Here's What A Flavor-Filled Traditional Taiwanese Breakfast Looks Like

Head out for breakfast in Taiwan, and three things you might encounter are milk, eggs, and donuts — but these elements have very distinct preparations from a classic American morning meal. Chowhound spoke with Darren Chang, chef and co-owner of the Taiwanese Pig and Tiger restaurant in Denver, Colorado. He informed us that soy milk is a key part of the Taiwanese breakfast, and it can be served hot or cold. Soy milk can be sweet, but it can also lean savory by featuring vinegar, scallions, or pickles.

You'll often get soy milk with youtiao, which Chang describes as a fried dough in a long stick-like shape. It's crispy on the outside, with an airy, chewy interior that differs from the sugary cake and yeast donuts in America. For Chang, Taiwanese breakfast, and especially soy milk and youtiao, are the embodiment of simplicity. "It's simple ingredients and simple technique," he said. "It can be light and on-the-go, or a feast to satisfy many. It's no-nonsense and nourishing for the soul."

If you're looking for something heartier, look for the bings, which are pancake-style flatbread dishes. These can include scallion pancakes (cong you bing), and flaky sesame flatbreads or clay oven rolls (shao bing), but perhaps the most common is dan bing. It's a thin, crepe-like omelet, usually rolled up and sliced for quick, easy eating. Like an omelet, all sorts of fillings can be added, such as ham, corn, cheese, scallions, or pork floss (dry, shredded pork).

While soy milk, youtiao, and dan bing may be three of the most common Taiwanese breakfasts, they're far from the only items on the menu. One meal you might spot in Taiwan is a unique and flavorful congee (rice porridge) topped or paired with pickled cucumbers, peanuts, or shredded pork. Darren Chang highlighted fan tuan, a personal favorite of his. It's a mound of sticky rice that is spread out and scattered with pork floss, pickled mustard stems, and a youtiao, rolled up with those fillings inside.

"The rice encloses all the contents into a little torpedo of goodness," he explained. What Chang described is the classic version (which sometimes includes pickled radish), but all sorts of other ingredients are possible, like bacon or fish, or even a sweet version that mostly features just the youtiao and brown sugar wrapped up in rice.

Dumplings and buns are common breakfast items as well. Xiao long bao are soup dumplings (that you can try at the Din Tai Fung restaurant), and baozi are steamed buns filled with meat or bean paste. While these foods are certainly breakfast-friendly, you can find them all day long at street stands and night markets. If you're a fan of breakfast sandwiches, consider grabbing the aforementioned shao bing, which can often come filled with eggs, beef, or whatever else you can think of. Rest assured that if you ever travel to Taiwan, you won't run out of delicious breakfast options in the morning.