This post was created as a collaboration between Pickle Planet Moncton, the Greater Moncton Highland Games & Scottish Festival (coming up June 14, 2025 – with free entry to the fields for everyone!), and Greater Moncton Poutine Week (featuring more than 30 restaurant specials from March 27 – April 13, 2025).

Parenting teens is still new territory for me, so I’m always in search of ways to create moments of connection. Currently, my approach is #PoutineParenting — using fried food as a bridge to building core memories. We enjoyed eating out as a family during Greater Moncton’s Poutine Week, so I thought why not make our own creative take on poutine at home, too?

A proper poutine really needs just three things: fries, cheese curds, and gravy. That makes it an easy kitchen choice if you’re looking for something simple and fairly quick to make with the kids. Throw in a dash of the unusual – like haggis! – and it can be an adventure full of laughs and funny moments!

HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE HAGGIS POUTINE WITH MAPLE WHISKY CREAM GRAVY SAUCE

INGREDIENTS

• Haggis (more on this below)
• Cheese Curds (definitely NOT optional!)
• Potatoes
• Salt & Pepper & Oil
• Green Onions (optional)
• Bacon bits (optional)
• for the Maple Whisk(e)y Cream Gravy
  • 3/4 cup cream
  • 2 teaspoons corn starch
  • 4 tablespoons maple syrup (around 1/4 cup)
  • 2 teaspoons whisky (optional; your choice)

The jewel of this dish is haggis. If you’re not familiar with it, haggis is a Scottish food that’s sort of like meatloaf. Traditionally, it would be the heart, liver, and lungs of a sheep, minced and cooked with onion, oatmeal, suet, and spices, then cooked inside the sheep’s stomach. Today, you can usually find a pre-made version that has a similar spice profile (hints of nutmeg and pepper should come through) but uses a mix of lamb and beef, rather than just organs, and is cooked in a casing similar to a sausage.

You could go all in and make your haggis from scratch, but I suggest calling Rinzlers in Moncton to find out if they have some of the fabulous frozen haggis from Nova Scotia’s Tony’s Meats in stock; that’s what I used, though I have made my own in the past. (Also, it’s suggested you boil the meat, but we fried it up in a pan as it felt more like the fit for poutine.)

Fun fact: The word haggis might trace its lingual roots to the French verb hacher or hager, meaning to mince or chop, the way you would the ingredients for haggis. Perhaps the oldest written use of the word we know of today is in a poem from the 13th century, written by English knight knight and poet Walter of Bibbesworth. The most well-known poem about it is, of course, Robert Burns’ Address to a Haggis.

INSTRUCTIONS

First step, once you have your ingredients, is to chop up the potatoes into roughly-rectangular shapes. We tossed ours in a little oil, sprinkled them with salt & pepper, laid them out on a cookie sheet, and popped them into the oven to roast. Honestly, I forgot to note what temperature and how long, but I think we usually put them in for about 20 minutes at 425 degrees.

While the fries are baking, cook your haggis and make your maple whisky gravy sauce.

Maple Whisk(e)y Cream Gravy

To make the sauce, use a small saucepan. Bring the cream almost to a boil, then whisk in the maple syrup.

We recommend using something from the Wabanaki Maple collection; their Barrel Aged Whisky Maple Syrup would be a great match, especially if you’re not keen on using a dram or two of full liquor in your sauce. We opted for their Chipotle Infused Maple Syrup for a little spice (and it’s what we had in the cupboard!).

Next we added our whisky. Choose based on your taste profile – and again, we think you can make a mean maple gravy without the alcohol.

We opted to keep our Haggis Poutine local, reaching for the bottle of New Brunswick-made Moonshine Creek’s Downriver Whisky that was in the cupboard. It might be a collector’s item now though, but you might still find a bottle of their Whisky Maple Cream at the ANBL that would be a sweeter, creamier approach. (A great alternative to that would be Quebec’s Sortilège Original – a blend of Canadian whisky and Quebec maple syrup – which also has a cream version.) If you’re looking to go Scottish and want a smoky, peaty taste to your cream, we also tried a version with a teaspoon of Ardbeg’s Wee Beastie. I thought it gave the sauce the perfect Scottish flavour; the teen thought it ruined the gravy!

When your fries are ready, it’s time to enjoy your creation! We layered our plate with fries first, then sprinkled cheese curds around, followed by a generous drizzle of maple whisky cream gravy over it all.

Our village grocery carries SQUEAK-ies Cheese Curds from Fromagerie PEI, so that’s what we used. They were a great choice, as I like my poutine cheese to be a touch bulky, with a good squeak and not too much salt. If you’re trying to stay New Brunswick local, I highly recommend the products from Les Blancs d’Arcadie in Caraquet. (I daydream about their tortillons!)

We also chopped up some green onions and used some bacon bits to add a little pizzaz to the dish; these are totally optional, of course.

That’s it! Now you’re ready to enjoy your Haggis Poutine, perhaps while sporting your favourite tartan like Papa Pickle!

#PoutineParenting is about connection, so having some trivia tidbits to chat about over the meal is also a good idea.

DYK: Poutine is a French Canadian dish and some traditionalists will maintain it shouldn’t be changed, as that’s a form of cultural appropriation?

Also, there’s a long-standing relationship between the Scots and the French, with the two countries having an alliance against the English for centuries. I believe both my Scottish and my French ancestors would see the fun in this feast! It was a great way to pass along a little family lore to the kids while we enjoyed cooking and eating our Haggis Poutine.

RELATED: How to Make a No-Sew Tartan Tutu for Tartan Day (April 6) (back when Miss Pickle was barely a toddler!)

For more on our #PoutineParenting movement, check out our post over on Feast Atlantic for Greater Moncton’s Poutine Week 2025.

Mark your calendars for the 2025 Greater Moncton Highland Games & Scottish Festival!

The main celebration is Saturday, June 14 at the Hal Betts Sportsplex in Downtown Moncton – with music, dancing, feats of strength, petting zoo, bouncy castles, blacksmith, bagpipes, and so much more – and this year, entry is FREE! (We can’t promise any Haggis Poutine, but there have been Haggis Burgers in the past!)