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Coddle Broth Recipe: Dublin’s Beloved Clear Bacon and Sausage Soup
There are few dishes more deeply woven into the fabric of Dublin life than coddle, and its simplest, most ancient form — a clear, gently golden broth simmered with bacon and sausages — tells you everything you need to know about the city’s working-class soul. Long before the heartier, potato-laden coddle became the version most Dubliners know today, households across the Liberties and the northside tenements were making do with what they had: the end of the week’s bacon scraps, a handful of sausages, and whatever grain could stretch the pot. Pearl barley was the obvious choice — cheap, filling, and wonderfully good at thickening a broth while remaining perfectly distinct from it.
Saturday night was traditionally coddle night in Dublin. It was the meal a cook could leave on a low flame while the family came and went, a dish that never really spoiled and always improved with time. Jonathan Swift wrote fondly of it in the eighteenth century, and James Joyce gave it a passing mention too — both men clearly knowing its restorative powers. This broth version, without the heavy potato base, is the older style: lighter, cleaner, and arguably more elegant, with every spoonful carrying that unmistakable savouriness of slowly rendered bacon fat meeting soft barley and a scattering of parsley.
It is also, it must be said, one of the most forgiving recipes in the Irish canon. It asks very little of you technically, rewards patience generously, and fills a kitchen with an aroma that is entirely its own — something between a farmhouse and a hearth. Make it on a grey afternoon and you will understand immediately why Dubliners have always come back to it.
Ingredients
- 450g (1 lb) traditional pork sausages (good quality, not chipolatas)
- 350g (12 oz) back bacon rashers or bacon collar joint, cut into chunky pieces
- 100g (3½ oz) pearl barley, rinsed under cold water
- 2 medium onions, peeled and roughly sliced
- 2 sticks of celery, sliced
- 1.5 litres (2½ pints) cold water
- 1 bay leaf
- A small bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley, stalks and leaves separated
- ½ teaspoon white or black pepper
- Salt to taste — go carefully, as the bacon will be salty already
Method
- Place the bacon pieces into a large, heavy-based pot and cover with the cold water. Bring slowly to the boil over a medium heat, then skim off any grey foam that rises to the surface. This step is important for a clean, clear broth — take your time with it and remove as much scum as you can.
- Once skimmed, reduce the heat to a gentle simmer. Add the onions, celery, bay leaf, parsley stalks, pepper, and rinsed pearl barley. Stir once to settle everything together.
- Cover with a lid left slightly ajar and simmer on a very low heat for 45 minutes, checking occasionally that it is bubbling gently and not boiling hard. A rolling boil will cloud the broth and toughen the meat.
- After 45 minutes, add the sausages whole. Do not prick them — you want their juices to stay inside, adding richness to the meat rather than the pot. Continue simmering, lid ajar, for a further 30 to 35 minutes until the sausages are cooked through and the barley is tender but still has a little bite.
- Remove the bay leaf and parsley stalks. Taste the broth and add salt only if needed — many batches will need none at all depending on the saltiness of the bacon.
- Ladle into deep bowls, making sure each serving gets a generous share of the sausages, bacon, and barley. Scatter over the freshly chopped parsley leaves and serve immediately with thick slices of white soda bread or a good crusty batch loaf.
Tips
- The quality of your sausages matters enormously here — use a traditional pork banger with a high meat content rather than anything too heavily spiced or filled with rusk.
- If you prefer a slightly richer broth, a piece of smoked bacon collar rather than back rashers will deepen the flavour considerably.
- Coddle broth genuinely improves overnight. Cool it quickly, refrigerate it, and reheat gently the following day — you will find the barley has swelled and the broth has taken on even more body and flavour.
- Do not be tempted to rush the skimming stage. A few careful minutes at the beginning is the difference between a broth that is golden and clear and one that is murky and dull.
- Leftovers will keep refrigerated for up to three days and reheat beautifully on the hob over a low heat.
There is something quietly moving about a bowl of coddle broth — it has fed generations of Dubliners through hard winters, long weeks, and late Saturday evenings, and it carries all of that history in every spoonful. It is not a dish trying to impress anyone; it is simply honest, warming food made with care and very little fuss, which is perhaps why it has endured for so long and why, once you have made it, you find yourself coming back to it again and again whenever the weather turns and you need something that feels like home.
Looking for the classic version? This clear-broth style is coddle’s older, lighter form — for the heartier, potato-thickened coddle most Dubliners make today, see our Dublin Coddle Recipe, or read more on why Dublin workers left a pot on the stove every Saturday night.
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