The Best Potato Pancakes – easy recipe
You will never want to use a different recipe after you have these potato pancakes. They are my absolute favorite and I hope they become yours too. They are crisp, light and delicious!
Why you will love this recipe:
- It is healthy and delicious: With only a few ingredients, these potato pancakes will be eaten up in no time. Cooking the potato pancakes in lard or coconut oil gives your body all the nutrients from the cooking oils.
- It is a side that pairs with a diverse range of main dishes: You can pair potato pancakes with just about anything. We have had them with steaks, soup, breakfast, and even just for an afternoon snack.
- They are still yummy after you reheat them: If you pop the leftover potato pancakes in the toaster oven for a few minutes they will taste as good as the day you made them. They store well in the fridge and they are easy to heat up!
Tools you may need:
Grater – if you have a food processor with a shredding insert, you could use that instead!
Ingredients
Potatoes – duh, it’s called potato pancakes!
Russet potatoes are my go to when I make potato pancakes. There are some recipes that use mashed potatoes but I prefer the shredded ones. To save time I wash my potatoes but do not peel them! You could peel them if you want but I don’t want to make extra work for myself and it doesn’t change the recipe results in my opinion.
Carrots
Adding a shredded carrot to this recipe gives it a splash of color and a little extra pop of flavor. I find adding carrots to be an easy way to hide some extra veggies into a recipe that the whole family will love. You do not have to put carrots into your potato pancakes if you really do not want them. I do the same thing with carrots that I do with potatoes, wash and shred. I do not peel the carrots and it always works out just fine.
Lard
Oh lard, the most essential and yet most controversial ingredient in this recipe! HA! In this house we use all natural fats when cooking (check out the Weston A. Price Foundation Diet Principles to see how we eat). In my opinion, lard, butter, cold-pressed olive oil, and other naturally produced oils are the fats and oils that God created in the very beginning for us to have, eat, and enjoy. Basically, I like to eat as closely to the original way God intended us to when I can.
SUBSTITUTE: Coconut oil works great in place of lard if you are looking for an alternative.
Flour
For this recipe I use all purpose unbleached flour when I make these potato pancakes. I typically soak my grains before I cook with them but there is such a small amount in this recipe that I do not always get around to soaking them beforehand. Soaking grains helps them become more digestible to your body!
CHECK OUT WHERE I GET MY FLOUR AND OTHER BULK FOODS BY CLICKING HERE!
Eggs
The egg in the recipe really helps the potato pancakes to stick and hold together. You do not have to put an egg in if you are trying to make this recipe vegan, you can substitute with something like a banana. You just need something sticky to hold the pancakes together or they will not fry and hold up well.
Salt
The longer you stick around here the more you’ll hear over and over again about how the kind of salt you use matters! In our house we use either Pink Himalayan Salt or Sea Salt with EVERYTHING! I follow the same principle here as I do with the lard. God created these salts in nature and they provide us with the best minerals!
How to make the perfect potato pancakes:
Step one
Wash and shred all potatoes and carrots. Place the shredded vegetables into the mixing bowl. You can use a hand grater or a food processor to shred the potatoes and carrots. No matter what method you use, you just want shredded potatoes as the end result!
Step two
Add all the rest of the ingredients into the bowl and combine with your serving spoon. You want it to be sort of sticky. You can test this by taking your spoon and your hand to form a ball with the mixture. If the ball seems to hold the shape, it is ready for the frying pan. If the mix seems to still be really dry or extremely wet adjust by adding more flour or another egg.
Step three
Preheat a skillet on medium heat with 1 tbsp of lard in the pan. You want to make sure the pan is nice and hot before putting any of the potato pancakes on the pan to avoid sticking,
Step four
Once the skillet is heated, spoon out the mixture into the skillet one spoonful at a time. Use the spoon to share the scoops into circular shapes (this part does not have to be perfect). You can fit about 3-4 potato pancakes in a 10 ¼” skillet at a time. Add more lard as needed between each batch.
Step five
When the pancakes start to brown on the bottom (maybe two minutes or so) use a spatula to flip them over. Cook on the other side until the desired crispiness has been achieved. Repeat step four until you have used up all the potato pancake mixture in the bowl.
TIPS
- Feel free to use as much oil in the frying pan if needed. Don’t feel like you have to stick to what the recipe says. I sometimes need more or less.
- If you want to make this recipe gluten free or vegan it is easy to modify! Use 1:1 all purpose gluten free flour and coconut oil instead of lard.
- You want to make sure the pan is nice and hot before you put the potato pancakes on it. Otherwise they will stick and things get messy. Trust me…
- You can freeze these pretty easily. Let them cool and store them in a ziplock bag.
Let me know in the comments how your potato pancakes turned out!
Potato Pancakes
Equipment
- 1 Grater/Food Processor
- 1 Mixing bowl
- 1 Spatula
- 1 Serving spoon
- 1 Skillet I used a 10"
Ingredients
- 5 Med. Potatoes
- 1 Carrot
- 3 tbsp Lard or other frying oil Coconut oil works good too!
- 1/4 Cup Flour Any flour will work, even gluten free
- 1 Egg
- 1 tsp Salt
Instructions
- Start by washing and shredding the potaotes and carrots. Place shredded vegetables in a mixing bowl.
- Place skillet on stove, add lard, and preheat pan on a medium heat setting.
- Add the flour, salt, and egg to the bowl with the potatoes and carrots. It should be a slightly sticky texture. The potatoes and carrots should hold formation when pressed together. Add more flour if needed.
- Use a serving spoon to scoop out a spoon full of the mixture and place it in the preheated skillet. Shape to resemble a circle. Place 3-4 pancakes in the skillet at a time.
- After the bottom of the pancakes seem to firm and beginning to crisp, use the spatula to flip the pancakes over. About 2 minutes on each side once pan is heated up.
- When both sides of the pancake has achieved the desired crispiness remove from stove. Continue with this process until all pancake mix is gone.
- Serve with butter or a dollop of sour cream!
Notes
- To make this recipe gluten free, use a 1:1 gluten free flour.
- To make this recipe vegan, replace the egg with mashed banana or apple sauce. Additionally, replace the lard with coconut oil.
- Top your potato pancakes with a dollop of sour cream.
- The carrots are not necessary if you do not want to add them. It is a great way to sneak extra veggies into something your kids will love though!
- The skillet heat might need to be adjusted toward the end of the potato pancake mix due to the skillet continuing to heat up.
- Serve with BBQ chicken, an Autumn soup or baked fish fillets. These pancakes are so versatile!
