It might be known as one of the world's friendliest countries, but Canada isn't especially famous for its cuisine. We're not sure why, though, because the Great White North has an amazing array of dishes that showcase its history, multiculturalism and abundant produce, from Indigenous inventions like pemmican bars to hearty home-cooked pies and fast food favourites. Timbit, anyone?
Click or scroll through our gallery for an A-Z of weird and wonderful foods you’ll only find in Canada.
Can’t decide whether you’re in the mood for barbecue, sour cream and onion, ketchup or salt and vinegar crisps? Think like a Canadian and go for the all dressed variety. A taste sensation, this moreish mash-up of all of the above flavours is one of the country’s most popular crisp flavours. Ruffles and Old Dutch Ridgies – an iconic Canadian brand that began making potato chips in Winnipeg in 1954 – are the go-to brands.
Brought to Canada by European settlers and fur traders, bannock’s origins have been traced back to Scotland – its name comes from the Gaelic word bannach, meaning 'morsel'. Similar to soda bread, this type of unleavened bread became a staple carb for Canada’s indigenous communities, and is still a cornerstone of many First Nations cuisines. It’s often pan fried and is sometimes twisted onto sticks to cook over the fire. Many Indigenous-owned bakeries and Canadian chefs have come up with their own take on bannock over the years.
Named after Canada's national animal, BeaverTails pastries are a must-eat, especially after ice skating along Ottawa’s Rideau Canal. Shaped like a beaver tail (what else?), the long, flat wholewheat pastries are deep-fried, then drenched in cinnamon sugar – and chocolate spread, bananas, crumbled cookies, whipped cream are all popular toppings. Inspired by his German-Canadian grandmother's recipe for Bavarian küchle, Grant Hooker and his wife Pam founded the original BeaverTails stand in Ottawa’s Byward Market in 1980. Today, there are BeaverTails stores all over the country.
Both Québec and Ontario lay claim to these moreish little mouthfuls. To make a traditional butter tart, a dainty, flaky pastry shell is filled with a batter made of sugar, butter, golden syrup (or maple syrup) and egg – and raisins and nuts are sometimes added too. When it’s baked, the top gets a lovely crust to it, and the whole thing tastes great served warm with lashings of whipped cream. Butter tarts are so beloved that they have their own festival, Ontario's Best Butter Tart Festival, and dedicated road trip: the Kawarthas Northumberland Butter Tart Tour.
Creative pizza toppings are all the rage in the Great White North. Not only did Canada give the world the Hawaiian pizza (the pineapple-and-ham combo was first dreamt up by Greek restaurateur Sam Panopoulos in Ontario in the 1960s), but it also pioneered the far less controversial Canadian pizza. It may not have gone global like its tropical sister, but it’s still a much-loved takeout favourite in its homeland, featuring a taste bud–tingling combination of pepperoni, bacon and mushrooms.
Cherry Blossom candy was the 19th-century creation of the Walter M. Lowney Company of Canada, a confectionery brand based in Ontario. Now made by Hershey Canada, these individually wrapped treats have lashings of old-school charm, from their vintage packaging to their cloyingly sweet centre. Inside a mound of thick chocolate, desiccated coconut and roasted peanuts, you'll find a pink, syrupy middle complete with a maraschino cherry.
Traditionally a thrifty fisherman’s reward, these crispy bites made the perfect pick-me-up for men working on Canada’s wild East Coast. Now a classic Newfoundland comfort food, cod tongues aren't actually tongues at all – they're little muscles found in a cod's neck. The tasty morsels are drenched in seasoned flour, then deep-fried until golden, and they typically come served with scrunchions (crispy salted pork bits), perhaps with a comforting portion of Newfoundland peas pudding on the side.
When it comes to chocolate bars, there's one brand that Canadians love more than any other. Only available in Canada, the Coffee Crisp is an irresistible combination of coffee cream and vanilla wafers, all wrapped up in a chocolate coating. It was introduced to the country in the 1930s by British confectionery brand Rowntree’s, but is now produced by Nestlé – a brand that's also responsible for the (equally tempting) Coffee Crisp ice cream dessert bars.
May is a big month in Tide Head, a small riverside village in New Brunswick: it’s peak fiddlehead season. The self-styled Fiddlehead Capital of the World draws foragers to the banks of the Restigouche River, where these tightly curled fern fronds flourish. Plucked from the ostrich fern, fiddleheads are similar to asparagus in terms of texture and flavour. You’ll see these coiled green beauties for sale in many Canadian farmers’ markets in spring.
