Mashed Potato Pancakes Recipe

This Mashed Potato Pancakes Recipe is my favorite breakfast item by far. And that’s saying a lot as I’m a breakfast junkie. I like both the sweet and savory options but potato pancakes are my fave. And they pair so well with my second favorite item, sunny side up eggs. I’ve done these tater cakes recently on a griddle I set on my Santa Maria grill. And then I finally jumped into an outdoor flat top grill or flat top griddle (whichever you want to call it).

I’ve done all sorts of food on the griddle from steaks to scallops to burgers to lobster tails and of course I had to do breakfast. Scroll down to see the step-by-step, pic-by-pic, foolproof cooking instructions for this Mashed Potato Pancakes Recipe.

Also, feel free to make these inside as we document with our patented picture by picture, step by step, foolproof cooking instructions on our sister site CookinFools.com with this indoor potato cake recipe.

Mashed Potato Pancakes Recipe Ingredients

• Some sort of fat (bacon grease, beef tallow, vegetable oil, whatever)
• 2 pounds premade or left over mashed potatoes
• Your favorite beef seasoning (we used DB180 General Purpose seasoning)
• Salt

Recently, we have been having so much fun on the Loco Cookers griddle that we decided to do breakfast for dinner for the extended family. So we had my folks over, my Mother and Father in Law as well as my Brother and Sister in Law and their two kids. Add in my family of six and that’s 14. And I did one of my favorite things in the world. cooked breakfast to order for all of them. Want your eggs over easy with sausage? Coming right up. Want them scrambled with bacon? Done. Want your eggs sunny side up with both bacon and sausage? Don’t mind if I do (that was my order).

For the fat for this cook, I started with two pounds of bacon:

Additionally, this is a glimpse of the backyard we don’t show from this angle all that often:

It looks even better in the fall when all those trees turn bright yellow. There is another subdivision about 100 yards through those trees, but for 9 months, I back up to woods and it is amazing. 

Proof positive that kids love breakfast for dinner. Only 2 of these are mine (although I have 2 more):

This fella, my nephew, was particularly excited about breakfast for dinner:

Now back to the mashed potato pancakes recipe.

With all that bacon we had plenty of fat to grease the cast iron griddle. I used a steel spatula to push the grease to the edges of the griddle so I could cook in the middle.  Too much grease and it will take forever for the potato pancakes to brown. 

Drain the Mashed Potatoes

Which leads me to this tip. Some liquid will rise to the top of the mashed potato package. Drain that off:

If the mashed potato pancakes are too moist, it will also extend cooking times as all that liquid has to cook out before they brown.

Then, form the mashed potatoes into 2-4 ounce patties. I find 2 ounce pancakes are great for little kids. 

This is about 3 ounces:

Flatten them out without breaking the potato cakes.

I set up the griddle for two zone cooking. I turned the right right burner to low to keep my bacon warm and set the left two burners at 400F.

Season, season, season

Next, hit the potato cakes with the seasoning and salt. First, the BBQ seasoning on all of the potato cakes:

And then the salt:

Adjust the salt based on how much salt is in the seasoning.

Patience

The hardest thing here is the patience to allow them to brown. A brown crust will form around the outside edge of the potato cakes first, after about 1-2 minutes, but the middle forms a brown crust last. We want to wait until the middle is browned too.

Thus, when you can see the outside edge is brown, wait 3-5 minutes longer for them to brown all the way through. Accordingly, the soupier/creamier they are with liquid the longer you will need to sear them. 

Total Cooking Time for Mashed Potato Pancakes Recipe

Doing the math, we are looking at 6-8 minutes per side at 400F.

One tip, don’t try to peek underneath them as they are very delicate and can tear. Using the metal spatula, try to slide the metal all the way underneath a potato cake that has been on 6-8 minutes, and then rotate 90 degrees. If it rotates easily, it will flip easily. If it tears, well then we have to wait for the crust to form again. 

Here we have the first one flipped:

That’s a little bit of heaven right there:

Now, season the other sides, because salt and seasoning are something that pair extremely well with these, as you might imagine:

Also, a couple of those above are not browned enough. They were either too close to the burner on low or I didn’t leave them long enough. That’s OK. Simply flip them back over once they get a good brown crust on the bottom.

Once the potato pancakes are browned nicely on both sides, they are ready to serve:

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes?

Something else I tried while I made this mashed potato pancakes recipe? I grabbed a container of cinnamon rolls and I flattened a bunch of them on the griddle:

Flipped over and browned nicely:

These were delicious naked like this and even better with the cinnamon roll icing drizzled on top. I’ll have a recipe of this later. 

Mashed Potato Pancakes Recipe Rundown

Salty and savory with a delicate crunch on the outside and pillowy soft mashed potatoes on the inside. Indeed, all I need is some egg yolk and I’m in heaven. One note, black garlic goes really well on these! 

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below or send me an email.

Also, if you could leave us a great review with lots of stars that would be most appreciated!

Additionally, you can follow us on our GrillinFools Facebook page, Instagram, and YouTube feeds

Recipe Card

Print Recipe

Mashed Potato Pancakes Recipe

All you need for this Mashed Potato Pancakes Recipe is leftover mashed potatoes (or premade mashed potatoes), seasoning, and a hot griddle!

Prep Time5 minutes mins

Cook Time20 minutes mins

Course: Breakfast, Side, Side Dish

Cuisine: American, American Fare, Mashed Potatoes, North American, Side, side Dish

Keyword: Breakfast, cast iron, Cast Iron Griddle, DB180, Griddle, Mashed Potato Cakes, Mashed Potato Pancake Recipe, Mashed Potato Pancakes, Mashed Potatoes, Potato Pancake Recipe, Potato Pancakes

Servings: 8 People

Ingredients

• Some sort of fat Bacon fat, sausage fat, beef tallow or vegetable oil will do
• 2 lbs Mashed potatoes
• Your favorite beef seasoning
• Salt

Instructions

• Grease a 400F flat top griddle or grill lightly
• Drain any excess liquid off the top of leftover or premade mashed potatoes
• Pat out mashed potatoes into 2-3 ounce patties (think hamburgers but made of mashed potatoes)
• Lay potato pancakes onto hot, greased griddle
• Fill the cook surface with as many potato pancakes as you can and then season the tops with salt and beef seasoning
• Wait 6-8 minutes for a nice brown crust to form on the bottom of the mashed potato cakes
• Carefully flip the potato cakes over as they have browned all the way through
• Season the browned side and wait another 6-8 minutes for the bottoms to brown
• Once both sides have browned, serve

Video

Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin’ Fool, was sent off to college with a suitcase and a grill where he overcooked, undercooked and burned every piece of meat he could find. After thousands of failures, and quite a few successes, nearly two decades later he started a website to show step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions on how to make great things out of doors so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes he’s made on the grill.

See Full Bio

BBQ Grilling

Related Posts

Easy Mashed Potato Cakes

Seafood on a Flat Top Grill

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes on a Flat Top Grill

Big Mac Tacos

This article was initially published on: June 22, 2023