Best hangover food
No food cures a hangover, and none shortens one.1 What food can do is narrower and still worth knowing: it restores blood sugar, replaces fluid and salt, and gives a rebelling stomach something manageable.
The best answer to the question, on the evidence, is soup. The better answer is the meal you ate before drinking.
What food can actually do
Three jobs, all real, none of them a cure:
- Blood sugar. Metabolising alcohol shifts the liver's chemistry in a way that suppresses its ability to make new glucose, so blood sugar can run low the morning after, particularly if you drank without eating.5 That part responds directly to carbohydrate.
- Fluid and salt. A night of extra urination costs you both. Replacing them treats thirst, dry mouth and lightheadedness, though it is worth knowing that measured dehydration did not track how severe people rated their hangovers.4 Our sister site has a free electrolyte drink calculator if you would rather mix it than buy it.
- Tolerability. Underrated. The best hangover food is frequently whichever one you can keep down, because food you cannot eat helps nobody.
What food cannot do is lower your blood alcohol or shorten the hangover. Hangovers run 14 to 23 hours whatever is on the plate.
Every hangover breakfast, graded
| Food | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Soup or broth | Helps | Fluid, salt and carbohydrate in a form a rebelling stomach will usually accept. Pho, menudo and chicken soup are the same answer in three cuisines, and it is a good answer. |
| Plain carbohydrates | Helps | Toast, rice, crackers, plain pasta. Alcohol suppresses the liver’s glucose production, so blood sugar is genuinely part of feeling wretched, and this is the part carbs fix. |
| Ginger | Helps | The one flavour with a decent record against nausea in general. It will not touch anything else, but nausea is often the symptom blocking food entirely. |
| Salty food and rehydration drinks | Helps | Replaces sodium lost through a night of extra urination and helps fluid stay where you put it. Treats thirst and dry mouth rather than the hangover. |
| Eggs | Fine, for ordinary reasons | The cysteine-mops-up-acetaldehyde story is plausible chemistry with no trial behind it at breakfast doses. Eggs are protein, salt and something to eat, which is a decent reason on its own. |
| Bananas | Fine, for ordinary reasons | The potassium argument is weaker than it sounds: measured electrolytes did not track how severe people rated their hangovers. Easy carbohydrate, easy on the stomach, no magic. |
| A greasy fry-up | Does nothing for it | Fat slows alcohol absorption before and during drinking, which is real. The morning after there is nothing left to slow, and a large fatty meal can irritate a stomach alcohol already irritated. |
| Coffee | Does nothing for it | Makes a tired person alert and does nothing else. Worth having if you always have it, since caffeine withdrawal is its own headache. |
| Honey and fructose | Evidence too thin to call | Old claims that fructose speeds ethanol metabolism have not held up as anything you would notice. It is sugar, which helps the blood sugar part like any other sugar. |
| Prickly pear extract | Works, but only beforehand | The rare positive trial: taken five hours before drinking it halved the risk of a severe hangover and reduced nausea and dry mouth, with lower inflammatory markers afterwards. Taken the morning after, untested. |
| A brunch cocktail | Makes it worse | "Hair of the dog" postpones the hangover by topping up the alcohol, and moves the whole recovery later into the day. |
Graded the same way as every other hangover remedy on this site, and in the same monochrome: nothing in this table is a cure, so nothing in it gets a green light.
The meal that matters is the one before
Food in your stomach slows how fast alcohol reaches your blood. The total you drank is unchanged, but the peak you reach is lower, and a lower peak is a milder hangover as well as a lower blood alcohol level at every point of the night. It is the only lever in this article that acts on the cause rather than the symptoms, and it stops working the moment you stop drinking.
The single positive trial in this area points the same way. A prickly pear extract taken five hours before drinking halved the risk of a severe hangover and reduced nausea and dry mouth, and inflammatory markers were measurably lower the next day than on placebo.3 That last detail matters more than the supplement does: it lines up with the finding that immune signalling, not dehydration, is what best tracks how bad a hangover feels.4
If you want to know what a given night actually came to, the standard drink calculator converts real pours into the counts that matter, and the BAC calculator turns those into an estimate with the uncertainty left in.
