Fried potato pancakes are a delicious, savory staple from Belarus, Poland and more that make a great side dish or appetizer. Read on to find 21 suggestions of what to serve them with! 
Potatoes are such a versatile vegetable. They’ve found their way into meals at just about any time of day and all over the world. Is there anything better than a fried potato? Potato Pancakes (Draniki or latkes) are the perfect crispy, delicious comfort food.
- They are a traditional staple that you can find at most special occasions and the perfect side dish to a complete holiday meal.
- Unlike traditional American pancakes, Polish potato pancakes are a savory side dish or appetizer.
- Shredded potatoes are combined with sweet onion, cornstarch and a large egg and fried in a hot pan over medium high heat until golden brown.
The traditional way to serve potato pancakes is as a side with a dollop of sour cream. If you wish to eat these potato cakes with something sweet they are delicious with a bit of apple sauce! If you are craving some crispy potatoes and need a delicious idea to make it a meal, you can find my favorite suggestions down below!
What is usually served with potato pancakes and why?
Potato pancakes, or latkes, the traditional Eastern European dish for Hannukah, are intensely personal. How to grind the potatoes, how much to drain them, how much oil to use; how much, if any, “filler” to help them stick together. All of these things are subjects of debate, even with a relatively simple recipe.
I’ll leave you to figure out the style you like. Let’s focus on what to serve with the latkes. Some families make a beef brisket, the go-to meal for any Jewish holiday but, in my family, we make the meal all about the latkes, so I fill it out with accompaniments. The first two here are the most traditional.
A number of the others kind of spin off the ingredients of the pancakes or off of other elements of Jewish cuisine. Applesauce: This is the usual accompaniment to potato pancakes, jarred or homemade. Combine the applesauce with dried apricots, cranberries or cherries.
Cook briefly to soften the dried fruit. Horseradish Sauce: Mix prepared horseradish (or peel and grate a fresh root) with sour cream and chopped dill. Or mix it with some applesauce instead. Roasted Beets: Wrap them individually in foil. After roasting at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes or so, the skins will slip off.
Served sliced.
What do you eat potato cakes with?
Simply toast and butter our Potato Cakes for a quick and easy filling snack or breakfast. Serve as soldiers with boiled eggs or with a full cooked meal for an unusual breakfast treat, or for a filling snack or quick and easy meal on the run, top with baked beans and cheese. When toasting, toast to a light golden brown.
What can I make with latkes?
Fascinadora/Shutterstock Deciding what to cook for Hanukkah is a no-brainer: latkes, obviously, While you can certainly just eat a pile of fried potato pancakes, if you want to create a complete holiday meal to celebrate the festival of lights, then we suggest coming up with a few dishes to round things out.
- You can always keep things simple and serve latkes with applesauce, or with sour cream and lox — maybe even a spoonful of caviar if you’re feeling fancy.
- You could also go the all-fried food route.
- After all, how many holidays can say that they are a celebration of all things oil? But it can be nice to have some lighter counterpoints to the heavier fare.
If you’re craving a fuller menu, then here are a few suggestions for what to serve with latkes.
Can you eat potato cakes cold?
Recipe Tips & FAQ – Chilling the mashed potato For the mashed potato cakes to hold their shape, the mashed potato needs to be chilled before using (which means leftover mashed potato is PERFECT!!) If you’re making a fresh batch of mashed potato for this recipe, ensure you chill it in the fridge for approximately 1 hours before using.
Can I add other ingredients to my mashed potato cakes? Absolutely! Try adding chopped ham or cooked bacon, diced onion, frozen corn or different spices or cheeses to your potato mix. How do I serve my potato cakes? You can eat them either warm or cold (warm is my favourite!) Try a little dollop of sour cream and a drizzle of sweet chilli sauce or some more melted cheese.
Can I freeze this recipe? Yes! Let the potato cakes cool completely, then freeze them on an uncovered baking sheet until they are solid (about 1-2 hours). Add them to an airtight container or plastic sandwich bag and freeze up to 3 months. When you’re ready to reheat, let them thaw on the counter for about 15 minutes, then heat in the oven or microwave.
What breakfast goes with latkes?
The classic take – Latkes, the Yiddish word for the potato pancakes we know and love, are the iconic food of Chanukah, the Festival of Lights and Oil. Fried until golden in a pool of vegetable oil, drained on paper towels, latkes are best when eaten still sizzling, cooled just enough so as not to burn the tongue. 
The basics: You grate, you mix, your fry, you eat. Bon appetit.
What meat goes with potato latkes?
Go Deli-Style: For a filling Hanukkah meal, make latkes the main course and serve with corned beef or pastrami, sauerkraut, mustard and any other favorite deli toppings. Food Network Kitchen even created a corned-beef patty for this genius Latke Burger.
Why do you eat applesauce with latkes?
Dreamstime It’s almost latke season, For eight days straight, all who are celebrating the Hanukkah can indulge in deep-fried, golden potato pancakes as an homage to the little jug of oil that miraculously kept a menorah lit in the Second Temple of Jerusalem for eight days when there only seemed to be enough for one.10 Nontraditional Ways to Make Traditional Hanukkah Latkes Just like there are a bunch of ways to spell Hanukkah (Chanukah, Hannukkah, etc.) there are a bunch of ways to enjoy latkes.
- But whether you’re having latkes made with regular potatoes, sweet potatoes, zucchini, potato and cheese, or even Brussels sprouts ( if you’re some sort of new-age monster ), you should really be having them with applesauce,
- Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah by consuming fried foods like latkes, as well as other foods cooked in oil during the eight-day holiday.
