Eleven Delicious Ways to Use Leftover Mashed Potatoes

Sometimes I make extra on purpose just to make sure I have leftovers because there are so many tasty ways to use them.

Potato patties are just one of many mouthwatering ways to use them up.

1. Make potato patties from your leftover mashed potatoes. (Maybe you call them potato pancakes or potato cakes.) You can serve these with eggs for breakfast or accompanying a meat dish for dinner. I just use my hands to form 1/3 cup cold leftover mashed potatoes into a 1/2 inch thick patty, place the patty in greased and heated non-stick pan, fry it until the bottom is browned, and then turn and brown the other side. Sometimes I add an egg to the potatoes before forming them into patties and sometimes I coat the sides of the patties with flour before frying them up. If you need more specific instructions, here are two recipes: Crispy Potato Patties and Irish Potato Cakes.


2. Use your leftover mashed potatoes in raised breads. Most recipes for potato breads and rolls tell you to use potatoes mashed without butter and milk added, but there are a few recipes that will work with leftover mashed potatoes. I posted a recipe for Mashed Potato Bread last week, and here’s one for dinner rolls that uses 1/2 cup mashed potatoes prepared with butter and milk.


3. Mashed potatoes can go in soup, too. Make a simple potato soup with your leftovers or stir them into any creamed soup.


4. Deep fry leftover mashed potatoes as potato balls or potato cheese puffs.


5. And as long as we’ve got the deep fat fryer out, we might as well make make doughnuts.


6. Mix an egg and some garlic powder in your leftover mashed potatoes and turn them into a baking dish. Top with pats of butter and bake at 400F for 30 minutes. I don’t know what this dish is called, but it’s my sons’ favorite way to have their potatoes served.


7. I’ve never used mashed potatoes in the center of a meatloaf, but some people have and it looks yummy. This recipe uses instant mashed potatoes, but there’s no reason you couldn’t substitute your already made leftover ones.


8. Put leftover mashed potatoes on top of hot dogs. I haven’t tried this, either, but the recipe contributor says that kids love their hot dogs served this way. Who am I to argue?


9. Put together a shepherd’s pie. This is a good way to use leftover meat, gravy and cooked vegetables, too. Just cut the meat into bite-sized pieces, mix the meat and vegies into the gravy, and then spread the mixture in the bottom of baking dish. Top with a layer of leftover mashed potatoes and bake at 400F for 30 minutes. If you want a cheese topping, you can sprinkle the potatoes with grated cheese during the last 15 minutes of baking. Here’s a recipe for Shepherd’s Pie that uses up turkey dinner leftovers: Turkey Shepherd’s Pie with Leftover Mashed Potatoes. This recipe is called Mashed Potato Hot Dish, but I’d call it a shepherd’s pie made with ground beef. Or how about Rachel Ray’s 30 Minute Shepherd’s Pie, which also uses ground beef?


10. Bake muffins. Another way to use leftover mashed potatoes that I haven’t tried, but I bet these muffins are moist.


11. If you have leftover cooked roast beef along with your leftover mashed potatoes, serve Italian Beef Rolls.

What do you do with your leftover mashed potatoes?

Update on Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 5:56PM by rebecca

Two more suggestions:

• Kim from Hiraeth has a recipe for Mashed Potato Salad. I’ll be trying this next time I have leftover mashed potatoes.
• Kim in On says,” My grandmother just fried them in a big mash with some sauted onions.” Come to think of it, my aunt used leftover mashed potatoes similarly. She made large ranch breakfasts for a whole crew, and if there were any potatoes left from the previous day’s supper, she’d just fry them up with onions and lots of pepper and serve them along with bacon, eggs, pancakes, etc.

Update on Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 12:36PM by rebecca

Pam uses mashed potatoes that have already been whipped up with butter and canned milk for these recipes:

• Gnocchi
• Potato Candy

Update on Tuesday, June 9, 2009 at 9:20AM by rebecca

I can’t wait to try this recipe for potato stacks from the Mennonite Girls.

Mashed Potato Bread

This is one of my favorite ways to use up a little bit of leftover mashed potatoes. The potatoes make the bread very soft and moist.

• 2 cups milk
• 1/4 cup salted butter
• 1 cup leftover mashed potatoes
• 1 tbsp. dry yeast
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 2 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 3 cups unbleached flour

I made my mashed potatoes with unpeeled potatoes and the bread turned out just fine.Heat milk and butter in a small saucepan until butter melts. Stir in mashed potatoes. Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water.

In a mixing bowl, blend milk mixture, yeast mixture, sugar, salt, and egg. Add whole wheat flour, one cup at a time. Stir in enough white flour to make a soft, kneadable dough. Knead dough for 10 minutes.

Let rise in a greased bowl covered with plastic wrap until doubled in size. Punch down and form into 2 loaves. Put into loaf pan, cover with plastic wroap, and let rise.

Bake in 375 oven for 45 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on wire rack.

Favorite Things: Heritage Grill . . . and Lefse, Too

I got my Bethany Housewares Heritage Grill with Teflon finish for making lefse. I’ve used it 5 or 6 times for that and it works great.

Better yet, it is the best grill I’ve ever had for frying eggs, hash browns, sausage, bacon, pancakes, or cooking just about anything else that’s grilled. The non-stick finish means it’s not necessary to use more than a light brush of oil to fry eggs, hash browns or other food that contain little grease of their own.

And the Teflon seems indestructible. My grill has been used almost daily for a year and a half, often by family members who are not as protective of the finish as I am, and it’s still pristine.

Come to think of it, I’ll have to take back the bit about me being the most careful one using my grill. Just the other day, I left it on with a turner on top—a turner that melted into a liquid plastic pool on the beautiful non-stick surface. But everything wiped right off once the hot plastic cooled enough for me to do the wiping. Did I mention the surface seems indestructible?

The only drawback, I suppose, is the late sixties look. That, I’m guessing, is because it’s such a good product there’s been no big push to change things up since the sixties. I think of it as stylishly retro and rejoice that this grill’s consistency over the years means I can order replacement legs or a new probe control from Bethany Housewares if needed. [Update: I also found replacement handles.]

I could live without my electric fry pan or George Foreman type grill, but I wouldn’t want to live without my Heritage grill. A quick google search shows that this grill is available from several different suppliers, including Amazon and Target. I bought mine at the Ace Hardware store in my Minnesota hometown.

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Speaking of lefse, here’s the recipe I use to make it. It comes from my friend Judy, who calls it Norwegian manna. [Update: See photos of the lefse making process.]

• 2 1/2 pounds of baking potatoes
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• Soft butter and sugar for serving

Peel and boil potatoes. Drain and cool.

Put potatoes through a ricer or mash. Beat in butter, cream, sugar and salt. Refrigerate uncovered.

The next day add flour. Stir well. Divide into 20 pieces. Heat grill or pan.

On a floured surface roll out the balls into circles as thin as possible. (My grandmother would slip the wooden stick out of a window shade and use it to transfer the lefse to the griddle.) Cook on each side of the ungreased pan. Stack between towels. After they are cool I stack them together, fold in half and place in a large plastic bag.

As needed butter and sugar a circle. Fold in half and butter and sugar again. Fold once again and cut the quarter in half.

My kids have been know to spread their lefse with peanut butter and fold it up, or wrap it around a hot dog.