The Best Hawaiian Breakfast Recipes — From Local Diners.
Hawaii kitchen rundown · Breakfast
The Hawaii breakfast plate is rice, salty protein, eggs, sometimes a fried egg on top of the rice. The mainland forgot how to do it; Hawaii never did.
8 PICKS · CURATED BY CURTISJ
A Hawaii diner breakfast is built around three anchors: cooked rice, a fried or scrambled egg, and a salty protein. Spam, Portuguese sausage, Vienna sausage, lup cheong, kalua leftovers, even corned beef hash. The mainland version of breakfast — pancakes and bacon — exists in Hawaii too, but the local version eats heavier and lasts longer. It is what you eat at 7 a.m. before a long day, not what you eat at 11 a.m. on a slow weekend.
The eight recipes below cover the Hawaii diner breakfast canon. Cook through them once and you understand why Zippy’s, Big City Diner, and every drive-in counter in Honolulu still has a line at 7 a.m.
The icon
Spam and Eggs with Rice – Hawaii’s Everyday Breakfast That Mainlanders Don’t Understand
Diced or sliced Spam, two scrambled eggs, two scoops of white rice. The 12-minute Hawaii breakfast that exists at every plate-lunch counter. The dish that explains why Hawaii consumes more Spam per capita than any other state.
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The plate
Loco Moco – Hawaii’s Ultimate Comfort Food Breakfast
Rice, beef patty, brown gravy, fried egg on top. Born in 1949 at the Lincoln Wreckage Diner in Hilo as a cheap-and-filling option for hungry teenagers. Eaten with a rice spoon, yolk broken into the gravy.
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Fried rice
Spam Fried Rice: Hawaii's Most Honest Breakfast
Cold day-old rice, diced Spam, scrambled egg, shoyu around the edge of a hot pan. Twelve minutes. The browned-cube edges of the Spam are the texture that separates a Hawaii fried rice from a generic one.
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Chinese-Hawaiian
Lup Cheong Fried Rice: Hawaii's Chinese-Plantation Breakfast
Sweet Chinese sausage sliced thin, fried in its own rendered fat, tossed with cold rice. The Chinese-Hawaiian contribution to the breakfast canon, on every Chinese-Hawaiian diner menu since the 1950s.
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Korean-Hawaiian
Kim Chi Fried Rice: Hawaii's Korean-Hawaiian Hangover Breakfast
Aged kim chi cooked into rendered Spam fat, then tossed with cold rice. Pink-tinged from the kim chi juice, sunny-side egg on top. The Saturday-after-a-long-Friday move.
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Modern brunch
Mochi Waffles: The Crispy-Chewy Hawaii-Japan Breakfast Hack
Butter-mochi batter run through a waffle iron. Shatter-crisp outside, springy mochi chew inside. The 2017-era Hawaii brunch invention that now appears on mainland brunch menus.
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The diner standard
Corned Beef Hash with Rice – A Local Hawaiian Breakfast Classic
Hawaii corned-beef hash is sweeter and more shoyu-forward than mainland CBH, served over rice rather than potatoes. Add a fried egg and a scoop of mac salad and it is a real plate.
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Portuguese-Hawaiian
Portuguese Sausage, Eggs & Rice – Hawaii’s Classic Local Breakfast
Portuguese sausage (linguiça-style, locally produced by Redondo’s or Purity) sliced and pan-fried, served with eggs and rice. The Portuguese-Hawaiian sister to Spam-eggs-rice; same plate logic, different protein.
Read the recipe →Pick one of these for tomorrow morning. The mainland breakfast scene is fine, but Hawaii’s is denser, faster, and more obviously satisfying.
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