How to Make Proper Scottish Porridge (and Which Oats to Use)

I eat porridge five mornings a week, nine months of the year. I've been doing this since I was a child, and my grandmother did the same before me. She would have been horrified by what passes for porridge in 2026 — overnight oats with nut butter and goji berries, microwaved instant sachets with "golden syrup flavour," and the suggestion that porridge should be made with anything other than oats, water, and salt.

This is the recipe she used. It takes 10 minutes. It costs about 15p per bowl.

The recipe

Ingredients (serves 1):

• 40g medium oatmeal (not rolled oats, not porridge oats — oatmeal)
• 300ml water
• A pinch of salt

Method:

1. Put the oatmeal and cold water in a small saucepan
2. Bring to a gentle boil over medium heat, stirring regularly with a wooden spoon (traditionally called a spurtle, but a spoon works fine)
3. Reduce to a simmer. Stir every 30 seconds or so
4. After 5–7 minutes, when it's thickened to the consistency you like, add the salt
5. Stir the salt through. Serve immediately

That's it. No milk in the cooking (you can add a splash of cold milk or cream when serving, poured around the edge — never stirred in). No sugar (traditionally, porridge is salted, not sweetened — the salt lifts the flavour of the oats without making it taste salty). No toppings beyond what you feel like adding.

Why oatmeal, not rolled oats

This is the hill I'll die on.

Rolled oats (the flat, flaky discs in a Quaker Oats box) are oat groats that have been steamed and pressed flat. They cook quickly (2–3 minutes) but produce a gluey, one-dimensional porridge with no texture.

Medium oatmeal (also called "pinhead oatmeal" when coarsely ground) is steel-cut oat groats — the whole grain chopped into pieces. It takes longer to cook (5–10 minutes) but produces porridge with texture, nuttiness, and a creamy richness that rolled oats can't match. Each spoonful has structure — some bits are creamy, some still have bite.

The difference is not subtle. It's the difference between instant mashed potato and a properly baked potato. Same ingredient, completely different eating experience.

Scottish oatmeal brands worth buying:

• Hamlyns of Scotland (Boyndie, Aberdeenshire) — the most widely available Scottish oatmeal. Their medium oatmeal (blue tin) is the standard. Available in every Scottish supermarket.
• Golspie Mill (Sutherland) — small watermill producing stone-ground oatmeal. More expensive, noticeably better texture. Available at farm shops and online.
• Oatmeal of Alford — another small-scale Scottish producer. Excellent quality.

Supermarket own-brand porridge oats are rolled oats. They're fine for overnight oats or flapjacks but not for porridge.

The salt argument

Traditional Scottish porridge is salted, not sweetened. A proper pinch of salt (about ⅛ teaspoon) doesn't make the porridge taste salty — it makes the oats taste more like oats. The same principle as salting bread dough: it enhances flavour without adding a perceptibly salty taste.

Sugar, honey, syrup — these all mask the oat flavour rather than enhancing it. If your porridge needs sugar to taste good, you're using bad oats or not cooking them long enough.

That said, I'm not a fundamentalist. If you want to add honey, go ahead. If you want to add stewed fruit (rhubarb, apple, berries), even better — fruit works brilliantly because the acidity complements the oats. Just try it with salt first, once, and see whether you actually prefer it.

Toppings that work

If you're going beyond bare porridge, these are the combinations I come back to:

Cream and brown sugar — my grandmother's Sunday version. A pool of cold double cream around the edge of the bowl, a teaspoon of dark muscovado sugar. Decadent and completely traditional.

Stewed rhubarb — forced rhubarb (January–April) roasted with a spoonful of sugar until it collapses. Spoon over hot porridge. The tartness against the earthy oats is perfect.

Raspberries and honey — fresh Scottish raspberries in summer (July–September). Frozen in winter. A drizzle of Scottish honey. The fruit barely needs the honey but it bridges the flavours.

Whisky and cream — the "Atholl Brose" approach. A splash of whisky (something light — Auchentoshan, Glenkinchie) and cold cream. This is a weekend thing, not a Tuesday-before-work thing. But it exists, and it's good.

Nothing — properly made porridge with good oatmeal, water, and salt doesn't need anything on top. I eat it plain more often than not.

The World Porridge Making Championships

Yes, this exists. Held annually in Carrbridge, Inverness-shire, since 1994. Competitors are judged on porridge made with three ingredients only: oatmeal, water, and salt. No milk. No sugar. No toppings. Just the quality of the oats and the skill of the cooking.

The winner's porridge is typically described as "creamy, nutty, with a slight bite" — which is exactly what good porridge should be. The competition proves the point: the best porridge doesn't need anything beyond good oats and good technique.

I haven't entered. I probably should.

What about overnight oats?

Overnight oats — rolled oats soaked in milk or yoghurt overnight in the fridge — are a different food from porridge. They're fine. They're convenient. They're not porridge.

The texture is soft and uniform (no variation), the flavour is dominated by whatever dairy you soak them in, and they're eaten cold. None of these things are bad, but they're not what this piece is about. If you like overnight oats, keep eating them. But don't call them porridge in Scotland unless you want an argument.

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Find oatmeal from local producers at Scottish markets with our Farmers Market Finder — several mills sell direct at Edinburgh and Glasgow markets.

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