Freshers' Week Survival: Homemade Hangover Cures

Off to uni this month? Congrats! You’re going to have an absolute ball; those first few weeks especially will be full of parties, meeting new people, learning new things, picking up new life skills and, unfortunately, hangovers.

You might have been able to spend the summer lounging in bed waiting for your mum’s home-cooking to ease your drinking headaches, but now you’re going to have to stand on your own two feet, get yourself out of bed to lectures, and keep yourself fed and hydrated.

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Some foods are better than others for kicking a hangover into touch; that banging head and queasy feeling are usually down to all that booze dehydrating you. Needing the loo after each pint will have washed out vital potassium from your system too, leaving you feeling less than your best – see, you’re learning new things already!

So, make sure your morning-after-the-night-before breakfast is hydrating and contains plenty of natural potassium too, as well as ginger to ease that nausea, and you’ll be lecture-fit in no time. And try to remember that although tempting, hair of the dog will only leave you feeling worse in the long run – trust us.

Super-quick to make and jam-packed with goodness, a smoothie is an ideal breakfast, especially if you’ve had an extra half an hour in bed to try to sleep off more of last night.

Containing hydrating coconut water, pineapple and kiwi, as well as potassium-packed banana, this ultimate hangover breakfast smoothie recipe from Hip and Healthy really is an excellent way to kickstart your day and banish that horrid hangover.

Remember how we said ginger is fab for fighting nausea? Well, these breakfast flapjacks from I’d Much Rather Bake Than are beautifully flavoured with this magic ingredient, and they also contain porridge oats, which will slowly release their energy throughout the morning, keeping your energy levels up for a good few hours, no matter what time you rolled into bed.

Make up a batch of these between lectures one day and you’ll have them to grab and go when you need them. Just keep them well hidden – you don’t want your flatmates stealing them.

Combine potassium-rich bananas with filling protein to stop embarrassing mid-lecture stomach gurgles with this recipe for banana breakfast pancakes from Hurry the Food Up.

All you need for these is bananas and eggs, and it doesn’t even matter if your bananas are a little bit past their best – they’re gonna get mashed up anyway. Keep these staple ingredients in your shared kitchen at all times, and you’ll never have to be without this tasty, filling, hangover-defeating brekkie.

Cold pizza is a simply brilliant hangover cure, especially when it’s topped with hangover breakfast favourites like sausage and bacon. The best way to get your ideal choice of toppings is to make it yourself, and this recipe for an all-day breakfast pizza from Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen is a fantastic one to follow.

With a clever bit of planning, you can cook up a decent-sized pizza to line your stomach before you go out, and leave enough for that cold pizza magic the next day. One lot of effort gets you two seriously tasty meals, and making it yourself means you get a few extra pennies for down the pub too.

Now, this one’s not for the faint-hearted. The Prairie Oyster is a mocktail like no other, and you need to have a certain degree of daring to drink it, but it’s a sure-fire way to get rid of that hangover for good.

Made from a raw egg yolk, Worcestershire sauce, tomato juice, salt, pepper and vinegar, you need a strong stomach to handle the Prairie Oyster, but if you’ve got a particularly bad hangover, it’s worth it. Liquor Blog explains how to make it properly, with a few suggestions for variations too – we can’t guarantee they make the drink any more appetising though, sorry.

The breakfast options at certain fast-food outlets with their winning combination of burgers, dripping egg yolks and melted cheese are oh-so good for soaking up alcohol from the night before, but they do require you to get out of bed at a particular time.

However, if you make your own, you can roll out of bed at whatever time you like, and still enjoy a juicy, meaty burger, a beautifully runny egg yolk, as much crispy, melted cheese as you can handle and a booze-soaking-up bread roll to give you that much-needed carb hit. Follow I Am a Food Blog’s recipe for the ultimate hangover burger to sample all that for yourself.

And if you think it’s missing something, add bacon. Everything’s better when you add bacon. In fact, now we come to think of it, why didn’t we just list six bacon butty recipes here instead?