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Cape Braai
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Monograph

Boerewors

The sausage without which there is no braai — and one of the few South African foods whose composition is written into the gazette. What that means exactly, how to spot it at the counter, and what stands in for it in Europe.

Boerewors laid in loops beside lamb ribs, both in a hinged grid over pale coals
Olga Ernst · CC BY-SA 4.0

Where the word comes from

Afrikaans boer means farmer, wors means sausage. Literally a farmer’s sausage — and the name carries the first trap for anyone arriving from Europe: a German Bauernwurst is scalded and fine. Boerewors is raw, coarsely cut and coiled in one continuous spiral.

Ask for a farmer’s sausage in a shop abroad and you will almost certainly get something else. What to check for is further down.

What the law says

The reference is Government Notice R. 2718 of 23 November 1990, made under section 15(1) of the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act 54 of 1972 and in force six months after publication. The full text is linked below. Since 26 August 2022 R. 2410 under the Agricultural Product Standards Act sits alongside it, covering classification, packing and marking of raw processed meat products across thirteen categories, boerewors among them.

Species
Bovine, ovine, porcine or caprine — or a mixture of two or more.
Meat content
A minimum of 90 per cent total meat content. Note: that is fat-free meat together with the fat, not lean meat alone.
Fat content
No more than 30 per cent.
Offal
None — except the casing, where offal is used solely as the casing.
Mechanically recovered meat
Not permitted.
Casing
Must be an edible casing.
Otherwise allowed
Only cereal products or starch, vinegar, spices, herbs, salt or other harmless flavourants, permitted food additives, and water.
Label
The word Boerewors at least 4 mm high on the main panel; in the ingredient list the minimum percentage of meat and the maximum percentage of fat, at least 1 mm high.
Game
Game sausage is not boerewors but species sausage, with at least 75 per cent total meat content, of which at least 75 per cent must be the named species.

Sources

Checked on 2026-09-05

The test bench

Six questions you can answer standing at the shelf. The result is a sentence underneath, not a score — and the sheet works printed out.

Without a script this is a printable checklist: six ticks means boerewors. If coriander or vinegar are missing it is a spiced bratwurst — no bad thing, but a different thing.

The regional kinds

No law governs what the names mean — it is trade convention. So every row carries the source the attribution comes from.

Kind What is different How you notice Source
Grabouw Mildly spiced, more finely ground spice base, with a share of pork. Tastes earthy and restrained; the spice does not lead. Wine Magazine SA
Ossewa Noticeably more clove than usual. You smell the clove at the grid already. Mail & Guardian
Cederberg Strongly, sometimes hotly spiced. Warmth afterwards rather than heat in the mouth. Mail & Guardian
Karoowors Mostly lamb, savoury and earthy. The lamb comes through before the spice. Wikipedia
Cape Malay Sweet spices — cinnamon and cardamom. Smells like baking, tastes like sausage. Mail & Guardian
Spekwors Extra cubed pork fat in the mix. White cubes visible in the cut, and it spits more. Wikipedia
Kameeldoring Its own spice signature, named after the camel thorn. Regionally common, the make-up differs by butcher. Wikipedia
Knoblauchwors Garlic as the leading spice. You smell it unwrapping it, not at the fire. Wikipedia

Why coriander

The spice base is toasted coriander seed with black pepper, clove, allspice and nutmeg, bound with vinegar. Of those five, coriander is the one building block that separates boerewors from every European sausage.

Toasting is not a flourish. Raw coriander seed tastes soapy and lemony; in a dry pan it turns warm and nutty, and that is what carries the fat. Skip the step and you get a sausage that smells of washing powder — and no idea why.

The vinegar does not taste sour in the finished sausage. It drops the pH, holds the mix together, and was originally the preservation. The same logic sits behind biltong.

Buying it in Europe

Meat and meat products cannot be brought in privately from South Africa. Regulation (EU) 2019/2122 prohibits carrying meat and dairy products from non-EU countries in personal luggage; the reason is animal disease, not taste. What you can buy in Europe is made in the EU by the same method.

What the label has to say for it to be wors: coarsely cut beef with fatty pork, coriander in the ingredient list, vinegar, and no binders beyond starch or cereal. If it says only spices where coriander should be, ask — the answer tells you everything.

At a butcher abroad, the most usable order is: coarse beef sausage, 70 to 30 with pork belly, toasted coriander and vinegar, in hog casing, not tied into links.

Ingredients · Meat glossary

Sources

Checked on 2026-09-05

When it goes wrong

The sausage splits

CauseCoals too hot. The fat runs out, catches, and the casing tears.

What to doWait until the hand test gives you eight seconds. A split wors is always braaied too hot, never too long.

Black outside, raw inside

CauseStraight from the fridge onto full coals.

What to doTake it out half an hour before and start it on the cooler zone.

Dry and crumbly

CausePierced with a fork, or turned too often.

What to doTongs rather than a fork, exactly one turn, and five minutes resting off the grid.

Falls apart when turned

CauseThe coil is not pinned.

What to doPush two skewers crosswise through the spiral before it goes on.

Smells soapy

CauseUntoasted coriander in the mix — only applies to homemade wors.

What to doToast the seed in a dry pan first, until it smells of itself.

Watch this

Linked, not embedded — opening this page contacts no outside server. The time marks jump straight to the moment.