Brown sauce is the dark, tangy sauce Britain puts on a bacon sandwich and a fry-up, and HP is the bottle on the table when anyone says brown sauce. It is tomatoes, malt vinegar, molasses, dates and tamarind, sharp and fruity rather than hot, and it is not a steak sauce. The HP in a Canadian marinade aisle pours thinner and is sold for the grill; this is the bottle from Britain, the one for the butty.
A bacon butty without brown sauce is just bread with some bacon in it. You know it, we know it, and frankly the bacon knows it.
HP Sauce Squeezy is the proper British brown sauce in the top-down bottle. It stands on its lid in the fridge door, so it comes out when you squeeze, not ten minutes later after a thump on the bottom.
Dark, tangy, a little bit sharp, with the Houses of Parliament on the label, just like every café table you ever sat at with a fry-up in front of you.
Some people are ketchup people. You came looking for this, so you are not.
A: A dark, tangy table sauce made from tomatoes, malt vinegar, molasses, dates, spices and tamarind. Sharp and fruity, not hot. In Britain nobody asks for it by brand; the question is red or brown, and brown means this.
Q: Is HP Sauce the same as A1?
A: No. A1 is a steak sauce, thinner and sweeter, made for a grill. HP is a breakfast and sandwich sauce with a malt vinegar bite and tamarind behind it. The HP sold in Canadian supermarkets is marketed as a steak sauce and pours thinner than the UK bottle; this is the one from Britain.
Q: What do you put brown sauce on?
A: Bacon sandwiches first, then a full English, sausages, chips, a pork pie, cheese on toast, and a Sunday roast if nobody is looking. Some people put it on French toast. One of them wrote our blog.
Q: Is this the UK HP Sauce?
A: It is. The British HP in the top-down squeezy bottle, the one off the café table back home, and it ships from within Canada.
Q: How big is the bottle?
A: It is the 450g squeezy bottle. Big enough to last a while, unless someone in your house puts it on everything, in which case you already know who.
Q: Is it a good thing to send to someone who misses home?
A: For anyone who misses a proper fry-up, very much so. It is the sort of present that gets opened and put straight to work the next morning.
More about HP Sauce Squeezy
Brown sauce is the other half of the great British sauce argument. Red on the chips, brown on the bacon, and families have fallen out over less. HP is the name people mean when they say brown sauce, the same way everyone hoovers and nobody vacuums.
Move abroad and the full English is the first thing you try to rebuild on a Saturday morning. Sausages, beans, a fried egg, a slice of toast, and then a gap on the plate exactly where the HP should be. That gap is why people go looking for it.
The squeezy bottle lives upside down, so the sauce is always waiting at the nozzle. A 450g bottle sees a household through a good run of breakfasts, and it keeps happily in the cupboard until it is opened (after that, do what the label says). It goes on bacon sandwiches, sausage rolls, pies and cheese on toast, and into a stew when nobody is watching.
It belongs next to the rest of a proper breakfast shop: back bacon, British sausages, a tin of beans. Brown sauce people are loyal, so a spare bottle at the back of the cupboard is not greed. It is planning.
Additional Information
Packaging Accuracy. We keep product information as accurate and up to date as possible. Manufacturers sometimes change packaging, ingredients, nutritional information, allergen advice, pack sizes or branding without notice, so the product you receive may look slightly different from the images shown. If you have a question about ingredients or allergens before ordering, please get in touch and we will gladly check for you.
Featured Collection
Shop our most popular products
A handy shortcut to the British favourites flying out the door.
Tell us how to handle substitutions, gift notes, packaging, or order notes before we pack your order.
Tell us how you'd like us to handle anything we can't fulfil.
0 / 200
We'll keep prices off the slip in the parcel. You'll still get your normal order receipt by email.
Some boxed items occasionally arrive with a bump or a scuff. Tick this and we'll send eligible items in their less-than-perfect packaging when we have them, and refund 5% per item we substitute. Only ever applies to items we actually swap, never the whole cart. Cans, jars, anything sealed or compromised: never. Food safety first, always.
Saving wonky boxes for non-gift orders.
Anything we should know? Allergies, delivery instructions, the usual.
0 / 500
Notify me
You’re on the list. We’ll email you when it’s available.
Christmas is on its way
The Christmas range lands from the UK in early November.
The day it arrives we unpack it, pack your order and send it on its way. Advent calendars go first, and everything reaches you within a few days wherever you are in Canada.
Order now and it has your name on it. The favourites go early every year. The people who leave it until December are the ones who miss out.
