How Long Do Leftover Mashed Potatoes Last
Mashed potatoes that have been properly stored in the fridge are good for up to 4 days. They could probably last longer than that, but I wouldnt trust it! Use your judgment!
Potato cakes can be made year-round, but this recipe really shines after Thanksgiving when you feel like you cant eat any more mashed potatoes! Just repurpose them into little cakes.
How To Make Mashed Potato Cakes
Tips For The Best Mashed Potato Cakes
- Make sure your potatoes are well seasoned from the get-go. I make my mashed potatoes with salt, butter and sour cream so I started with a base that had great flavor in the first place. If you dont typically add sour cream to your mashed potatoes, toss in two tablespoons per cup of potatoes youre using to make your potato cakes.
- Dont hesitate to add more salt if needed to punch up the flavor. Always taste your potatoes before you fry them to know for sure what they need.
- I like green onion tops here for color, but if you would prefer, a good old grated yellow onion works just fine. Remember that grating them makes the flavor stronger, so a tablespoon of grated onion would be plenty per cup of mashed potatoes.
- Use a neutral oil like vegetable or refined coconut oil to fry yours and use a good pan for even heating and that perfect golden crust.
- Add in some grated cheddar cheese if youd like, and top them with sour cream and even bacon for that loaded potato flavor. You can also check out an already loaded version as a base.
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What Can I Add To Mashed Potato Pancakes
Grannys Leftover Mashed Potato Cakes are very basic. The mashed potato base should already be flavorful, so we only add grated onion and bread crumbs to thicken it up.
You could easily jazz up leftover potato pancakes in a hundred different ways. Try adding garlic powder, shredded cheese, chives, parsley or anything your heart desires.
Looking For Potato Cakes Without Flour
The flour is an important part of getting the right consistency to make nice thick pancakes that stick together. However, if you dont want to use flour , add a couple tablespoons of cornstarch or tapioca starch and try frying them this way. They will definitely be thinner and wont be as hearty, but they should work.
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Making Leftover Mashed Potato Cakes
Potato cakes are a fabulous way to use up leftover mashed potato but that is just not a thing in my house!
No matter how much mash I make, it all gets scoffed. So I make mashed potato cakes just because I want to!
If you are lucky enough to have leftovers and want to make a quick supper without starting from scratch, you will need to weigh them and then add just under a quarter of their weight in flour. The flour helps to bind the potato together and hold it in shape while you fry or bake your potato cakes.
Real Mashed Potato Cake Recipe
Where did Grannys Leftover Mashed Potato Cakes recipe come from? You guessed it, my granny. She was the mother of eight hungry children, five of which were boys. Did I mention that they were dairy farmers, and the kids got up extra early to milk the cows? There wasnt a lot of extra money sitting around, so Granny made every meal count.
Mashed Potato Cakes are an economical way to use up leftover mashed potatoes. Youve already made those delicious mashed potatoes, so dont let the leftovers go to waste. Make a whole new side dish from the leftovers.
My friend Maryanns grandma also re-purposed her mashed potatoes but she used them in a potato salad! Maryann was nice enough to share the recipe with me so you can try it too!
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Mashed Potato Cakes Recipe
Take your leftover mashed potato and make this crispy yet fluffy potato cakes recipe. Theyll simply melt in your mouth!
Wondering what to do with the leftover mashed potato from Thanksgiving? I highly recommend transforming them into a serving of these flavorful mashed potato cakes. This old-fashioned potato cakes recipe is quick and easy to follow and youll have a delicious new side dish in no time. Crispy on the outside but tender on the inside, these easy potato cakes are sure to be a hit!
Serve your potato cakes with turkey leftovers over the holidays, or as a side alongside main dishes like meatloaf, roasted chicken, or beef brisket any time of the year. You can even serve them with bacon and eggs for breakfast or as an appetizer with apple sauce or sour cream for dipping. The choice is yours!
What To Do With Leftover Mashed Potatoes
One thing I love about this recipe is that you can use leftover mashed potatoes! There is no reason that the potatoes need to be fresh. In fact, they hold together a little better when they are a day or two old.
However, you can still make them with fresh mashed potatoes!
In addition to these potato cakes, you could also use leftover mashed potatoes to make Shephards Pie, casseroles, potato croquets and potato pancakes! Get creativeits really difficult to mess up mashed potatoes!
TIP: If you use leftover mashed potatoes for this recipe, remember that they have already been seasoned, so dont add more salt!
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Why This Recipe Works
This easy recipe for potato cakes comes together in no time!
- Quick & easy: each batch takes 4-minutes total!
- Simple ingredients: use leftover mashed potatoes, an egg, a little flour, salt & pepper
- Inexpensive: spuds are relatively cheap, so this dish is a great way to stretch a buck!