If you don’t know what they are, latkes are similar to hash browns, Just as you would happily put ketchup on your hash brown, you should be putting applesauce on your latkes. Yes, it’s popular to eat your latkes with sour cream. It’s dairy, and dairy is delicious — we get it.
- However, latkes need a condiment that will cool the palate, cut through their latke-oiliness, add sweetness and add flavor — especially if you’re making latkes from a bland box mix.
- Applesauce is light and fruity, and when eaten on top of a piping-hot fried potato and onion latke, is a sweet and savory dream for your taste buds.
The applesauce conceals the oiliness of the potato, while creating an explosion of fall food flavors in your mouth. Meanwhile, sour cream will just make your latkes heavier and your mouth taste like milk. Since much of the holiday is spent eating oily foods, applesauce is also a healthier alternative to sour cream.
- Applesauce is low in cholesterol.
- Plus, apples naturally offer a ton of fiber, vitamin C, and potassium.
- If you load up your latke with applesauce, at least you’re getting some health benefits! Disagree? Applesauce Is Ruining Your Latkes Another reason to avoid sour cream is that if your Hanukkah meal has any sort of meat dish with it and you or someone in your family is keeping kosher, you can’t even eat latkes with sour cream because the mixing of meat with dairy in your stomach (and even on your plate!) makes it non-kosher.
Don’t do that to Uncle Milt! Have applesauce as a topping so everyone can enjoy. Speaking of visiting family members, if you’re planning your first Hanukkah meal but don’t know anything about the holiday’s history, check out these 9 facts about Hanukkah food,
How long do latkes last in the refrigerator?
How Long Will Latkes Last In the Refrigerator? – Refrigerate leftover cooked and cooled latkes in airtight containers for up to 2 days for best quality.
What are latkes made from?
Ingredients for Making Latkes – A latke has three main elements: potato, onion, and a binder. The potato part is easy. Don’t get anything fancy—russet potatoes are all you need. Russets, often called Idaho potatoes, brown the best and produce tender interiors, thanks to their high starch content.
- Some people peel their potatoes for latkes, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.
- Potato peels add pleasant texture and honest potato-y flavor.
- Plus, peeling is a lot of work.) Just give your potatoes a good scrubbing under warm water, and they’ll be ready to go.
- As for the onion, I find that globe-shaped Spanish yellow varieties are the best.
They have some seriously funky allium flavor to jazz up the mild potatoes. The binder merits more contemplation. I use a combination of three binders: eggs, matzo meal, and potato starch. Eggs add wholesome flavor and fat and act as spackle, sucking together ingredients of different shapes and sizes into a single mass.
But eggs aren’t enough to keep latkes bound together. Before and during frying, the potatoes and onions will give up a fair amount of moisture, and if you use only eggs as a binder, your neatly packed latkes will become a mess of eggy, oily hash browns. They’ll fall apart before you’re able to flip them.
Starch sucks up moisture like nothing else, and my favorite for latkes is matzo meal, which is nothing more than ground-up matzo (often, beguilingly, not kosher for Passover, the holiday matzo is made for). Matzo doesn’t win any contests for flavor, but to me, a latke just isn’t a latke without that slight cracker-y taste that matzo meal provides.
- And it’s far less likely to turn your latkes’ insides into a gluey mess than, say, flour.
- Of course, potatoes have plenty of starch themselves, and we can liberate that starch to help bind the latkes.
- More on that below.
- Oh, and a note on oil.
- While it’s not really an ingredient in latkes, oil matters.
- First and foremost, don’t be afraid to use a lot of it; the latkes will cook faster and more evenly that way.
(And no, they won’t be too greasy.) If you use too little oil, the exteriors will burn before the insides are cooked through. Second, as lovely as olive oil is, leave it out—it can’t handle the heat for latke-frying. Stick to canola or peanut oil, which both have high enough smoke points to fry up a mess of latkes.
Why did Arby’s stop making potato cakes?
Fast-food fans may soon have to say farewell to a popular Arby’s dish. According to The Takeout, the fast-food chain is discontinuing its iconic Potato Cakes. The website reported that Arby’s decided to stop selling Potato Cakes after the release of its new Crinkle Fries as a permanent menu item, alongside its famous Curly Fries. The Takeout reports that Arby’s Potato Cakes are expected to be removed from menus on June 1. As of Tuesday, Fox News adds, the Potato Cakes were still listed on Arby’s online menu. The chain reportedly describes the side as: “Shredded potato fried to a crispy golden brown. It’s a cake of potato. Don’t over-complicate this.” A spokesperson told The Takeout that Arby’s is “constantly evaluating and evolving our menu offering.” “Our Curlies have long been a fan favorite, but after many months of R&D and extensive market testing, customers made it clear our all-new Crinkles were a hit and we had created a true companion on equal footing to its legendary predecessor,” the spokesperson added. >>Read more here, ©2021 Cox Media Group
Why is it called a potato cake?
Potato cake is a name given to various shaped potato dishes around the world, including a patty of hashed potatoes, a fried patty of mashed potato, a fried and battered slice of potato, or a flatbread made with mashed potato and flour.
Can you freeze potato cakes?
Freezer instructions – To freeze: Let the potato cakes cool completely, then flash-freeze them on a baking sheet in a single layer until solid (1-2 hours) before transferring them to a freezer-friendly bag or container. Label with the name and use-by date (freeze for up to 3 months).
Do you put egg in potato cakes?
Mix mashed potatoes, flour, onion, egg, black pepper, and salt together in a bowl until batter consistency.