The International Breakfast Food Trend

Sometimes a stack of sticky pancakes with maple syrup won’t do. Sometimes you need something with some salt and umami – something that’ll wake up your taste buds and make you break a sweat. If you’re someone who empties a bottle of hot sauce on your eggs in the morning, you’ll be happy to hear that international breakfast items are one of the top culinary trends in the United States. 

This article was originally written in 2016 and updated in 2024. 

What does this mean?

Global breakfast flavors aren’t new for American consumers. Breakfast burritos and huevos rancheros have been part of our morning routine for years. Today’s international breakfast items are influenced by a new style of authentic, fresh, and experimental fusion cooking made popular by food trucks.

It All Goes Back To Food Trucks

As with many culinary trends, the food truck is the mother of this breakfast food trend. The kind of mother who curses and does taco night a little more often than other moms, but one who wants you to get up, try something new, and fill your belly with a hearty breakfast.

These breakfast items are reaching beyond food trucks to QSRs and multi-location restaurants that are looking to stay current with today’s trends.

Today’s Fusion Breakfast Is Anything But Boring

Look for ingredients like chorizo, barbacoa, kimchi, and shishito peppers. Discover breakfast mash-ups like curried hollandaise on eggs benedict or Chinese pork sausage in a frittata. FDR’s Chef Katie Sutton recently created a Fried Egg Sandwich on Sweet Corn Biscuit with Hatch green chili honey mustard and smoked sausage with jalapenos and cheese. This on its own should become a breakfast food trend!

If it’s spicy, pickled, fermented, savory, and you can put a runny egg on it, then you can expect to see more of it on breakfast menus across the country.

Look for variations on these breakfast favorites from all over the world:

• Shakshuka (Israel and North Africa) – Eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, chile peppers, onions, and cumin.
• Chilaquiles (Mexico) – Tortillas fried and then cooked with salsa or mole until softened and topped with pulled chicken or meat, crema, queso fresco, avocado, and an egg.
• Congee (China) – Rice porridge cooked with meat or vegetables and topped with pickled vegetables, a pickled egg, chiles, and scallions.
• Silog (Philippines) – “Si” (Sinang/fried rice) – “log” (Itlog/eggs). The national breakfast of the Philippines. It’s made in many varieties like tapsilog (cured beef, rice, eggs) and longsilog (sausage, rice, eggs).

For more breakfast food trends and other trends covering other dayparts, go here on the FDR website.