26 Hangover-Busting Breakfast Recipes for New Year’s Day

All the hangover-friendly breakfast recipes you need to feel like yourself again on New Year's Day.

Two Croque Madame sandwiches, topped with sunny-side up eggs on a wooden board on a blue cloth.

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

New Year's Eve often brings champagne, cocktails, and a late evening. This in turn can bring on a head-pounding hangover to start the new year. Get that hangover under control with a hearty breakfast. This collection of recipes includes all manner of eggs, potatoes, migas, and even pho.

  • Crispy Fried Eggs (and Our Favorite Variations)

    Two crispy fried eggs on a plate with buttered bread.

    Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

    If you're looking for a simple breakfast that's doable even when you're suffering, it's hard to beat a plate of fried eggs. We have a version to suit every taste.

  • Scrambled Eggs, However You Like Them

    Golden, creamy, scrambled eggs on a white plate with a blue rim.

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    Fried eggs aren't hard, but doing them well takes a little more finesse than we're capable of after a wild night out. On the other hand, we can pretty much always muster the strength to make fluffy scrambled eggs.

  • Waffle-Iron Hash Browns

    A runny fried egg on top of waffled has browns on a white plate with a fork.

    Serious Eats / Daniel Shumski

    Need something to serve with your eggs? Potatoes are a great way to bulk up your breakfast, and you can't go wrong with perfectly crispy hash browns. When we're feeling a bit too lazy to do the cooking ourselves, we like to use a waffle iron, which automatically ensures a crunchy exterior and smooth, creamy interior.

  • Scrambled Egg and Cheese Drop-Biscuit Breakfast Sandwiches

    Drop biscuit breakfast sandwich on a white plate with silverware and green dill fronds.

    Serious Eats / Daniel Gritzer

    My signature move when I have a hangover is to make scrambled eggs with an amount of cheese that a more reasonable person might describe as insane. Here, scrambled eggs are packed with so much mozzarella (along with a little feta and dill) that you might confuse them for queso fundido at first glance, before getting sandwiched into fluffy little drop biscuits.

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  • Doritos Migas With Pepper Jack, Tomatoes, and Jalapeño

    A plate of Doritos migas with hot sauce, a fork, and a red cloth napkin.

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    If I happened to have a professional cook around to make me breakfast on New Year's Day, I might ask for a plate of traditional migas. But honestly, if I'm on my own at home, there's no way I'm going to fry up a batch of homemade tortilla chips. If you feel the same, go lowbrow and use crumbled Doritos instead, mixing them with scrambled eggs, onions, jalapeños, tomatoes, and plenty of pepper jack cheese.

  • Vegan Migas (Mexican-Style Fried Tortillas With Tofu)

    An orange plate with vegetarian migas and refried beans, next to the serving dish and fresh cilantro stems.

    Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

    I love to drown a hangover in eggs and cheese, and I know many of you feel the same. But vegan eaters get hangovers, too, which is where this vegan variation on migas—made with silken tofu, for a creaminess similar to what you'll find in soft-scrambled eggs—comes in.

  • Crisp Homemade Granola

    A sleek black bowl with granola and yogurt.

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    After a really debaucherous night you might want a mild breakfast instead of a greasy plate of eggs, cheese, and potatoes. One of my top choices is yogurt topped with granola—and if you really want to treat yourself, homemade granola is the way to go. This one uses rolled oats soaked in a surprising ingredient—buttermilk, which tenderizes the oats and seeds and helps prevent excess browning—combined with raw pumpkin seeds, flax, chia seeds, almonds, pecans, dried apricots, tart cherries, and blueberries.

  • Ultra-Smashed Brunch Burgers With Quick Jalapeño Hollandaise

    A loaded smash burger on an English muffin with egg, avocado, cheese, and bacon, all on a decorative white plate.

    Serious Eats / Morgan Eisenberg

    More into the gut-busting side of the hangover-cure spectrum? Go straight for this epic brunch burger constructed from a crispy smashed patty placed on a toasted, buttered English muffin with bacon, avocado, Colby Jack cheese, a fried egg (!), and spicy jalapeño Hollandaise. It's rich, messy, and over the top, and it's enough to scare any hangover into submission.

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  • Rich and Creamy Croques Madames

    Two croque madame sandwiches, topped with sunny side up eggs on a wooden board on a blue cloth.