- Versatile: add your spin to these easy potato cakes – feel free to add herbs, cayenne pepper or paprika to give a little heat to your version
I like to serve these as a side to Stewed Okra and Tomatoes and also with Vegetable Soup or with a big bowl of Purple Hull Peas!
Tips For Making Potato Shapes
These are easy to make with children and are a great introduction to cooking for themselves. These tips should help you to avoid any tears!
- Roll out on a lightly floured surface using a lightly floured rolling pin.
- Use cookie cutters dipped in a little flour to stop them from sticking.
- Dont use cutters with complicated fiddly bits, go for basic shapes or youll lose a foot or a tail!
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A Simple But Special Recipe
I have lovely memories of my Nan Mac, Nana Lings daughter, making these Potato Cakes.
Its such a simple recipe, made with basic ingredients.
But they were always made with warmness, consistency and that magic ingredient only Nanas bring to a recipe.
I found the recipe in a local community cookbook and it prompted me to make up a batch for my family.
Miss Z and hubby loved them, and it was so lovely to see them enjoying these potato treats that I so fondly remember from my childhood.
Nan and Pop McDonald, Nana Lings daughter and son-in-lawRecipe from Kurri Kurri community cookbook
Gather The Easy Potato Cake Ingredients
For this recipe, you’ll need leftover mashed potatoes , an egg, all-purpose flour, cornstarch, pepper, minced garlic, shredded cheddar cheese, cooked bacon lardons, green onions, and vegetable oil. “You can use different types of cheese for a vegetarian version, leave out the bacon,” Dalton advises.
Once you have those items gathered, you can make these easy potato cakes.
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Potato Cakes From Leftover Mashed Potatoes
I love transforming leftovers into new meals! I have been making mashed potato cakes from leftover mashed potatoes for years but have yet to get them published here on the blog so I am super excited to be sharing them finally!
Mashed Potato pancakes are a simple and quick way to turn leftovers into a new meal. I tend to make these for lunch a lot after a meal with mashed potatoes!
This recipe uses typical binders like flour, egg, and cheese to hold the mashed potato cakes together. I like to pop in some fresh parsley into mine, it truly elevates with a pop of freshness and then to finish them off coating them in breadcrumbs for a fabulous crunch!
They are great served with sour cream or if it happens to be thanksgiving leftovers they are amazing with some leftover cranberry sauce!
How To Make Mashed Potato Pancakes :
For the full recipe and ingredient list for mashed potato pancakes without flour, scroll to the bottom of this post.
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Heat The Butter And Form The Patties
Melt the butter in a skillet placed over a burner at medium heat, and if the melted butter starts to brown before you are ready to fry, turn the heat down until you start cooking the patties.
Meanwhile, form the four patties with your hands using equal parts the potato mixture. Press them until they are cohesive but not packed densely, then place the potato cakes into the skillet and watch for the perfect frying. “They should be just crispy on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside,” says Shelbert.
What To Serve With Potato Cakes
The beauty of these Irish potato cakes is they are so versatile, you can serve them for dinner, lunch, breakfast or even as an appetizer!
What to Serve Potato Cakes with for Breakfast:
- Crispy bacon and a fried egg
- Crispy bacon and a drizzle of maple syrup
- Smashed avocado and a poached egg
- Replace the english muffin with a potato cake in this salmon and avocado recipe.
What to Serve Potato Cakes with for Brunch/Lunch
- Smoked salmon and a dollop of sour cream
- Smashed avocado, fresh tomato and mozzarella
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Potato Cake Recipe Tips
Start with cold mashed potatoMashed potato solidifies as it cools, so if you try and use warm mashed potato you’ll find the mixture is quite wet and hard to handle.
Use mashed potato that doesn’t have lots of cream or butter in itThe recipe works best with mashed potato that is just potato. If you do have a very soft mashed potato you will need to add extra flour to the dough. This will still work but your potato cakes will take longer to cook through.
If you don’t have leftover mashed potato don’t worryYou can easily make some mash specifically for these potato cakes. The recipe calls for 2 cups of mashed potatoes, which is yielded from about 1 pound of raw potatoes. Just be sure to let the potato cool before you use it.
When you cook the potato cakes don’t add oilTraditional Irish Potato cakes aren’t golden brown. They are a much darker almost dirty brown. This is because they don’t have any fat in them.
These potato cakes freeze really wellAfter cooking, allow them to cool and then wrap individually, to make it easy to defrost and to prevent them from sticking together. To reheat, allow them to defrost for 10-15 minutes and then reheat in the toaster.
