Ask for the difference between morcilla de Burgos and morcilla de Navarra and most food writing gives you the same one-line answer: Burgos uses rice, the Navarra version doesn’t, or uses less, or uses different spices. That framing assumes both sides of the comparison are a single, stable recipe. Burgos’s side of that assumption is correct. Navarra’s is not.
What gets served or sold as morcilla in Navarra is not one sausage. Depending on which town or which butcher counter it comes from, “morcilla de Navarra” can mean a rice-and-pork-blood sausage genuinely similar to Burgos’s, a completely blood-free egg-and-saffron sausage that only looks like morcilla because it’s cooked and sliced the same way, or a horse-blood specialty from the Pyrenean valleys that shares almost nothing with Burgos’s recipe beyond its dark color. Treating “morcilla de Navarra” as a single dish erases the more interesting fact: Navarra never standardized one, and three genuinely different foods have been sharing the name for centuries, the same kind of naming confusion that leads visitors to assume txistorra is just another word for chorizo, when it isn’t.
This comparison is built from the current governing specification of the Morcilla de Burgos Protected Geographical Indication, a named Navarra producer’s own ingredient list, a regional press interview with the head of Villava’s food guild for its blood-free version, and the national purebred-livestock federation’s records on the two native horse breeds behind Navarra’s third version.
Morcilla de Burgos: One Recipe, Legally Defined
Morcilla de Burgos has something Navarra’s version does not: a single legal definition. The European Union granted it Protected Geographical Indication (IGP) status on September 5, 2018, meaning only sausage made and labeled under the rules of the Órgano de Gestión IGP Morcilla de Burgos can legally carry the name, the same kind of legal protection that took a Burgos cheese far longer to secure.
The recipe’s defining ingredient wasn’t always there. Blood-and-spice sausage making in the Burgos region traces back to Roman-era practices, according to the IGP body’s own historical account, but rice wasn’t added until the 18th century. Rice cultivation had been banned in Castile from the late 14th century until the mid-18th century; once lifted, rice reached Burgos from Valencia through the region’s cart-driving trade, cheap and available enough to fold into the local blood sausage for the first time. That’s what gives Morcilla de Burgos its distinctive soft, almost custard-like texture, a textural signature many other Spanish blood sausages, made without rice, simply don’t have.
The specification itself was updated on July 3, 2025, when the European Commission approved changes requested by the Instituto Tecnológico Agrario de Castilla y León on behalf of regional producers. Under the current rules, onion (the local cebolla horcal variety) must make up at least 40% of the mix, rice can range from 10% to 40%, and pork blood must be at least 9%. Pieces can now run up to 150 millimeters in diameter and between 100 and 400 millimeters long, and any morcilla sold without its casing must be labeled in “porciones,” not the old term “lonchas.” Nothing sold as “morcilla de Navarra” answers to a rulebook like this one.
The Rice-and-Blood Version Navarra Butchers Actually Sell
The closest thing Navarra has to a true counterpart to Burgos’s sausage is a pork-blood-and-rice morcilla sold by Navarra butchers under no shared legal standard at all. Embutidos Arizaleta, a family butcher in Cizur Menor, just outside Pamplona, describes its own morcilla plainly: pork blood beaten together with previously cooked rice, lard, salt, parsley, and spices, then stuffed into natural pork casing and boiled. Structurally, that’s close kin to Burgos’s formula. Legally, it’s nothing alike, since no IGP or DO governs the recipe or its proportions, and they shift from butcher to butcher and valley to valley.
Local variation can run further than most tourist coverage suggests. A home recipe documented from Puente la Reina, on the Camino de Santiago route through Navarra, builds the same pork-blood-and-rice base but adds toasted garlic, ground almonds, grated nutmeg, whole cloves, and cinnamon, a spice profile that leans closer to medieval Castilian cooking than to Burgos’s onion-and-paprika backbone. It’s the same category of sausage as Burgos’s, just seasoned by a completely different hand.
Relleno de Navarra: Looks Like Morcilla, Has No Blood At All
The second thing called morcilla in parts of Navarra contains no blood whatsoever. Centered in Villava, a town in the Cuenca de Pamplona just outside the capital, relleno de Navarra is made from eggs, rice, water, lamb tallow, fresh pork fat, onion, garlic, coarse salt, saffron, parsley, and cinnamon, stuffed into casing, boiled for roughly half an hour, cooled, sliced, and lightly pan-fried, exactly the way morcilla is served. The saffron gives it a yellow interior rather than morcilla’s black-red, which is usually the first clue that something different is happening on the plate.
