I’ve always been a fan of tater cakes. Granny made them often when I was growing up and still makes them today anytime she has leftover mashed potatoes.
I used to stop by her house of an evening after I got off work. After opening the kitchen door the first place I went was the stove. There was always a bite of this or that to eat and I was always tickled when it was tater cakes. The perfect evening snack before I headed home to make supper for my bunch.
There are many variations of potato cakes. Some folks add cheese, others add chopped up peppers. Granny’s recipe is very simple.
- 1 ½ – 2 cups mashed poatoes
- 1 cup self-rising flour
- 1 egg
- chopped onion to taste (I usually use a whole small onion)
- salt and pepper to taste
- oil or butter for frying
Mix all the ingredients together and fry in small cakes until brown on both sides and heated through.
A couple of years ago I shared a video of Granny making her famed tater cakes. Mine has never tasted as good as hers. I learned two things from Granny that day. I wasn’t adding enough flour to mine and instead of trying to pat them out she drops a dollop of the mixture in the hot pan and once it’s browned on one side she flips it and then mashes it flat with a spatula to form the cake. That little trick makes things so much easier since tater cakes are mighty soft.
I love mashed potatoes, but I love tater cakes just as much. The outside gets all crispy and the inside is soft and creamy.
Last night’s video: Black Bear Encounter & Green Beans in September.
Tipper
p.s. Jim and I will be in Knoxville on October 19—see details below. We’d love to see you there!
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I usually have braised shredded cabbage with onions when I serve mashed potatoes (usually with meatloaf), and I always add in some of the cabbage and onions to the mashed potatoes when I make tater cakes, and since the cabbage has onions in it already, I don’t add any additional. Once I did red cabbage and the tater cakes turned a kind of greyish color but they were still delicious!
I’m a big fan of breakfast with tater cakes. Over easy eggs, tater cakes a fresh sliced tomato or salsa. Of course a big old cup of coffee. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Y’all have a great day tomorrow and thank God for all things, give Him all the praise, honor and glory.
Growing up, we never had ‘tater cakes. In a family with 9 kids at every meal, there were never any leftover mashed potatoes. 🙂
As older brothers and sisters left home (I’m the youngest), leftovers became more common; and we did occasionally have ‘tater cakes.
Tater cakes are one of my best loved foods. I make them like Granny does and fry either in butter or bacon grease.
Oh boy! Now I am hungry for tater cakes! Have to make them today
That’s pretty close to how my family made them, sometimes with onion and sometimes without. They were always cooked in a cast iron fry pan on the wood stove over a medium heat. My family always made a huge mess of mashed taters on Friday night and had enough left over for “tatty patties” on Saturday morning with eggs and bacon.
I grew up eating tater cakes and I still really enjoy them. Always make more than enough mashed potatoes so you have plenty left over for tater cakes.
Tater’s were always a staple each day for as far back as I can remember, tater cakes being just one of the ways, with a variety in how everyone makes a tater cake. Potatoes are such a versatile food in the many ways they can made, and each one makes for good eating.
I started making tater cakes as a mama. My 3 always hope for leftovers when I make mashed potatoes because they know that means tater cakes for breakfast tomorrow! It’s a family favorite now. I will usually cook up some bacon with them.
I make Potato Cakes also but I don’t put egg in mine just salt and pepper with flour and lots of onion. They are so good. We top ours with Sour Cream and Chives. So Good!
I love mashed potatoes but potato cakes are even better, due to the onion. Sometimes I decide what to cook based on whether or not onion is an ingredient. I believe I crave them- nobody else in my family likes them as good.
My mamaw made the best potato cakes. She also made pinto bean cakes with leftover soup beans. Could anyone tell me how to do that? Thanks.
Mix flour with the beans and fry the same way! That’s how we always have done them.
Mom used a hand crank mixer for everything from mashed potatoes to meringue. When she mashed potatoes, they were a little bit chunky. There’s nothing better than chunky potatoes smothered in freshly churned butter or made into cakes using a recipe just like Grannys.
cool.as i read this post i have just come in from overnight nursing job and am eating plain ole’ fried sliced taters n’ onions out of a tupper ware w/ an adult bvg. enjoy taters that way as well
Looks delicious!
Some people seem to think that but for new recipes, leftovers would be relegated to the trash. When people have come up like you and me, even spoiled and moldy foodstuffs were not done yet. Just like you throw scraps to your chickens today, in previous generations there was always a hog or a few to consume almost anything you could throw to them.
If it don’t make it on the table as a vegetable it’ll try again as an egg, a drumstick or a porkchop.
I don’t have an animal now, so I am forced to compost my table scraps. There again, they become fertilizer for future food.
I remember when in out in the every home would have a large (5gal) bucket in their kitchen. Any food or table scraps went into the bucket to feed the hogs or some other animal. In the past people didn’t worry about throwing the chicken bones out to their yard dog. In my family the bucket in the kitchen was called a slop bucket, the one under the bed in the bedroom was called slop jar.
I love potato cakes! I put a dollop of sour cream on mine sometimes. They are delicious any way you fix them! Looking forward to seeing you in Knoxville!
Since we had some kind of potato every night for supper, leftover potatoes were always made into cakes. I still make them just like your mom does! My family enjoys them so much.
I’m enjoying this beautiful morning here in Clinton, Tennessee and hope my BP&A family is enjoying it where you are! Blessings to all and pray for our country!
