The 10 Weirdest Breakfast Food Flavor Combinations (2024)

People eat weird food for breakfast. Maybe it’s because breakfast is so personal and so intimate—it’s the one meal we eat at home 90 percent of the time, safe from the judgment of the pretentious couple at the next table if you were out for, say, dinner and wanted to try to mix mayonnaise with your red wine or what have you. It also doesn’t hurt that most of the time you’re eating breakfast half-asleep, nursing a hangover, and not yet awake to wonder whether or not mixing peanut butter and Cocoa Puffs or whatever is actually good idea. (Answer: probably).

Breakfast foods are the workhouses of the culinary world. Eggs are in basically every baked good and can add pizzazz to fried rice and burgers. People have already thrown bacon in everything from ice cream to doughnuts to whisky to lube to try to make it taste better. I mean, adding bacon doesn’t make anything worse.

1. Coffee and Salt

Salt is already the trendy addition to caramels and chocolate, and apparently the same principle applies to coffee. The idea is that salt reduces bitterness. Want to give it a try? According to Serious Eats, the best way to go about it might be adding a pinch to coffee grounds before brewing.

2. Coffee and Butter

A Paleo diet makes people do crazy things—giving up bread and ice cream, for one, but also making a thing called “bulletproof coffee” that requires adding grass-fed butter to your coffee as a way of increasing the fats in your diet to balance out a low-carb lifestyle. People swear by it, but I can’t get the thought out of my head of a slimy film on the roof of my mouth.

3. Grape Nuts and Apple Juice

This one is mine and I fully accept how weird it is. Growing up, my dad and I would eat Grape Nuts (the only cereal that combines the great taste of cardboard with the fun texture of gravel!) with apple juice instead of milk. Even though it might not be “healthy” or “a good idea in any way capacity at all,” I promise it’s a marked improvement over bland Grape Nuts turning to mush in your 2 percent.

4. Eggs and Syrup

What might have begun as a happy accident when pancake run-off reached the savory side of the plate, combining eggs and maple syrup on purpose is a surprisingly popular breakfast combination. When you think about it, it’s no weirder than putting maple syrup on French Toast.

5. Green Olives and Soy Sauce in Omelets

If sweet eggs aren’t your thing, try going to the complete opposite direction: savory, sour, umami eggs with green olives and soy sauce courtesy of @JuanConde. Seems a little salty for my taste, but breakfast is no time for judgment. Everyone deserves an omelets that speaks to them.

6. Cottage Cheese and Applesauce

On the surface, this combination (from @theseandavid) doesn’t seem too strange — cottage cheese calls for a little sweetness, and it already goes well with fruit. But thinking about how these textures actually combine makes me think of hospitals and old folks homes. This one is probably best if you’ve just had a few teeth pulled.

7. Leftover Chinese food and eggs

Taking full advantage of the “everthing works well with eggs” concept, folding leftover chinese food into an omelette is the best way to McGyver a breakfast that will make your roommates look at you with both admiration and pity. @Cdoten recommends lo mein, and @rbcarlisle favors cold General Tso’s chicken.

8. Froot Loop Pancakes

Whether or not you have kids, don’t pretend like putting Froot Loops in pancakes won’t look goddamn adorable. Even though I’m imagining the taste to be… somewhat soggy, @Andyhc26 swears by it.

9. Cereal and Milk with Ice Cubes.

Apparently, a lot of people do this. On one hand, I understand: There’s something to be said for enjoying a bowl of cereal with cold milk that actually stays cold the entire time. On the other hand, I can’t imagine a benefit that outweighs voluntarily making your breakfast more watery over time.

10. Peanut Butter and Bacon

A classic combination, often referred to as “The Elvis,” because if you eat it too often, you too will die one day bloated on your toilet. There’s no doubt that the sweet and salty of peanut butter and bacon is great together. My recommendation: peanut butter toast with a few extra-crispy slices crumbled on top.