. Eat within 4–5 days or freeze.
- Serve: sliced 1.5 cm thick and fried in butter or lard until crusted, with Basic Polenta and sautéed onions or apples.
- Sibling: Biroldo (Tuscan Blood and Head Sausage) is the Tuscan branch, with head meat and wild fennel.
Notes
Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. A composite. Italian sources describe savory sanguinaccio region by region rather than as one recipe: Lombard marzapane/masapàn with bread and/or potato and spices (some with Grana); Friulian sanganèl served with polenta; Piedmontese versions with bread, potato, rice or beet; Puglian sangunazzu leccese with brain and lard; Tuscan biroldo/mallegato with wild fennel; Calabrian sangiari with ricotta or vino cotto. The method (pre-cooked fat, cooked onion, loose fill, 80 °C poach) is standard blood-sausage practice as Marianski gives it for boudin noir and morcilla. Deviations: the blood-to-binder ratio and the spice amounts are this recipe’s own. Untested.
Where sanguinaccio came from. The name is simply sangue (blood) with the augmentative-pejorative -accio. Blood sausage is the oldest sausage there is, and every pig-killing region of Italy made one; slaughter-season food, eaten fresh because it does not keep.
Sanguinaccio dolce — the variant that surprises people. In Naples and across the south it is a sweet, spoonable cream of pig’s blood, dark chocolate, sugar, milk and spices, sometimes with candied peel, eaten at Carnival with chiacchiere (fried pastry strips); it is a recognised traditional product in several regions. Marianski also gives a cased version: blood with walnuts, pine nuts, raisins, dark chocolate, cream, sugar and sweet spices, poached at 80 °C for 30 minutes and sliced. Most modern Italian versions are made without blood. The often-repeated claim that Italy banned selling pig blood in 1992 is attached, in English sources, to Legislative Decree 508 of 14 December 1992 — which implements an EU directive on animal waste and animal feed, not a ban on food-grade blood. The claim stays unconfirmed.
Variations. Add 200 g cooked, mashed potato in place of half the bread (Lombard and Piedmontese). Add 100 g cooked rice (Piedmont). Omit cheese and add more pine nuts and raisins for a sweeter, older style.
Sourcing and gear. Pork blood is sold frozen by Asian and Hispanic groceries and by meat suppliers; buy it labelled for human consumption. A wide funnel fills casings faster than a stuffer for a liquid mix. A thermometer in the poaching water is essential.
Still open. No regional specification for a savory sanguinaccio with quantities was found; the ratios here should be checked against an Italian regional cookbook.
The photo. No open-licensed photograph of a savoury sanguinaccio exists; the photograph shows German blood sausage (Blutwurst), its close northern relative.
Read more on the site. Blood, Liver, Head and Offal