Loved my Mama’s potato pancakes and they look just like your pictures. I still make them occasionally, but mine have never been as good as hers. I think most food from childhood tastes better in memory mode!…….but they sure are good on a chilly evening. I have acquired a taste for pesto these last few years and have found that it is delicious drizzled over potato cakes.
Same as potato pancakes. Egg and onion provide the flavor.
We too love tater cakes. A few years ago when I was cooking meals to take to my dad, he told me he had seen a recipe he wanted me to try. Pinto bean cakes! You lightly mash leftover pintos and mix in 1/2 flour 1/2 cornmeal, egg and onion and he liked diced jalapeno. Then fry like tater cakes. Then I froze them for him. One or two with a glass of buttermilk was a go to meal for him when he didn’t feel like cooking. They are surprisingly tasty.
Thank you for sharing Granny’s tips on preparing Tater cakes! The drop method of frying them especially, and the flour ratio. Mine have been hit or miss with varying results over the years. Sometimes yummy, and sometimes, not so much. Nothing beats a really GOOD Tater cake though!
I love tater cakes and make them quite often. Everyone in the family also like them. I put onions and less flour in mine. The trick to getting them crispy is to get the iron skillet hot with the grease and then drop them in and flatten them out a little. My husband never had these growing up in his northern home although his dad was from southern Ohio. My father-in-law said he loved my southern cooking and so I always gave him samplings of what I cooked. He especially like the way I cooked green beans. My mother-in-law would not eat them as she said I cooked them to death. I loved her dearly even though we disagreed on a lot of things. I used to grow white half runners and can them, but I quit doing that as my children left home and I aged. Tipper, I watched the video of you and Matt picking your late planted beans and they sure looked healthy. Next year, Lord willing, my husband and I want to grow some potatoes and tomatoes in bags. We had two tomatoes from our garden this year. The deer had a feast on them, squash and cucumbers.
I don’t put flour in mine. Flour only serves to hold it together. Mine do tend to fall apart more but I’m gonna chew them up anyway. I fry mine like Granny by browning one side, flipping them over then flattening them out with a spatula.
My family always called them “tater biscuits”.
Here in the Maritime provinces of Canada we make “tater cakes” with salt cod added in. Basically the same thing, but because we have a lot of fish, it gets added in. You have to soak the salt cod overnight to remove some of the salt before you add to the potato cakes and double check for bones. We call them Fish Cakes and are often a supper dish here. In this area we can buy salt dry cod in the supermarket if you aren’t drying it yourself. It is always interesting to me how many things that come up in your messages that are similar in some form to things here. We also make corn bread but it is often eaten as a more sweet and leavened variety than I have seen you make in your videos. My Dad’s aunt always had a pitcher of sour dough starter and she made sour dough pancakes every day and they ate it like bread at the table, typically in hand with butter. Really enjoy reading the daily mailings and following your videos. Take care.
I don’t recall ever having potato cakes but often would simply reheat leftover mashed potatoes in a fry pan with a little butter.
Something that comes to mind is how our grandparents and great grandparents had a use for leftovers. Little would go to waste in days gone by. I’m 74 now and many of your blogs and videos blow the cobwebs off those by gone memories.
Love tater cakes! I know what you mean, I’ve made them but they just don’t taste as good as my mom’s did.
This was what my mother did with left over mashed potatoes. I have got to make them soon. Thanks for the video…Prayers for Granny and you guys. ps loved the bear and glass story.
I will have to try these, and as usual, now I have to go eat because those cakes got me hungry!
I figured out that I didn’t add enough flour either. I actually have some mashed potatoes in the fridge now. I may have to make some today. I’m with Granny too, I like my onions left big. My husband likes his small. I usually do them small to please him, but this may be my day. lol
Hope ya’ll have a wonderful week! Sure have enjoyed the videos.
God Bless!
My mom made these too. She grew up in the country during the Depression so it was a “ waste not, want not” recipe
We love tater cakes! My grandma made them as well and they were soooo good. I make them when we have leftover potatoes and my recipe is the same as yours. I haven’t made them for a while since we’ve not had mashed potatoes, but that is going to change this week!
My mama made the best potato cakes. She usually cooked potatoes in small cubes, not as mashed potatoes. So when she used the leftover cubed potatoes for potato cakes, she’d mash them a bit with a fork first, so they were still a little chunky. She never used self rising flour for anything and I don’t either. I loved a sprinkle of black pepper on my hot potato cakes. I’ve never tried making them myself.
We make mashed potatoes so we can have potato cakes….
Also, I would love to see you in Chicago or the suburbs for a book signing!
Oh Tipper, I LOVE potato cakes! Now you’ve made me hungry for them. I’m not familiar with self rising flour, however. We just use regular flour and sometimes add finely minced onion along with salt and pepper. Thanks for story. I’ll just have to boil up some potatoes and get them mashed up. Oh, my mouth is watering!
My mother made tater cakes I haven’t thought about them in years. I never made them for my kids don’t know why.
My mama always made potato cakes from her leftover mashed potatoes too. They were similar to yours, except she didn’t add onions. They were either lunch the next day or served for supper. We liked them with ketchup. My mama also made bean cakes from leftover soup beans. She mixed them much like potato cakes. She mashed the beans up with a fork or a hand-held potato masher and added in the other ingredients. I always loved those too.
We just love tater cakes! My husband fixed some a couple of weeks ago and add some leftover corn to them. We also make corn cakes, soup bean patties /fritters/cakes (Momma made these when we were growing up as Mamaw taught her). They are so good!! I love all the variations and look forward to hearing what others do. Our recipe is pretty much the same, but sometimes I add meal.
Thanks for sharing!