Scottish Mince Recipe with Tatties - My Kitchen Love (2024)

A Scottish Mince and Tatties recipe for a comfort food meal that is a family favourite meal my Nana made. It’s a comforting Scottish mince recipe that is a warm hug during the chillier months.

This postis in memory ofmy brother. He passed awayvery suddenly and tragically in 2008 when he was 28 years old and this week he would have turned 37. This Scottish Mince recipe with Tatties (or just plain “Mince” as we called it) was his favourite meal that our Nana would make him.

I don’t want to go on for very long about this dark period in my life. I don’t like talking about it, I don’t like writing about it.

What I much prefer to do is remember the good times with my brother andI know that he would have always wanted me to choose hope, love, and happiness aboveof sitting in the depths of grief.

The instant I start making this meal, I can recall what the dinner plates looked like at my grandparent’s house. Memories flood in from the stash of Scottish mints in their car to how high the tree was in their yard that I would climb.

But most of all, I remember my brother enjoying this meal with such delight (he wasn’t the best eater in our family, that was clearly my role).

Isn’t funny how a taste or a smell can take you so far back down memory lane? My youngest daughter is the most like my brother. The twinkle in their eyes, their joy for life, the glee over this dish.

Lucy went crazy for it and would not stay down off the table long enough for me to photograph it. So, not only do you get see this bowl of tastiness, but you get to see a lot of Lucy’s tiny hands.

Scottish Mince and Tatties is basically ground meat and potatoes. There are countless (and often controversial) versions ofthe recipe. The recipe shown here is the closest I can get it to my Nana’s.

She sadly passed away a number of years before my brother and so I’ve been trying to replicate it while carefully questioning any Scottish person I run into about this dish since I don’t have a solid referral source for it.

I will say that using OXO gravy mix was the turning point for me, some say that Bisto Gravy is the key to this dish. I find that Bisto creates such a thick gravy that I prefer OXO, but the ultimate choice is yours and what’s available to you.

Bisto is harder to come by for me as I’m in Canada, not the UK, and Bisto is also crazy pricey for me given that it’s an import.

If you’ve never had this dish before, then I don’t think the type of beef broth you use will matter all that much. Since I grew up on it, the slight nuances are a factor for me and that’s why I use that mix specifically. The vegetables are a big controversial portion of the dish.

I like it with more vegetables versus less. I pack onion, carrots and peas into the dish for some sort of nutritional value.

Even when I have all this veg, I still usually serve a simple green salad on the side. My kids always eat salad so it’s an easy out for me.

My husband obviously loves this dish; it’s literally meat and potatoes so he’s very pleased when he arrives home from work to this on the dinner table.

Baby Lucy totally went crazy for this dish. She loves meat and potatoes so it’s not a stretch to assume she would be into it, I was surprised at the quantity she ate of it. A lot.

The 3 year olds were into the meat portion of this dish. One loved the entire dish and the other loved the meat portion (she doesn’t like potatoes unless they are french fries).

Other comfort food meals:

• Belgian Beef Stew
• Beef Stroganoff
• One Pot Broccoli and Cheese Pasta

*** This post was originally written in November 2016 and was updated with some new photos and formatting in October 2020.

Enjoy! xo