General · EdgepediaSeptember 17, 20265 min read

Pigs in a blanket

Pigs in a blanket is the name of two related sausage dishes: in the United States, small sausages or hot dogs wrapped in dough and baked, and in the United Kingdom, small sausages wrapped in bacon, served as a Christmas side dish.¹ The name also attaches to several regional variants in North America, including cabbage rolls and sausage wrapped in pancake or tortilla.²

Key fact	Detail
US dish	A sausage, usually a hot dog, wrapped in soft pastry such as refrigerated biscuit or croissant dough and baked¹
UK dish	A small sausage cooked with bacon wrapped around it, traditionally served with turkey at Christmas¹
Earliest widely cited print use	Betty Crocker's Cooking for Kids, 1957, teaching children to wrap small sausages in dough and bake them³
Earlier printed recipe	"Link Sausages in Pastry," a 15-word recipe in Irma Rombauer's original 1931 Joy of Cooking⁴
Oldest recorded meaning	Oysters rolled in bacon and served hot on toast, from the 1800s; given in 1882 by Maria Parola of the Boston Cooking School⁵
Commercial milestone	Pillsbury Crescent Dogs and the Poppin' Fresh dough boy debuted in 1965⁴
UK market	Supermarket sales of pigs in blankets exceeded £30 million in 2022⁶
Observance	National Pigs in a Blanket Day, April 24, in the United States³

The two main versions

In the United States, pigs in a blanket are frankfurters or small sausages wrapped in dough and baked or broiled, served as an appetizer.⁷ The usual home method is to wrap a hot dog in refrigerated biscuit or croissant dough and bake for 15 minutes at 375 °F.¹ Recipes using puff pastry call for rolling the sheet into squares, brushing with mustard, rolling around fully cooked sausages, brushing with beaten egg for a glazed top, and baking at 400 °F for about 25 minutes; assembled unbaked pieces can be frozen for up to a month before baking.⁸ Mustards, including grainy and honey-mustard, are the standard dips.⁸

In the United Kingdom, pigs in blankets are small sausages wrapped in bacon.¹ The combination of sausage wrapped in smoked, fatty bacon gained popularity in Britain in the mid-20th century, as wartime rationing that had limited access to meat eased in the late 1940s and 1950s and ingredients such as sausages and bacon became widely available again.⁶ The dish is a fixture of the Christmas table, served alongside turkey.¹

History

The phrase has carried several meanings over more than a century. The oldest definition, dating to the 1800s, described oysters seasoned with salt and pepper, rolled in a slice of bacon, pinned with a toothpick, and grilled, broiled, or fried until the bacon was cooked, then served hot on toast. Maria Parola, co-founder of the Boston Cooking School, gave this recipe in her 1882 cookbook, and her fellow co-founder Mary J. Lincoln gave the same recipe in her Boston Cook Book under the French name Huîtres au Lit, "oysters in bed." In these versions the bacon acted as the blanket rather than the pig, and the dish is the same as "Angels on Horseback."⁵ Historic recipe collections from 1884 and 1900 print similar "Little Pigs in Blankets" recipes for bacon-wrapped oysters.⁹

The dough-wrapped sausage version appeared in print in Irma Rombauer's 1931 Joy of Cooking as "Link Sausages in Pastry," a 15-word recipe: roll link sausages in small squares of pastry dough and bake them in a hot oven.⁴ The earliest widely cited printing of the exact phrase "pigs in a blanket" is in Betty Crocker's Cooking for Kids (1957), which taught children to wrap small sausages in dough and bake them.³ The American version spread after World War II alongside convenience foods and pre-made dough products.¹⁰ Pillsbury's Crescent Dogs, made with its refrigerated crescent roll dough, debuted in 1965 together with the Poppin' Fresh dough boy.⁴ For a short time in the 1970s Pillsbury also sold a canned, refrigerated version of wiener pieces in dough, which was not a success.⁵

In Britain, the modern bacon-wrapped dish is often credited with jumping to fame in 1990, when the cookery writer Delia Smith included pigs in blankets in her Christmas recipe book; since then it has been eaten year-round rather than only at Christmas.⁶

Regional and international variants

The name is applied inconsistently across North America. In New York, a pig in a blanket can mean a hot dog in a flour tortilla, while in Pennsylvania it means a cabbage roll stuffed with rice and ground pork; a breakfast variant wraps sausage in bacon wrapped in a biscuit.² Some families call cabbage rolls pigs in a blanket, and Denny's restaurants have served sausage links wrapped in pancakes under the name.⁵ American dictionaries also record a second sense in which oysters, chicken livers, and similar foods are wrapped in bacon, skewered, and broiled or sautéed.⁷

Comparable dishes exist elsewhere. In England, puff pastry wrapped around fresh sausage makes the sausage roll, a distinct dish; the Danish translate their bacon-wrapped hot dog verbatim as pølse i svøb and sell it from street kiosks with the bun on the side; and in Hong Kong, fluffy white Cantonese yeast dough swaddles frankfurters baked and dotted with mayonnaise to make yit gau baau, "hot dog buns."⁴ In Israel the dough-wrapped sausage is called Moshe Ba'Teiva, "Moses in the ark."³ France contributes the related saucisson brioché of Lyon, a large garlic sausage (cervelas) encased in butter-rich brioche dough and baked into a golden loaf.⁴

Popularity in Britain

A 2024 report in El País described pigs in blankets as Britain's most popular Christmas food, ahead of the turkey itself, and noted that a YouGov survey ranks them the eleventh most famous dish in the United Kingdom, after fish and chips in first place and beans on toast in fourth.⁶ In 2022, UK supermarkets recorded sales of more than £30 million (about 36 million euros) in ready-made pigs in blankets. The dish's cultural standing has spawned branded products, including a canned version from Heinz and a potato chip flavor from Walkers, a two-meter-long supermarket version, and an entire cookbook devoted to the dish.⁶

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Food, customs, and everyday culture › Food, cooking and hospitality › Dishes, foods, and foodstuffs › Snacks, finger foods, and street-food dishes

Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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