Enjoy x
Easy Irish Potato Cakes
These traditional Irish potato cakes are so easy to make and are a great way of using up leftover mashed potato this St Patricks Day. Plus they are dry fried in the frying pan, or on a griddle, making them healthier and more authentic than some fried potato cakes!!! Serve them for dinner with corned beef or for breakfast with smoked salmon. Or make small ones and serve as an appetizer with your St Pattys day feast.
What is more they freeze wonderfully and can be re-heated quickly, making them such a great easy prepare ahead side dish!
Do you always make too much mashed potato?
I know I do. And that is where this Irish potato cake recipe is great! It can be made with fresh potatoes or with leftover mashed potato.
Ideally you want to use mash that has had no butter or cream added to it.
That’s right just plain mashed potato. No butter, no milk, no cream….just potatoes cooked and then mashed.
The recipe calls for 2 cups of mashed potatoes, which is yielded from about 1 pound of raw potatoes.
For the perfect St Patrick’s day, cook up a big batch of mashed potatoes, use some to make these Irish potato cakes for breakfast and then save the rest to serve with a Beef and Guinness Stew for dinner!
Jump Menu
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Tips For Making Potato Cakes
- Work with cold mashed potatoes. They are thicker and easier to handle than warm mashed potatoes.
- Shred your own cheese. When you buy prepackaged cheese, it has a powdery non-caking agent on it. This can sometimes cause foods made with it to be extra greasy. For the creamiest melted cheese, buy a block of cheese and take a minute to shred it yourself.
- Add flour slowly. Start with one cup, then add in flour by the ¼ cup after that. Its ok if you cant form patties with the mixture. Drop the mixture on a hot griddle and spread it with a spoon into a circle shape. That way the flour taste wont be overpowering.
- Place the fried potato cakes on a wire rack with paper towels or a pan underneath it to catch the grease. This will help keep the cakes crispy until you serve them. We use the same method on our fried chicken!
How To Make Them
Full recipe with detailed steps in the recipe card at the end of this post.
PRO TIP Once formed into rounds, they can be kept in the fridge for a couple of days before shallow frying.
Just a perfect little pan, full of cheesy potato cakes.They can tend to burst a bit if your mash is too soft, so skip the milk and butter for this recipe, you want firm mash, the cheese and onion will do the rest flavour-wise, and anything pan-fried is going to be good – let’s be honest.
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Dairy Free Potato Cakes
So, my favorite part of the old Potato Cake Recipe was the cheese! It added a delicious flavor and it would make it crunchy!
But we found another way to get that delicious flavorand it comes from an unconventional source. Nutritional Yeast! If you arent familiar with Nutritional yeast, it has a cheddar cheese flavor. It is flaky like dried potato flakes, so it needs to be mixed into a dish.
It also has a bunch of nutritional benefits! Such as:
Read more about it here: What is Nutritional Yeast
See, you can make fun words too!
How To Make Potato Cakes With Leftover Mashed Potato
These potato cakes use just 4 ingredients! And one of those is salt! Plus the whole thing takes well under 30 minutes!
With very little work you can have one of the most delicious side dishes that the whole family will demolish.
The leftover mashed potato, flour, salt and baking powder are mixed together to form a rough dough. This is easy to do, there is no need for a food mixer, you can do it in a couple of minute just using your hands.
Once you have a rough dough all that is left is to divide the dough into two equal balls, placed on a well floured surface and flatten them out to form a disk. The disk is cut into quarters ready to be cooked in a large skillet.
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Tips Tricks And Questions
- Feel free to sub out the cheese and breadcrumbs for different flavors and varieties such as mozzerella cheese or Italian breadcrumbs!
- Note, I assume the mashed potatoes being used are seasoned properly with salt so I didnt add any to this recipe. If for some reason you are using unseasoned mashed potatoes I would recommened adding a pinch of salt.
- These do not work well as a make ahead dish, it will cause the breadcrumbs to get too wet and they wont get crispy.
- These mashed potato cakes cook really fast and are somewhat delicate so cooking works best on a lightweight pan like aluminum. It wont work as well on a cast iron because the pan might get too hot.
Why do my mashed potato cakes fall apart?
If they are falling apart because they are too squishy or wet it might not have enough flour. Troubleshoot this by adding more flour 1 tablespoon at a time until you get a better consistency, the mixture should be somewhat wet and will have a slight stickiness but you also dont want it falling apart. If you end up adding too much flour though the cakes will dry out.
Why are my potato pancakes soggy?
Your skillet and oil probably wasnt hot enough. Make sure you give the pan and oil time to truly be hot. The best way to test this is by putting a drop of water on your finger and from a safe distance dropping it in the pan. If the water sizzles right away you should be good, if not wait longer.
Also check the heat on your stovetop you will most likely want it on medium heat.