11 Traditional Good Luck Recipes for the New Year (2024)

FAQs

Which food is traditionally eaten at new year for good luck? ›

Along with black-eyed peas, some cultures believe that grapes, noodles, pork, or pomegranates can be considered lucky when eaten on New Year's.

Looking for prosperity? As Southern tradition dictates, black-eyed peas, greens, and cornbread represent pennies, dollars, and gold, respectively, so eating them together on New Year's will keep your purse full all year long.

Black-eyed peas, collard greens and cornbread served on New Year's Day is a tradition that is not only popular in the South, but all over the nation. The saying, "peas for pennies, greens for dollars, and cornbread for gold," is associated with the foods, according to AllRecipes.com.

Cornbread is a favorite New Year's Eve food tradition for most Americans, especially southerners. This New Year's treat symbolizes wealth because cornbread slices look like gold bars. Serve cornbread with greens and black-eyed peas to triple your luck and make a fortune in the coming year.

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

It's said that you shouldn't eat winged fowl (read: birds like turkey or chicken), bottom feeders (like shrimp or catfish), or any seafood that swims backward or side to side (like lobster or crab).

According to Southern lore, you will have good luck for the entire year if you have the traditional New Year's Day supper. In the South, that means a meal of collard greens, hoppin' John, black-eyed peas, cornbread, and pot likker soup.

For most people, it is traditional to start the New Year as they mean to go on with swept floors, folded laundry, and a sparklingly clean abode. But don't grab your sponge and washcloth today because superstition says it's bad luck to do chores on January 1.

This is an odd one. According to folklore, if you wash clothes on New Year's Day, you'll be “washing for the dead” or washing a loved one away -- meaning someone in your household will die in the coming year. Get your laundry washed, dried, folded and put away by New Year's Eve.

Why shouldn't you wash laundry on New Year's Day? ›

Another superstition, this is American folklore: don't wash clothes on New Year's Day. If you clean clothes on Jan. 1, you may wash away a member of your family in the coming year — meaning someone will die. Not to mention sending a year of good fortune down the drain.

Good luck is an elusive thing, and wings can help good luck just fly away. It's doubly important not to eat chicken on New Year's Day. Not only do chickens have wings, which as you have learned, can make your good luck fly away, they also eat by scratching backward.

Specifically in the South, eating a bowl of black-eyed peas and collard greens has become the standard on New Year's Day. Many celebrating the new year might just be going along with the offered dishes without the context. A few culinary experts have some clues how this tradition came to be.

A New Year's Day Tradition: Roast Pork, Mashed Potatoes and Sauerkraut. Growing up, our New Year's Day meal was always a pork roast, mashed potatoes, and sauerkraut, whether we liked it or not. It's a Pennsylvania Dutch New Year's tradition.

Pork was believed to bring good luck because “the pig roots forward” for its food, as opposed to the backward scratching of an animal like a chicken. The Germans also believed that if the pork was rich in fat, it would signify prosperity in life, according to Stoltzfus Meats, a Pa.

Eat 12 Grapes

The tradition of eating 12 grapes at midnight began in Spain and spread to other Central and South American countries, making it a fairly known New Year's superstition. As the clock strikes midnight, you're supposed to eat one grape with each chime to welcome good luck for each month in the new year.

Lumpia is said to attract luck and money and is a symbol for wealth prosperity because of their resemblance to gold bars. Lumpia is a delicious way to serve up good fortune for New Year 2024. Have some fun and try these different variations of lumpia recipes for your Filipino new year food menu.

What Do Italians Eat to Celebrate New Year's? Popular Italian New Year's dishes include pork and lentils. Pork – usually in the form of cotechino (cooked sausage) or zampone (pig trotter) – represents life's fullness and richness to come.

Meanwhile, cabbage leaves are thought to bring prosperity to those who eat them on New Year's Day. Long believed to be an antidote to an overzealous night on the town, menudo is part of many holiday celebrations, especially breakfast on New Year's Day.