The Definitive Ranking Of Breakfasts

"Why would anyone eat anything besides breakfast food?" —Leslie Knope.

36. A cup of coffee

Flickr: 134947886@N02

Shouldn't actually be on this list but it was important to make the point that anyone who thinks coffee, a drink, is an acceptable breakfast is a bollockheaded shitmonger and needs to be locked in a cupboard forever.

35. A smoothie

Flickr: hockeycrew

Nice, but still a drink. Also, stop putting spinach in them.

34. Dry toast

en.wikipedia.org

Painful and deeply upsetting.

33. Breakfast biscuits

groceries.iceland.co.uk

Any breakfast designed to eat at your desk or on the way to work is fundamentally evil and needs to be stopped at once. Also these pretend to be healthy, which is total crap – you may as well have a fucking cookie.

32. A chocolate bar

thegreatbritishdiet.co.uk

How old are you, eight?

31. A cereal bar

which.co.uk

Still evil, but also a bit tasty so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

30. Muesli

Flickr: cyclonebill

How to make muesli:

1. Remove three-week-old sawdust from rabbit's cage.

2. Find some nice, tasty fruits.

3. Dry the fuck out of them so they are now disgusting.

4. Pour it down the toilet.

5. Add milk.

6. Die.

29. Cereal

tesco.com

Fine if you oversleep and are in a rush, or if you're being forced to eat it by your mum because you're 7. Otherwise cereal is a lie that is mostly bad for you, and no self-respecting adult should be eating something with a cartoon monkey on the box.

28. Avocado on toast

Flickr: 37996583811@N01

Avocado is the most overrated food that exists on the human planet. Period.

27. Breakfast burrito

Flickr: 12708343@N06

This is like throwing some eggs and baked beans at a roast dinner and calling it a "breakfast roast". Burritos are great, but we don't need them for breakfast.

26. Toast with spread

Flickr: pooniesphotos

The breakfast of a person who is too hungover to stomach proper food, or who is late for work but refuses to eat cereal. Respectable, both, but still a crap breakfast.

25. A grapefruit

en.wikipedia.org

Healthy. That's about it.

24. Bacon & Egg McMuffin

mcdonalds.nl

A breakfast that seems like a fucking great idea when you're so hungover you could die, but is ultimately disappointing. Also you have to leave the house to get it, which obviously sucks.

23. Sausage & Egg McMuffin

mcdonalds.com.au

Beats the bacon version purely because there is something bewitchingly fascinating about a breakfast muffin that can be made up entirely from perfect circles.

22. Brioche rolls

ocado.com

Quite tasty for a breakfast you can literally just take out of a plastic bag and eat while lying in your own filth.

21. Croissants

Flickr: joyosity

Basically a crescent of butter. There are arguments for this being both a great and terrible thing.

20. Porridge

Flickr: veisto

The good thing about porridge is that it can fill you up until lunch for about 15p – though unless you add a fuck ton of sugar or honey to it then it tastes like wallpaper paste, and if you have too much then it feels like you've eaten a brick. Aside: If you are one of those people who puts salt in your porridge you are strange and need to stop immediately.

19. Full English

Flickr: umami88

Most people think a fry-up is great – you probably crave one on Sunday morning after a heavy night on the booze – but all they really do is make you feel like absolute shit for the rest of the day. Always so greasy too, and barely anyone likes ~all~ the ingredients.

18. Full Irish

thecornernotecafe.ie

Beats the full English because of the inclusion of white pudding and potato. Still greasy AF though.

17. Yoghurt with fruit and oats

Flickr: cpchen

While this may not be a stack of pancakes or a packet of bacon wedged between some toast, yoghurt and fruit is the sort of breakfast that will make you feel good about yourself for the rest of the day. Or at least until you reward yourself for being healthy by getting a pizza for lunch.

16. Waffles

Flickr: joyosity

Too sweet.

15. Crêpes

Flickr: santos

Also very sweet.

14. French toast

Flickr: avlxyz

Sweet. Certain heart attack.

13. Crumpets with spread

Flickr: iain

Spread jam, honey, or just plain old butter (salted) over some odd, porous bread and think about the glorious little island we call Great Britain. Then go to work and spend eight hours crying at your desk.

12. Eggs Florentine

Flickr: zeldman

This is a proper use of spinach, though tbh you could put pretty much anything with egg and hollandaise sauce and it'd be a damn good breakfast.

11. Boiled eggs and soldiers

Flickr: vissago

Dunking a buttery soldier into a piping hot egg and seeing the orange yolk ooze down the side of the egg cup is essentially porn for food lovers.

10. American-style pancakes

dishmaps.com

Just edged out by the clearly superior British version.

9. British-style pancakes

Flickr: spntom

We all seem to have accepted thick pancakes as the norm, especially when it comes to breakfast, but the thin versions we have in Britain (which are definitely not the same as crêpes, FYI) are lighter, stuffable, and can be eaten sweet or savoury. They are therefore clearly better.

8. Omelette

Flickr: avlxyz

Is there any breakfast food more versatile than the humble omelette? You can chuck pretty much anything in there to match your fucked-up food tastes, from cheese and ham to chocolate. Maybe not actually chocolate though, because that would be gross.

7. Bacon sandwich

Flickr: fogey03

The actual best hangover breakfast – salty and satisfying without being too greasy. The only debate is which sauce you should put on it, and we're not even going to go there (ketchup, obviously).

6. Huevos rancheros

streetkitchen.blog.hu

JUST LOOK AT IT.

5. A pint of lager

Flickr: benton

OK yeah so we know what we said about drinks not being acceptable, but booze for breakfast basically means you're going on holiday, so fuck it.

4. Kedgeree

Flickr: yannconz

Fish curry with eggs and leaves in sounds like garbage but kedgeree is actually delicious and at least an 8/10 way to start your day. As a side note, leftover takeaway curry for breakfast is also excellent and can share this spot.

3. Smoked salmon with scrambled eggs

Flickr: avlxyz

Decadent as fuck, but hey, a lot of the best things are. Probably not an everyday breakfast unless you are a full-on millionaire, sadly.

2. Leftover pizza

foodwanderer.com

The only way to improve pizza is to not eat it, put it in the fridge overnight, and then devour it cold the next morning. The feeling of remembering you have leftover pizza in the fridge is one of the greatest known to mankind. Mmmmmm, congealed cheese.

1. Eggs Benedict

Flickr: seventyoneplace

Hollandaise sauce which oozes on to egg which oozes on to ham which sits on a buttery muffin throne is the very best breakfast that exists on this otherwise bleak and disappointing planet. And if you disagree I'll throw yolk in your eyes.