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Unlike foods you should eat before going drinking to avoid a hangover, foods that act as hangover remedies shouldn't be rich in fat!
A moderate amount of healthy fats is, of course, beneficial and even necessary. But the rumor that eating greasy food when you're hangover will help because the grease will absorb alcohol from your system is nonsense. Craving for fatty bacon, pizza, and burgers is premeditated by the comfort you associate with such foods, not their anti-hangover capabilities.
In fact, greasy and heavy food will likely only further upset your stomach and worsen nausea and grogginess that comes with the hangover.
You do need to be generous with carbs and, ideally, a moderate amount of healthy fats and protein. Your body needs carbs for energy, fat for satiety, and protein to break down into necessary amino acids that are likely depleted after drinking. But you need to stick to the foods that are light, easily digestible, and rich in electrolytes the alcohol has flushed out of you.
15 Foods That Are Good Hangover Remedies:
Here are fifteen foods that could be the ideal post-party breakfast on a Hangover Day morning (or any other morning after a night out partying).
Plain Toast
Palatable, easy on the stomach, and rich in carbs, plain toast is the way to go if you feel queasy in the morning and cannot think of food at all. It'll be awesome if you have a more satiating bread, like multi-grain or protein-rich sourdough lying around.
Toast with Honey
Feel like you can handle something more substantial but not a full meal? Slather your toast with some honey. The honey will give your blood sugar level a good boost but won't have you crushing as fast as options with processed sugar would do.
Toast with Nut Butter
Like honey, nut butter will add more nutritional value to the meal. Nut butter, especially homemade one without added sugars, is rich in the healthy fats and protein your body needs right now. But be careful - they're not very palatable on an upset stomach, so listen to how you're feeling. Plain toast and a settled stomach are still better than a more nutritionally dense toast that upsets your stomach.
Crackers with Cheese
Bland crackers, like saltines, have long been known to be an easily digestible, light meal that's an acceptable option for an upset stomach. If you feel too queasy to consume anything nutritionally dense, then crackers are an excellent option to load up on fast-acting carbs that will boost your blood sugar and help your body fight off the hangover symptoms.
The downside of this easy meal is that it's not particularly rich in either protein, fat, or the necessary micronutrients. Add a few slices of cheese into the mix to boost the meal's nutritional value and satiety factor, if only a little.
Oatmeal
Oatmeal is a good choice for the same reason that toast and crackers are a good choice - it's easy on the stomach, energizing, and palatable. Unlike toast and crackers, it's rich in complex carbs and fibers, ensuring you'll feel satiated and full of energy for a longer time than you would with just a piece of toast in you. It's also far richer in vitamins and minerals, including the much-needed magnesium, making it one of the most optimal hangover breakfasts around.
Pickles
Pickle juice is a common hangover cure, but frankly speaking, you're better off eating the whole thing instead of just chugging the juice. When hangover, we often instinctively crave foods that are rich in nutrients, alcohol flushed out of our bodies, sodium likely being the biggest one.
Most people tend to crave salty foods instead of sweet ones when they're hungover (if they're in a state to crave anything at all, aside from water, that is). There's a theory that your body desperately needing to replenish its sodium stores might be the reason. Pickled vegetables are rich in various electrolytes, with potassium and sodium being the most important among them.
If you feel like you could go for something less bland than a piece of toast or ungarnished oatmeal - add a pickled cucumber, pepper, or a handful of olives to your breakfast.
Green Smoothie
If you're hungry, but you feel like chewing will be the death of you, you should remember that a classic green smoothie is a fantastic hangover breakfast. It's easily customizable, so you can pack it with any fruits and veggies you have on hand, but do make sure a sizable amount of leafy greens like kale or spinach goes into the blender. On a hangover morning, fiber, iron, and potassium-rich leafy greens can be a lifesaver, reducing your headache, easing a queasy stomach, and restoring your energy levels.
Fresh Fruit
If you feel like you can handle something sweet, go for fresh fruit, particularly the ones with high potassium levels and anti-inflammatory effects. Oranges (also rich in Vitamin C), bananas, blueberries, strawberries, and cherries, are all great options. You can use some to top off your oatmeal if you feel like your stomach can take it in the morning.
Eggs
The idea of eating a substantial breakfast doesn't make your stomach roll? Great! Go with eggs! Eggs are versatile and easy to cook in a way that won't upset your stomach. If you want something light and easily palatable, you can just have a couple of soft-boiled eggs with your piece of toast and call it a day. If you feel like you could handle a substantial meal, you can make an omelet with some cheese and plenty of spinach, upping the potassium content.
Eggs are rich in protein (white part) and healthy fats (yellow part), and they're highly satiating while being easy on the stomach.
Miso Soup
Miso soup is one of Japan's favorite hangover remedies. Miso (fermented soybean paste) is rich in amino acids, minerals, and vitamins that help the body essentially "flush out" alcohol. In the soup form, it's easily digestible and light on the stomach, and the standard addition to tofu ups the protein content (and the satiety factor).
Instant Ramen
Soups are an excellent option for a hangover breakfast, even ready-made ones, like instant ramen noodles. Packaged ramen may not be the most nutritionally dense option on the list, but it's 1) easy, 2) fast, and 3) customizable. Add some spinach and a soft-boiled egg on top, and voila, you've got a breakfast that's both rich in necessary micronutrients and more-or-less easily palatable.