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    Another ultra-rich option, the croque madame is a brunch classic that's made simply by setting a fried egg atop a croque monsieur. If you don't eat eggs, or just don't want to bother with the trouble of making them, the latter is itself a plenty rich sandwich, made with ham, Dijon mustard, and both grated cheese and a silky Mornay sauce.

  • Sweet Potato, Sage, and Fried Egg Tacos

    Sweet Potato, Sage, and Fried Egg Tacos on corn tortillas, on a white square plate with fresh cilantro.

    Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

    My not-at-all-expert opinion is that carbs are a necessity for soaking up booze, and these tacos have plenty of them. Make them by stuffing warm corn tortillas with sautéed sweet potatoes, then topping with fried eggs. When you break into the yolk, it'll blend with the hot sauce and crema to make a simple but satisfying sauce.

  • Quick and Easy Huevos Rancheros With Tomato-Chile Salsa

    A plate of huevos rancheros with tomato-chile salsa on a plate with silverware, fresh avocado slices, half a lime, and fresh cilantro.

    Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

    Huevos rancheros—a plate of fried tortillas, runny fried eggs, and plenty of salsa—is an easy dish that takes only half an hour, even if you include the time to make our homemade tomato and red-chile salsa. It's totally manageable on a hangover, but on New Year's Day, no one will blame you for simplifying the recipe even further by using jarred salsa.

  • Diner-Style Ham and Cheese Omelette for Two

    A fluffy, diner-style omelet topped with minced chives, on a white plate with silverware.

    Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

    There are times for elegant French omelettes and times for hearty American ones, and I think you know which is more appropriate after you've had one too many glasses of sparkling wine. Far from their creamy, softly-set French cousins, diner-style omelettes feature big, fluffy curds. Feel free to stuff the omelette however you want, but diced ham and cheddar is a good, straightforward choice.

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  • Homemade Egg McMuffin

    A classic breakfast sandwich with an egg, melted cheese, and bacon on an English muffin.

    Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

    I used to live right next door to a McDonald's, so I've eaten more Egg McMuffins in my life than I'm proud of. These days, if I'm craving those same flavors in a better-quality package, I just make the sandwich myself, using this ingenious recipe. There are a couple tricks to keep in mind: Cook the egg in a Mason jar lid ring placed in a skillet to give it the perfect round shape, and wrap the sandwich in foil after assembly, which helps melt the cheese and soften the English muffin.

  • Sausage Gravy

    A plate of biscuits topped with sausage gravy on a plate with sage leaves.

    Serious Eats / Joshua Bousel

    There are few breakfast items I love as much as creamy sausage gravy, no matter what kind of night it's been. This recipe is fairly standard—roux, pork sausage, milk—but gives you the option of adding chopped fresh sage and red pepper flakes for extra flavor. Don't forget the biscuits! Our two-ingredient cream biscuit recipe is too easy to skip.

  • Shakshuka(North African–Style Poached Eggs in Spicy Tomato Sauce)

    A cast iron skillet of shaksuka (tomato sauce, fried eggs, olives, fresh herbs) with a wooden spoon next to a serving of shaksuka.

    Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

    Shakshuka is an impressive enough dish for a fancy brunch, yet simple enough to make on a rough morning. It's also extremely versatile—our version is made with charred onion, red pepper, and chiles; spices like paprika and cumin; and, of course, tomatoes and eggs, but you can vary the aromatics and spices in accordance with your pantry and your preferences. Spoon some of the sauce over the egg whites before covering the pan to help them cook at the same speed as the yolks.

  • Tamago Kake Gohan (Japanese-Style Rice With Egg)

    Tamago kake gohan (Japanese-style rice with egg) in a small light green bowl with chopsticks, a carton of eggs behind.

    Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

    Okay, not everyone is going to want to start the New Year off with raw eggs. But those who've had it before know that this Japanese dish is rich, comforting, and incredibly easy to make, so it's a great choice for New Year's Day breakfast. All you have to do is microwave leftover rice; mix it with a raw egg, soy sauce, salt, and a pinch of MSG; and top with furikake and an extra raw egg yolk.

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  • 30-Minute Pressure Cooker Pho Ga (Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup)

    A bowl of pho with noodles, a chicken leg, and greens next to small dishes of garnishes.

    Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

    Pho is typically eaten for breakfast in Vietnam, and chicken soup is a beloved cure-all in the West, so a morning bowl of chicken pho makes perfect sense to us as a hangover cure.