Born in the home kitchens of Western Canada’s prairies, this unctuous cream pie has become a Sunday supper classic. It’s a simple but delicious creation, with a cinnamon-sprinkled graham cracker base, a vanilla custard filling and a fluffy meringue topping (often scattered with additional biscuit crumbs). Flapper pie's origins can be traced back to the late 19th century, but it’s thought that it got its name in the 1920s. Calgary’s long-running Blackfoot Truckstop Diner is known for its towering version, which has an extremely generous meringue-to-custard ratio.
A Halifax signature, the donair was created in the 1970s by Greek immigrant Peter Gamouloukas, the owner of the King of Donair restaurant. A bit like a classic gyros or doner kebab, it's made by cooking a spiced beef mixture on a rotisserie spit, then wrapping it up in a pitta with tomatoes and onion – but what truly sets the donair apart is its sweet and garlicky sauce, made with condensed milk. King of Donair now has several outposts, in Nova Scotia and beyond.
What’s not to love about this Canadian sweet treat? A chocolate-dipped red velvet sponge cake sandwiched with vanilla cream, the Jos Louis was created by French-Canadian baker Josef-Arcade Vachon at his bakery in Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce in Québec in 1932. The now-iconic bake was named after his sons Joseph and Louis. Still around today, the Vachon brand makes many other popular sugary snacks, including the Passion Flakie and May West.
Canadians love a dollop of ketchup with their food – so perhaps it’s no surprise that ketchup-flavoured crisps are the country's salty, savoury snack of choice. Thought to have been created by Hostess Potato Chips in the 1970s, the tangy flavour is now one of Lay’s and Ruffles' most popular varieties. The sweet, vinegary tomato seasoning is often sprinkled on to homemade popcorn, too.
It’s a sure sign of spring when you see maple taffy (or, in French, tire sur la neige) on the menus of sugar shacks, traditional log cabins in Québec’s maple forests. The annual tradition sees newly harvested maple syrup boiled to a thick concentrate, poured onto fresh snow until it sets a little, then rolled up with a wooden stick to eat like a lollipop. Many sugar shacks are open year-round, like Sucrerie de la Montagne, which serves traditional Québécois dishes – many of which are flavoured with maple syrup. Want to get your taffy fix in the city? Urban sugar shacks sometimes pop up in Montréal, too.
Moose steaks, moose sliders, pulled moose, moose sausages, moose and barley soup... when it comes to Canadian meats, moose is where it's at. Dark, lean and full-flavoured, moose is incredibly versatile, and can be found in a variety of dishes on menus up and down the country – especially in Newfoundland, where the large forest dwellers are abundant. Elk, caribou, bison and Arctic hare are other native meats that were traditionally hunted and eaten.
Canada’s Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island) have some distinct culinary traditions, dating back to when they were a French colony in the 17th and 18th centuries. Many of these traditions, including poutine râpée, are still preserved by the Acadian communities who live there. This Acadian potato dumpling is made by combining raw grated potatoes and mashed boiled potatoes, then using the mixture to encase salted pork. The whole thing is then boiled, or sometimes simmered in a stew. Typically eaten at Christmas, it's thought the hearty and economical dish was introduced to the region by German immigrants.
A tooth-numbingly sweet dessert, maple syrup pie is a French-Canadian winter warmer that’s often baked around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Also known as tarte au sirop d’érable, the decadent dessert makes a star of maple syrup, an ingredient that’s long been part of Canada’s culinary heritage. The thick brown syrup is added to a batter made up of brown sugar, egg, vanilla, cream and cornflour, and the mixture is then poured into buttery shortcrust pastry to bake.
There are bagels, and then there are Montréal bagels. Sweeter, chewier and denser than other bagels, they're utterly delicious. Lots of love goes into making these doughy delights: they're hand-rolled and stretched, dipped in boiling honey water, dusted with poppy or sesame seeds, then baked to perfection in a wood-fired oven. The end result? Gorgeous golden-hued bagels with an irresistible crust. Montréal is packed with small-batch bagel bakeries, but Fairmount and St-Viateur are among the most historic.
Introduced by Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the 19th century, smoked meat is another Montréal must-eat. It was traditionally made by dry-curing brisket, rubbing it with salt and spice, leaving it to marinate in a barrel for a month, then hanging it up to smoke. Today the Montréal delicacy is cured with salt and spices for around 10 days, then smoked and steamed before being cut (always against the grain) to order. It's best eaten piping hot in a rye bread sandwich, with a good smear of yellow mustard and a punchy pickle.
A no-bake slice of deliciousness, the Nanaimo bar is named after the British Colombian city where it originated in the post-war years. It looks similar to millionaire’s shortbread, but this Canadian classic is very much its own sweet self. The layered teatime treat has a coconutty and chocolatey biscuit base, a creamy vanilla custard centre and a thick layer of chocolate on top. Who could resist?