Bone Broth
If you're not feeling like eating anything solid, even something as bland as toast, noodles, or tofu, then bone broth might be the best breakfast option on the table.
Bone broth is rich in the exact minerals you need to stock up on after a hangover-inducing drinking session: magnesium, potassium, and sodium, as well as containing a healthy amount of calcium and phosphorus, neither of which is extra.
Bone broth is basically a more satiating electrolyte drink that can fill your stomach into feeling moderately full and "delay" the need for solids, giving it a little extra time to settle before consuming anything substantial.
Boiled or Poached Chicken
Not a particularly palatable option, but one that is easy on the stomach and rich in the much-necessary protein. If your hangover feels like it'd allow for a substantial meal, poached chicken can be a great addition to most soups:
- Shred it right into the bone broth.
- Add it as a topping to your instant ramen cup.
- Slice it up and serve it along with the miso soup.
It'll go a long way toward settling your stomach and ensuring you're satiated for a long time to come.
Fatty Fish (Salmon, Tuna, Mackerel, Sardines, etc.)
Fatty fish is not only rich in protein and healthy Omega-3 fatty acids (just the type of fats you want for your hangover morning instead of burger-and-pizza-grease) but also anti-inflammatory antioxidants. Excessive drinking causes inflammation, so having a hangover is a rather trustworthy indicator that you're inflamed.
Poaching the fish is likely the best option to cook it in the morning - it takes little time and renders a lighter dish easier on the stomach than a baked or fried one.
But if you don't have the energy to put a pot on the gas, you can swap poached fish for some canned fish instead. Canned sardines are, admittedly, not as ideal an option as freshly cooked salmon would be, but in this case - they work.
Ochazuke (Green Tea Rice Congee)
Ochazuke is a traditional Japanese hangover remedy and a very successful one by all accounts. It's something similar to rice porridge; only it's made with green tea instead of water or milk.
The base of Ochazuke is short-grain rice, often cooked the previous day. All it takes to get the dish ready is to put some cooked rice in a bowl, pour a cup of green tea over it, and top it off with your preferred ingredients. Shredded salmon, seaweed, and greens are classic toppings, so you can quickly turn the dish into the ultimate hangover remedy with a little effort.
6 Drinks to Start the Morning with When You're Hangover:
What you drink in the morning after partying the night away is often even more important than what you eat. As dehydration is one of the main reasons for your hangover, remedying that is the first step towards fixing the killer headache. Ideally, the drink should also be rich in electrolytes to replenish what the alcohol has flushed out of your system.
Water (Including Coconut Water)
You're probably going to do yourself a favor and gulp down a big glass of water in the morning anyway, at the very least, to fix your mouth feeling like Sahara. Drink in small gulps instead of chugging to avoid upsetting your stomach (yes, depending on how bad your headache is and how sensitive your stomach is, even water runs the risk).
If you have a bottle of coconut water hanging around in the fridge, go for that over plain water. Coconut water is very rich in electrolytes. One 250ml glass contains about 60mg magnesium, 600mg potassium, and 250mg sodium, making it an excellent option both to hydrate AND replenish your electrolyte stores.
Electrolyte Drinks
Unfortunately, most people don't keep coconut water on hand before going out. If it's not an option readily available to you at the nearest store, stock up on Gatorade or something similar before going out. A 250ml portion contains around 75mg potassium, and 125mg sodium, making it a perfectly serviceable option. You can stock up on magnesium later with a proper breakfast.
Milk
Milk is more likely to be readily available in most people's fridges than either coconut water or electrolyte drinks. If you do your morning coffee with a shot of regular cow milk, do yourself a favor this time and skip the coffee for a plain glass of milk.
Just one glass of milk can provide 30mg of magnesium, 100mg of sodium, 350mg of calcium, and a whopping 370mg of potassium. After a glass or two of water, giving your body a glass of milk will go a long way toward fixing your hangover.
Fruit Juice
If you're not up to eating anything solid, fruit juice can act as a substitute for fresh fruit with the near-same effect! While juicing fruit takes away the added benefit of giving your body some much-needed carbs and fibers, the juice - especially fresh juice - is still as rich in micronutrients as the whole thing, and right now, that's what your body needs the most. Fruit rich on their own in potassium and magnesium are the best, but any fruit juice you have lying in the fridge right now will do.
Green Tea
While there has been no comprehensive large-scale research done on the subject, several small studies have shown that drinking green tea while hangover can help reduce hangover symptoms like headaches, grogginess, and nausea.
If you're the type of person that hangovers have emotional effects as well, not just physical (anxiety, jitteriness, and irritability seem to be the most common), green tea can be of further use! It has a strong soothing effect that can help ease your emotional turmoil.
It's thought that this is due to green tea being rich in antioxidants and L-Theanine, with the latter's calming effects currently a subject of research.
Coffee
Let's make one thing clear: coffee is NOT an ideal hangover drink. It's not rich in micronutrients, and it's a diuretic, meaning it'll further dihydrate you if you go for a cup before your mandatory glass of water.
But! coffee is a potent stimulant that can help you gather your wits together to beat the grogginess and put together a simple breakfast. We do advise you to add a generous helping of milk to your coffee on Hangover Day morning to improve its nutritional value and reduce the chances of potentially irritating your stomach.