  • Upside-Down Blueberry Muffin

    A partially-eaten slice of blueberry upside down cake on a white plate with a yellow rim, with a fork, next to the whole cake.

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    Sometimes a sweet breakfast is just what you need to start fighting off a nasty hangover, and this upside-down blueberry muffin does the job well. It consists of a thick layer of jammy fruit complemented by a tender muffin base; once baked in a 10-inch cast iron skillet, it's ready to be cut into wedges and served warm.

  • Savory Green Curry French Toast

    Six slices of savory green curry French toast on a white rectangular platter topped with fresh cilantro and sliced scallions.

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    This savory French toast recipe turns out spicy and funky thanks to store-bought green curry paste, which we jazz up with fresh herbs, lime juice, and fish sauce. Combine the paste with coconut milk, then pour the mixture into a pan and soak the bread in it for at least one hour to ensure the curry flavors get right to its core.

  • Bengali Rice Porridge With Lentils and Chicken

    A black bowl of Bengali rice porridge with lentils and chicken with a spoon next to a black cloth napkin.

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    When you aren't at your best, whether due to a hangover or a persistent cold, rice porridge is a great dish to have in your back pocket. This Bengali porridge consists of jasmine rice and lentils, flavored with ginger and turmeric and simmered in chicken stock. Once the grains are tender, add potatoes and chicken thighs to the pot to cook slowly, and prepare a bright cilantro chutney to cut through and balance the rich porridge. It's a dish that will cure your hangover in record time, but you'll crave it even when you're feeling perfectly fine.

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  • Hasselbacked Croque Monsieur Bagels

    Hasselback croque monsieur bagels in a cast iron pan topped with melted cheese.

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    Cut your bagels like Hasselback potatoes, and you're already halfway to getting hasselbacked croque monsieur bagels on the table. The sliced bagels are stuffed with ham and cheese, then baked and doused with a creamy Mornay sauce.

  • Thick and Fluffy Pancakes From Homemade Pancake Mix

    A stack of three thick and fluffy pancakes topped with a pat of butter and drizzled with syrup. A fork is taking a bite.

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    Few foods so effectively cure a hangover as a stack of tall, fluffy pancakes. These ones are made using a homemade pancake mix, so you don't have to do much thinking. Just combine the mix with several other ingredients, and you'll have breakfast on the table in no time.

  • Spanish-Style Migas With Chorizo, Peppers, and Kale

    A terracotta dish filled with migas with chorizo and peppers.

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    This dish makes a meal out of crispy breadcrumbs, chorizo, and hearty vegetables. Top off the colorful and satisfying combination with a couple fried eggs, and you have a breakfast that'll make you feel alive again.

  • Fried Egg Sandwiches With 'Nduja Mayo and Broccoli Rabe

    A fried egg sandwich with nduga on a seeded bun, the yolk is running off the sandwich.

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    With just a few special ingredients, you can really take a fried egg sandwich to the next level. The funky, spicy flavor of the 'nduja in the mayonnaise gives you a taste of meat without the need to cook up bacon or sausage, while the broccoli is a sneaky way to give yourself some vegetables when your body needs it most. Reach for sesame seed buns or English muffins to pull everything together, and make sure to keep those egg yolks runny.

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  • Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Breakfast Burrito

    A bacon, egg, and cheese burrito cut and half and tipped up so you can see everything inside: onions, guacamole, eggs, and salsa.

    Serious Eats / Daniel Gritzer

    The perfect morning burrito is loaded with all of your favorite breakfast elements wrapped together neatly and tightly in a flour tortilla. Here, we take a classic bacon, egg, and cheese version and toss in potatoes, guac, sour cream, and hot sauce. You'll want to assemble your burrito by layering one ingredient on top of the other so you get a combination of everything in each bite. This Southwestern twist on a classic breakfast burrito, along with our version full of chorizo and refried beans is the easiest (and tastiest) route to full recovery.

  • Crispy Pork Shoulder Hash With Charred Asparagus and Serrano Chile

    Crispy pork shoulder hash with asparagus in a cast iron skillet.

    Serious Eats / Sasha Marx

    Pulled pieces of pork are added to a skillet full of charred asparagus and serrano chiles, plus crispy potatoes seasoned with ground coriander, chile powder, and cumin. Like any good hash, you can serve this to your liking—try it with a fried egg on top or piled into warm tortillas.