Packed with protein, calories and plenty of flavour, the original energy bar, pemmican, was historically an important part of many First Nations communities’ diets. Not one for vegans, this dense delicacy is made from a mix of tallow (rendered fat) and dried pounded meat (traditionally bison), often with wild berries like saskatoons added. Today you can buy the age-old fast food in packets – and some Indigenous chefs, like Inez Cook, have put their own modern twist on the old recipe. Pemmican mousse is a signature dish at her Vancouver restaurant, Salmon n' Bannock.
From a humble roadside snack to a global taste sensation, no list of Canuck cuisine would be complete without these gloriously decadent loaded fries. A cultural icon of Canada, classic poutine is made by topping French fries with squeaky cheese curds, then drowning the whole lot in gravy. It’s hot, messy and utterly scrumptious. These days, poutine isn’t limited to just gravy and cheese curd toppings, though; depending on where you go, you’ll find the dish crowned with all kinds of extras, from smoked brisket and kimchi to foie gras and Nova Scotia lobster.
A delicacy favoured by the cattle ranchers of Southern Alberta, prairie oysters have nothing to do with the bivalve and everything to do with castrated bull calves. Also known as Rocky Mountain oysters, these young bulls’ testicles are skinned, breaded, deep fried and typically dunked into a rich gravy. Calgary institution Bottlescrew Bill’s dishes up these ballsy treats at its Testicle Festival, held during the annual Calgary Stampede.
Chewy, salty, sweet and smoky, candy salmon is a tasty West Coast snack. Here, wild Pacific salmon, caught off the coast of British Columbia, is cut into thick strips, cured in sugar and salt, then brushed with maple syrup before being wood smoked. The idea behind smoking salmon stems from Pacific Northwest Indian tribes, who smoked the prized fatty fish over alder wood to preserve it.
Native to Canada, the deep-coloured saskatoon or amelanchier berry looks similar to a blueberry, but smaller. It has different flavour profile, too, with a slight hint of almond – and it's actually closely related to the apple, as part of the rose (Rosaceae) family. Highly prized by the Indigenous people of western Canada, the hardy plant produces antioxidant-rich berries, which were typically used in meat soups, and leaves that were boiled up to make tea. Today saskatoons are commonly used to make jams and pies, allowing their sweet, nutty flavour to shine.
Much-loved Canadian candies with no discernible connection to Sweden, Swedish Berries are soft, red and berry-shaped – and bursting with flavour. The squishy jelly sweets are one of a number of fruity favourites made by the Maynards confectionery brand, which is now owned by Mondelez Canada. Other old-school favourites for candy-loving Canadians are Fuzzy Peach gummies and Sour Cherry Blasters.
You won’t find this savoury sauce on the menu in any real-life Swiss chalets, but you’ll most definitely find it on the plates of Canadians up and down the country. Created by the Swiss Chalet restaurant chain as an accompaniment for its rotisserie chicken, the recipe for this sweet, tangy and herby sauce is a 'treasured secret recipe'. You can also buy packets of the powdered sauce in supermarkets.
Swirled with ribbons of liquorice, this creamy orange ice cream might not be to everyone's taste, but the unusual flavour combination causes some Canadians to go misty-eyed with nostalgia. The distinctive tiger-coloured frozen treat had its heyday between the 1950s and 1970s – and it can still be found in some ice cream stores in Ontario, where it was most popular. Chapman’s Ice Cream also sells tubs of this only-in-Canada classic.
An essential road trip snack, Timbits are Canuck-created doughnut holes. The bite-sized treats were introduced to the nation by the now-ubiquitous Canadian coffee chain Tim Horton’s in 1976, and they've remained popular ever since. The classic varieties are Old Fashion Plain, Old Fashion Sugar and Old Fashion Glazed, but you can get them in a veritable smorgasbord of flavour variations these days – including Birthday Cake, Sour Cream, Toasted Coconut, Honey Cruller, Honey Dip, Apple Fritter, Strawberry and Chocolate.
A Québécois Christmas classic, the tourtière is a traditional meat pie that's baked in a shallow dish and spiced with cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg. Every family adds its own twist; while it invariably contains onions (and perhaps potato chunks too), it might be made with minced or hand-chopped beef, pork or veal (or all of the above). Encased in a flaky lard-based pastry, the dense delight is known by Acadians living in the Maritime Provinces as pâté à viande.
A traditional dish from Newfoundland, toutons are essentially fried bread pancakes. Made with leftover white bread dough, these humble pan-fried treats were typically served with butter, molasses and scrunchions (crispy bits of pork fat). Today, you’ll find the pancakes on breakfast plates around Atlantic Canada – either with jam or syrup, or with crispy bacon, eggs and beans.