The recipe is traditionally dated to the 16th century and grew out of household necessity, built from whatever a home larder held rather than a slaughter product like blood. It was historically eaten as an entremés during village patron saint festivals and remains, even now, barely known outside the Cuenca de Pamplona. Villava is home to the Cofradía del Relleno de Navarra, whose president as of late 2024, María José Nicolai, runs an annual competition that rewards both faithful traditional preparation and outright invention: relleno-stuffed buñuelos and empanadas have both placed. At Carnicería Olóriz, on Villava’s Calle Mayor, butcher Félix Ilarraz still makes it entirely by hand, including stuffing the casing himself, and has more recently developed a quinoa version for customers wanting more protein, after working out how to compensate for the starch quinoa lacks compared to rice.
Morcilla de Potro: Navarra’s Horse-Blood Sausage From the Pyrenees
The third version doesn’t use pork at all. Morcilla de potro, made in Navarra’s Pyrenean valleys, is roughly 80% young horse meat combined with the animal’s own blood and fat, garlic, salt, and bittersweet paprika. No rice, no onion. It’s stuffed into natural casing and often smoked over oak.
The meat comes from two native horse breeds unique to the region, Jaca Navarra and Burguete, raised in semilibertad, driven up to Pyrenean mountain pasture each spring and brought back down near the villages for winter. The Burguete breed, which now supplies most of the horse meat sold commercially in Navarra, was formally declared an endangered native breed in 2003 under Spain’s national catalog of livestock breeds, according to the Real Federación Española de Asociaciones de Ganado Selecto, the national federation that maintains Spain’s purebred-livestock registries. Keeping demand for its meat products alive is part of what’s kept the breed from disappearing entirely.
A doctoral thesis at the Universidad Pública de Navarra, cited by the consumer-affairs publication Consumer, found potro meat leaner than beef, notably richer in Omega-3 fatty acids, and more favorable on cardiovascular health markers than either beef or lamb. For decades this morcilla was made entirely at home with no label and no commercial distribution; today it’s sold by a handful of Navarra producers, including under the Potro de Origen label, a collaboration between local butchers, producers, and INTIA, the Navarra regional government’s agrifood technology institute. Unlike Morcilla de Burgos, no EU-level designation protects it.
So Which One Should You Order in Pamplona?
If a menu in Pamplona simply says “morcilla,” it’s almost always the rice-and-blood version, the closest thing the region has to Burgos’s sausage, and it’s a safe order at any asador, the same grill restaurants that cure their own chorizo rather than buying it in. Relleno is worth actively seeking out specifically in Villava or on menus that name it directly, since it won’t show up as “morcilla” if a kitchen is being precise about what it is. Morcilla de potro is the one most visitors never encounter unless they ask for it by name at a butcher or a restaurant that specifically sources from the Pyrenean valleys; it isn’t festival food built for a crowd; it’s a quieter regional specialty tied to a horse-breeding tradition most of Spain has never heard of.
The word morcilla itself likely comes from morcón, an old Spanish term for a thick sausage casing, itself related to pre-Roman words for something swollen or misshapen. It’s a fitting origin for a name that, in Navarra alone, now covers three genuinely different foods.
FAQ
What is the difference between morcilla de Burgos and morcilla de Navarra?
Morcilla de Burgos is a single, EU-protected recipe: pork blood, rice, onion, lard, salt, and spices, regulated under an IGP since 2018. “Morcilla de Navarra” isn’t one recipe at all. It can refer to a similar rice-and-pork-blood sausage made without any legal standard, a completely blood-free egg-and-saffron sausage called relleno, or a horse-blood sausage called morcilla de potro, depending on where in Navarra it’s made.
Is relleno the same thing as morcilla?
No. Relleno de Navarra, centered in the town of Villava, contains no blood at all. It’s made from eggs, rice, saffron, lamb tallow, and pork fat, and only resembles morcilla because it’s boiled, sliced, and pan-fried the same way before serving.
What is morcilla de potro made of?
Morcilla de potro is made with roughly 80% young horse meat plus the animal’s own blood and fat, garlic, salt, and paprika, with no rice or onion. The meat comes from Navarra’s native Jaca Navarra and Burguete horse breeds, the latter formally declared endangered in 2003.
Does Morcilla de Burgos have a protected designation of origin?
Yes. Morcilla de Burgos has held Protected Geographical Indication (IGP) status from the European Union since September 5, 2018, with its production rules most recently updated in July 2025. No equivalent EU-level protection exists for any version of morcilla made in Navarra.
Every article on the Encierro blog is authored or reviewed by active bull runners with direct experience in Pamplona.