I have created Japanese inspired dishes used with that ordinary tin that has been forgotten on the shelf in UK supermarkets, and it has led me to this question: Why aren’t Brits cooking with it in their kitchens? …

Why Aren’t You Cooking With SPAM?

Okinawa made me look again at one of Britain’s most familiar tins. Three dishes later, I’m beginning to think SPAM still deserves a place on the dinner table in 2026.

When was the last time you cooked with SPAM?

That was the question I originally wanted to ask.

But after becoming fascinated by the way canned pork is used in Okinawa — and then cooking three completely different SPAM dishes myself — I’ve started asking a slightly different question.

Why aren’t you cooking with SPAM?

I’m not suggesting everyone should eat processed meat every night. I’m certainly not claiming SPAM is a health food.

I’m asking because I’ve discovered something remarkably simple.

Cook it properly and SPAM can be really rather good.

And perhaps here in Britain we’ve forgotten just how much can be done with that famous little tin.

It started with Okinawa

Strangely enough, this little culinary experiment began thousands of miles from my kitchen.

I’ve been researching Okinawa ahead of a possible trip to the Japanese islands, learning about everything from its Ryukyuan history and karate heritage to its traditions and food.

And one ingredient kept cropping up.

Canned pork.

Including, of course, SPAM.

Canned luncheon meat became deeply embedded in Okinawan food culture following the Second World War and the subsequent American military presence.

What’s fascinating isn’t simply that Okinawans started eating it.

It’s what they did with it.

Rather than remaining an imported American curiosity, canned pork became incorporated into an evolving Okinawan food culture.

You’ll find it combined with eggs, rice and vegetables and appearing in dishes such as chanpurū-style stir-fries.

Decades later, that relationship hasn’t simply disappeared.

While watching videos about food in Okinawa, I came across something that particularly caught my attention: strips of SPAM fried until golden and crispy, sold as a contemporary snack.

They looked almost like SPAM nuggets or fingers.

And that’s when a question occurred to me.

Why aren’t we doing more with SPAM in Britain?

Two countries. One familiar tin.

There’s an interesting contrast here.

Britain certainly has its own history with SPAM.

It became familiar during and following the Second World War, and generations of Britons will remember everything from fried SPAM to the famous — or infamous, depending on your childhood — SPAM fritter.

Yet somewhere along the way, SPAM seems to have acquired a distinctly nostalgic image here.

It hasn’t disappeared.

Walk around a British supermarket and you’ll still find that instantly recognisable tin.

But when was the last time somebody invited you over for dinner and announced enthusiastically:

“We’re having SPAM tonight”?

Okinawa seems to have taken a rather different route.

Canned pork wasn’t simply remembered.

It continued being cooked with.

That’s an important distinction.

I’m not suggesting Okinawa’s dishes are somehow proof that SPAM is healthy. Okinawa is historically famous as one of the world’s so-called Blue Zone regions associated with exceptional longevity, but the traditional Okinawan diet linked with that longevity was largely plant-based and quite different from a diet centred around processed meat.

The interesting connection for me is cultural, not nutritional.

Okinawa demonstrated that an old convenience food doesn’t necessarily have to remain trapped in the era in which it became popular.

You can keep doing new things with it.

And that made me look differently at the tin sitting on British supermarket shelves.

So I bought some

I didn’t want to write an article telling people how versatile SPAM was without actually cooking with the stuff myself.

So I started experimenting.

And that’s important.

Because what I’m writing now isn’t based purely upon nostalgia, advertising or watching somebody else cook on YouTube.

I’ve put it in the pan.

I’ve eaten the results.

And I’ve been surprised by them.

Plate One: The SPAM Burger

The first experiment was wonderfully straightforward.

A SPAM burger.

I fried the SPAM until the outside developed those browned, crispy edges and used it as the centrepiece of a burger.

Nothing revolutionary.

Nothing complicated.

And the verdict?

Bloody tasty.

What particularly interested me was what happened when SPAM was properly fried.

Straight from the tin, it isn’t necessarily the most visually exciting ingredient in the world.

Give it some serious heat, though, and something changes.

The edges caramelise.

The exterior crisps.

The flavour intensifies.

Suddenly I wanted to know what else it could do.

Plate Two: Crispy Teriyaki SPAM

Next came a completely different flavour direction.

Crispy teriyaki-style SPAM.

Once again I fried the meat until properly browned before combining it with those sweet, savoury, sticky teriyaki-style flavours.

It was delicious.

And now something was beginning to happen.

I’d taken exactly the same basic ingredient and moved from something resembling classic Western fast food into an Asian-inspired dish simply by changing the way I treated it.

Two plates.

Two very different meals.

One tin.

So I kept going.

Plate Three: The WOK UNDERDOG Noodle Bowl

This was the experiment that really changed the question for me.

I made a Crispy SPAM Tomato Noodle Bowl with kale, chilli, spring onion and boiled egg.

And I wasn’t attempting to create elaborate restaurant food.

That’s important.

This was WOK UNDERDOG cooking: simple ingredients, straightforward cooking and plenty of flavour.

I created a tomato base and added noodles, kale and a small amount of diced chilli.

The balance of the sauce turned out particularly well.

It wasn’t so thick that the noodles became stodgy, but it wasn’t swimming in liquid either.

