Leftover mashed potatoes is in itself a rarely uttered phrase in our house. We love mashed potatoes, don’t get us wrong… and there is your answer.
I made Sweets a birthday steak dinner with green beans and garlic mashed potatoes with full on butter! It was good eats. I went ahead and made up a large batch of potatoes as you can never have too much I realized. To kick up this batch into the garlic realm I melted a couple tablespoons of butter on the stove as the pototes were cooking and gently simmered 3 cloves of crushed garlic in the melted butter. This was then stired into the potatoes during the mashing. It was excellent.
If for some surprising reason you ever have leftover mashed potatoes in your kitchen, I recommend gussying them up by pan-frying them as patties. We also really enjoyed these with two dressings picked up from a recently watched Micheal Chiarello’s (swoon) show: caramelized onion and vanilla mango.
Pan Fried Mashed Potato Patties
Simple as can be, in fact I can’t really claim this to be a recipe! How about a procedure?
Scoop out cold mashed potatoes with a cookie scoop. Flatten slightly in the palm of your hand and lightly dust with seasoned and spiced flour.
Gently lay the patties in a hot pan with a light layering of melted butter mixed with olive oil.
Cook on both sides till golden.
These are great on a bed of greens with the following two dressings from Micheal Chiarello: Carmelized Onion Sauce and Vanilla Mango Dressing. The Mango Dressing is also a good use of vanilla vinegar.
Additional Notes:
- when I make mashed potatoes, I let my ricer catch the potato peels so I don’t have to peel the potatos. However, I tossed the cooked peels back in with the leftover mashed potatoes to help given the patties more texture.
- these are great patties for all sorts of stir ins… cheese, corn, sauted sausage bits, sauted garlic, you name it!
16 Comments
One word: Yum!
This is what we always do if we happen to have leftover mashed potatoes. They are so good!
Oh yum!!! I feel so bad as I ate all our left over mashed potatoes for lunch today 
I could have had this! Next time for sure 
Your dinner sounds GREAT! I love potato cakes too (that’s what my grandmother used to call them). BTW, thanks for sharing the Cookie Sutra. Its hysterical! I’m giving a copy to my cookie-queen friend who just got engaged.
we call them potato cakes too sooo good with some chives and a little crème fraîche. i just found your site and i really enjoy it.
The Husband and Nicholas despise mashed potatoes, so I rarely make them. But they’re going down the shore this weekend, I think I know what MY dinner is going to be!
You can take leftover mashed potatoes and add any thing you like! as long as you add egg and a little flour they well be GREAT!
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Actually you don’t need to add egg at all. Omitting the butter makes this a great vegan/vegetarian option. I agree though, panfried mashed potatoes can rarely go wrong!
–McAuliflower
Looks like some Yummie patties!!:) I gotta try them sometime.
We make ‘tuna burgers’ by mixing the potatoes with finely chopped onion and celery, the rind of 1 lemon, grated on a nutmeg grater, and the lemon juice, before frying.
Another good one is to mix the potato with chopped corriander, lemon rind & juice and a finely-chopped deseeded chilli.
YUMMIE BUT MY RECIPE IS BETTA!
These sound delicious! I can’t wait to try them. I love recipes that reuse leftovers, like this I don’t have to eat the same dinner twice in a row, and don’t have to let it rot in the refrigerator. Thank you so much. I really enjoy your blog.
This was a great recipe for my family. Hate to waste food and do not like to keep reheating. Delicious!
This recipie sounds so easy & delicious. I will tery it today. THANKS!
When I was growing up, the mornings after dinners with mashed potatoes were mornings my mother would make buttery fried mashed potato patties to go with eggs and sausage. We’d drizzle the patties with melted butter and maple syrup… like pancakes…
Savory send-off for the day.
In the 2009 version, I’ve upgraded with margarine and turkey sausage, but the flavor is still old school…
Yummy!! We just made these patties with our left over mashed potato’s~ adding minced onion, garlic and pepper~ they are just incredible! It is the easiest yummiest way to use these leftovers I’ve ever made~ my Grandmother would be proud! Thanks for the tips!
This sounds great. My mother always made them with mixing the flour into them. Maybe this works better. Then I worked with a gal that was from India, she brought fried potato balls that had tumeric in them. It was wonderful.
