6 New Year's Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What are the 7 lucky new year's food traditions? ›

Greens, pork, and cornbread, as well as black-eyed peas, cowpeas, or beans, are some of the typical symbolic foods served on New Year's Day. When planning your dinner menu, add the Southern foods that some say bring good luck and avoid those that may do just the opposite in the new year.

For New Year's Eve, nutritious lentils are traditionally eaten after midnight, along with pork and sausages. Need more lentils in your life? Consider adding this Carrot and Red Lentil Soup to your New Year's Eve arsenal.

This eastern European tradition of eating cabbage on New Year's—either as a dish or as cabbage rolls—is meant to signify luck, particularly on the financial side of things. People who eat cabbage on New Year's believe that it'll help them make more money in the year ahead.

Lobster, cows, and chicken are all considered unlucky animals to eat on New Year's because of how they move. Read on for more foods superstitious people try to avoid on the holiday.

Black-Eyed Peas

Traditionally paired with collard greens and cornbread, black-eyed peas are a staple New Year's good luck food. The peas symbolize coins, and practices of consuming these legumes around celebrations date back to Ancient Egypt.

Like many other cultures, the Pennsylvania Dutch believe eating pork on New Year's Day brings good luck because pigs root around with their snouts in a forward motion. After all, we want to move forward, not backward, in the new year.

Pork. Around the world, luck-minded folks prefer pork (which roots forward) over chicken (which scratches backward) On New Year's. In Germany they prefer pork and sauerkraut (whose long strands lead to a long life).

Eating pork on the New Year is supposed to inspire progress throughout the year to come, both because of pig's girthy size (mmm, prosperity) and the fact that they root forward (rather than backward like chickens). On New Year's, pork is often paired with cabbage in the form of sauerkraut, but we say, anything goes.

Can you eat chicken on new year's Day? ›

Chicken may make your luck fly away

According to Country Living, eating chicken around a new year can attract bad luck — it's said that, since chickens have wings, your good fortune could literally fly away. An article in St.

Don't Do Those Dishes

Or take out the trash, or wash your clothes, or sweep your house... as the superstition goes, if you do, you might accidentally wash good luck and loved ones out of your life. Other beliefs state that whatever you do on New Year's is what you'll be doing the rest of the year.

No washing or cutting your hair

It is believed that if you wash your hair on New Year's day, you'd also be washing away all your luck. It's somewhat similar to if you cut your hair, you'd be cutting your life shorter!

Don't Clean the House on New Year's Day - You will wash away any good luck coming your way.

Greens, thought to resemble dollar bills, are common New Year foods. Others include lentils, which are round disks that are considered to resemble coins, and herring, which has a silver skin considered to symbolize silver coins.

Eat Your Peas and Greens

In fact, there's a whole menu of foods to eat on New Year's Day to bring on good luck and fortune. For Southerners, the most important are the black-eyed peas and collard greens. Add a skillet of cornbread to symbolize gold coins.

Cake: From donuts to more traditional cakes, round or ring-shaped sweets are very popular on New Year's Day. Many people believe round foods symbolize a circle. They may bring good luck that the coming year will go well and come “full circle” around to this same point in time the following year.