If you cannot keep anything down
Work in this order: small sips of fluid rather than a full glass, salt through broth or a rehydration drink, ginger for the nausea, then plain carbohydrate in small amounts once something stays put. Large volumes and large meals both tend to come back.
Vomiting that will not stop, severe abdominal pain, or hours without being able to hold down any fluid is a doctor's problem rather than a breakfast problem. And confusion, slow or irregular breathing, cold or clammy skin, seizures, or someone who cannot be woken is alcohol overdose, not a hangover: 911 in the US, 112 in Europe.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best food for a hangover?
Soup or broth, on the evidence available. It delivers fluid, salt and carbohydrate at once, in the form a nauseated stomach is most likely to accept, which covers the three things food can actually do for a hangover. Plain carbohydrates come second for the same reason. No food cures a hangover or shortens it; the best ones make the hours more bearable.
Does a greasy breakfast help a hangover?
Not the morning after. Fat genuinely slows alcohol absorption and lowers your peak blood alcohol, but that only works while there is still alcohol arriving, so the useful greasy meal is the one before or during drinking. By breakfast the absorption is finished, and a large fatty meal can aggravate a stomach that alcohol has already irritated.
Do eggs cure a hangover?
No. The popular explanation is that cysteine in eggs helps break down acetaldehyde, the toxic intermediate your body makes from alcohol. It is plausible chemistry that has not been demonstrated at the amounts you get from breakfast. Eggs are a perfectly good thing to eat, for the ordinary reason that they are protein and salt and you can keep them down.
What should I eat before drinking?
Something substantial, and the fat and protein content matter more than the specific dish. Food in the stomach slows how fast alcohol reaches your blood, which lowers the peak you reach for the same number of drinks, and a lower peak means a milder hangover. This is the single most effective thing food can do about a hangover, and it happens hours before the hangover does.
What should I eat if I feel too sick to eat?
Start with fluids in small sips rather than large glasses, add salt through broth or a rehydration drink, and try ginger for the nausea. Then plain carbohydrates in small amounts once anything stays down. Vomiting that will not stop, severe abdominal pain, or an inability to keep any fluid down for many hours is a reason to call a doctor rather than to try another breakfast.
Do bananas help a hangover?
A little, and not for the reason usually given. The potassium story is weaker than it sounds: when researchers measured electrolytes against how bad people rated their hangovers, they did not track each other. A banana is easy carbohydrate that most people can keep down, which is a real if unexciting benefit.
Does eating food sober you up?
No. Food eaten before or while drinking slows absorption and lowers your peak blood alcohol, but once alcohol is in your blood your liver clears it at a fixed rate that no meal changes. Eating after the fact makes you a fed person with the same blood alcohol, which matters for how you feel and not at all for whether you are over a limit.
Is there any food that shortens a hangover?
None that has been demonstrated. Hangovers run 14 to 23 hours regardless of what you eat, and the systematic reviews of hangover interventions have not found compelling evidence for any food, drink or supplement. What food changes is how those hours feel, which is worth doing even though it is not a cure.
Related tools and answers
The full graded list: what works, what does nothing, what makes it worse.
How long does a hangover last?14 to 23 hours, and the clock starts when your blood alcohol reaches zero.
How to sober upWhy food, coffee and showers do nothing to your blood alcohol.
Am I still drunk?When last night’s alcohol likely clears, as an honest window.
Sources
- NIAAA. Hangovers.
- Pittler, M.H., Verster, J.C., Ernst, E. (2005). Interventions for preventing or treating alcohol hangover: systematic review of randomised controlled trials. BMJ.
- Wiese, J. et al. (2004). Effect of Opuntia ficus indica on symptoms of the alcohol hangover. Archives of Internal Medicine 164(12):1334-40.
- Penning, R. et al. (2010). The pathology of alcohol hangover. Current Drug Abuse Reviews 3(2):68-75.
- StatPearls. Alcoholic ketoacidosis. NCBI Bookshelf.
- NIAAA. What is a standard drink?