The sauce coated the noodles.

The kale supplied the greens.

The chilli gave it enough heat without taking over.

Fresh spring onion provided a completely different freshness and crunch.

A boiled egg went alongside.

And then came the SPAM.

I’d fried chunky pieces until they were extremely crispy before putting them over the finished noodles.

When I started eating them, I realised what they’d effectively become.

SPAM croutons.

Little salty, meaty, crunchy pieces sitting on top of the softer noodles and tomato sauce.

And they worked.

For a first attempt, I’d put the finished bowl at nearly 4/5.

I’m deliberately not giving it five.

Part of experimenting with food is being prepared to say when something could be better.

But what surprised me about this particular bowl was that I couldn’t identify much that fundamentally needed changing.

Three plates in, I realised my original question had changed.

I wasn’t asking:

When did you last cook with SPAM?

I was beginning to ask:

Why AREN’T you cooking with SPAM?

Because in three attempts I’d already made a burger, crispy teriyaki-style SPAM and a tomato noodle bowl.

Three entirely different plates.

And I wasn’t running out of ideas.

I was accumulating them.

Perhaps SPAM has an imagination problem

Maybe that’s ultimately what we’re dealing with.

Perhaps SPAM doesn’t have a food problem. Perhaps it has an imagination problem.

If your mental picture of SPAM is simply opening the tin, cutting off a pink slice and dropping it onto a plate, I can understand why you might walk straight past it in the supermarket.

But that’s not what I’ve experienced.

Fry it until seriously crispy.

Glaze it.

Put it into a burger.

Scatter crispy pieces over noodles.

Combine it with eggs.

Try it with rice.

Put it into a curry.

Coat it and make nuggets.

Suddenly that supposedly boring tin becomes a remarkably adaptable ingredient.

And this is where my fascination with Okinawa comes full circle.

Okinawa made me curious about SPAM. Cooking with it made me understand some of the attraction.

I’m not recreating Okinawan cuisine in my kitchen, and my three dishes shouldn’t be described as authentic Okinawan food.

Okinawa simply made me look again at an ingredient I already knew.

And perhaps that’s exactly what SPAM needs in Britain.

Not reinvention.

Rediscovery.

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WOK UNDERDOG RECIPE

Crispy SPAM Tomato Noodle Bowl

with Kale, Chilli, Spring Onion & Boiled Egg

Serves 1 generously

You’ll need

SPAM, cut into chunky bite-sized pieces; one portion of noodles; tomato soup or a relatively loose tomato sauce; a good handful of kale; one boiled egg; fresh chilli, finely diced according to taste; two or three spring onions; a little cooking oil; and black pepper if desired.

I wouldn’t automatically add salt or soy sauce. Taste it first. SPAM already provides considerable seasoning.

Get those SPAM croutons going

Cut the SPAM into chunky pieces.

Heat a small amount of oil in your wok or frying pan and fry the pieces until they’re deeply browned and seriously crisp on the outside.

Don’t rush them.

That crunchy exterior is one of the things that makes the finished dish work.

Once they’re ready, remove them and keep them to one side.

Build the bowl

Add your tomato soup or sauce to the wok.

The consistency matters.

You want enough liquid to coat the noodles generously, but this isn’t really a soup. You’re looking for something between a broth and a thick pasta sauce.

Allow it to reduce if necessary.

Add your kale and finely diced chilli and cook until the kale has softened.

Then add the noodles and work everything through the tomato mixture until thoroughly coated.

If it becomes too thick, add just a splash of water.

Finish it

Transfer the noodles into a large bowl.

Halve the boiled egg and place it alongside.

Now add the crispy SPAM at the end, rather than allowing it to sit in the sauce and lose all that crunch.

Finish with plenty of freshly chopped spring onion.

That’s it.

Crispy SPAM Tomato Noodles.

Simple.

Colourful.

Filling.

And, on attempt number one:

WOK UNDERDOG VERDICT: NEARLY 4/5

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Does SPAM deserve a place on the dinner table in 2026?

Based upon these first three experiments, my answer is:

Yes.

Not every day.

I’m not pretending it’s a superfood, and I’m certainly not suggesting we should suddenly build our diets around processed canned meat.

But there’s a big difference between saying something shouldn’t be eaten every day and saying it no longer deserves a place in our cooking.

Occasional doesn’t mean obsolete.

We constantly talk about wanting food that’s convenient, relatively inexpensive, easy to store and capable of producing quick meals.

Here’s an ingredient that’s been doing those things for generations.

Perhaps we’ve just stopped noticing it.

And there’s something wonderfully fitting about Okinawa being what led me back to it.

Britain and Okinawa both have long histories with canned pork.

But discovering that people thousands of miles away were still frying it, combining it with other ingredients and finding new ways of presenting it made me question why I’d barely considered doing the same.

Then I cooked with it.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Burger. Teriyaki. Tomato noodles.

And now Golden SPAM Nuggets are calling.

So maybe my original question was wrong.

Don’t tell me when you last ate SPAM.

Tell me this:

Why aren’t you cooking with it?

Because three plates later, I believe this famous old tin still has a place on the dinner table in 2026.

And I’m nowhere near finished finding out what else it can do.

I bet there’s loads of other things you can do with it!

TIP IT. FRY IT. SERVE IT.

One tin. Endless possibilities.