Transform your leftover mashed potatoes into yummy loaded mashed potato cakes!
Mix leftover spuds with crispy bacon bits, green onions, and lots of cheddar cheese, and then panfry them until golden brown and crisp.
Serve with a dollop of sour cream & chives, a squeeze of ketchup, or top them with leftover turkey and gravy.
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We Love These Mashed Potato Cakes (and so will you!)
- Transform leftover mashed potatoes into fried potato patties with a few extra ingredients and seasonings.
- Mashed potato cakes are budget friendly, and kids love ’em.
- Mix and match the cheese and other add-ins to create new flavors and use up your leftovers.
- Fry them up in bacon grease and top with a runny fried egg for a great breakfast (or use them as a base for eggs benedict).
- These potato cakes can be served alone as a light dinner or as a side dish to meat or chicken.
Ingredients for Mashed Potato Cakes
Mashed Potatoes – Use leftover mashed potatoes if you have some or use instant mashed potatoes (or pre-made) if you don’t have any. Even cauliflower mashed potatoes can be used for a low-carb recipe.
Cheese – Experiment with different types of cheese, such as cheddar, parmesan cheese, Mexican blend, or pizza mozzarella.
Bacon – Bacon and mashed potatoes go hand in hand. Bacon can be oven baked or use real bacon bits.
Leftovers – As a variation, you can add leftovers like chopped chicken or turkey, leftover roasted veggies, etc.
Seasonings – Green onions are a favorite, add in other fresh herbs if you have them.
How to Make Mashed Potato Cakes
- Fry bacon until crispy. Cook onion and garlic in the bacon grease (per recipe below).
- Add the remaining ingredients and form into potato cakes.
- Pan fry in bacon fat or butter until golden brown on both sides.
Serve hot with extra green onions, sour cream, or ketchup.
Leftovers & Reheating
- Keep leftover mashed potato pancakes in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
- Reheat them in the microwave, oven, or air fryer until heated through.
- Mashed potato cakes made in batches can be chilled and frozen for up to 6 weeks in zippered bags. Simply crisp them up on the stovetop or in the air fryer!
More Leftover Mashed Potato Recipes
Did you enjoy these Loaded Mashed Potatoes? Be sure to leave a rating and a comment below!
Equipment
Ingredients
- 6 slices bacon
- ½ cup finely diced white onion or ¼ cup sliced green onion
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 2 cups prepared mashed potatoes chilled
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil or ½ teaspoon dried
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley or 2 teaspoons dried
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup all-purpose flour *see note
- 4 tablespoons butter for frying
Instructions
- In a large skillet, fry the bacon over medium heat until crispy. Drain on paper towels and once cooled, crumble.
- Reserve 2 tablespoons of bacon fat in the frying pan. Cook the onion and garlic over medium heat until translucent. (If using green onion, no need to precook).
- In a medium bowl, combine crumbled bacon, mashed potatoes, cooked onion, shredded cheese, basil, parsley, eggs, salt & pepper. Mix well and add flour a bit at a time until the potato cakes hold together. You may not need all of the flour.
- Melt 1 tablespoon of butter (or leftover bacon fat) in a clean skillet over medium heat.
- Scoop about ¼ of a cup of the potato mixture and form it into a ball. Place it in the hot pan and flatten it with a spatula until it’s about ½ – ¾″ thick. Repeat with remaining potato cakes (cooking in batches if needed).
- Fry for about 3 to 4 minutes on each side, until the potato patties are golden brown and crisp.
- For best results, serve immediately while hot and crispy.
- Top with green onions, sour cream, or ketchup.
Video
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Side Dish
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This recipe was great. Family was eating them so fast, I couldn’t keep up. Make this you’ll want leftovers all the time. Thank you for the recipe.
I am so glad that you enjoyed this recipe!
Yes making this recipe now will let you know if if not liked a if i like this recipe will just tell everyone its mine ps love this page
Great to get a new recipe for these. We had them growing up as well. And extra boiled potatoes were fried for breakfast – funny how things go round in circles – reducing food waste is the thing nowadays too – lol!
I love the idea of frying leftover potatoes for breakfast! I am so glad you liked this recipe Bec!
So tasty. You can add different leftovers to recipeYou don’t waste anything. Thankyou Holly. Very Practical !!
I couldn’t exactly tell what went in the potato mixture and what went on top. I mixed in the bacon cheese and some green onions and then also put some green onions on top. Served with cheesy scrambled eggs and an extra slice of bacon on top although a nicely fried egg might be better. Unfortunately I added too much flour and mine were a touch too dense as a result of that and the overmixing I may have done trying to figure out what went in the potato mixture. Fun idea though! Thank you. Overall enjoyed!
I made these this morning. I found the directions a bit confusing and the garlic maybe a little unnecessary. Will definitely follow instructions to watch the amount of flour next time as my mashed potatoes were already fairly starchy from having been baked in the oven. Thanks for the fun idea!
Am I the only one that thinks these should be fried in the bacon grease?
Yum! Bacon makes everything better!
That’s exactly what I did!
I thought the same thing about frying them in bacon grease but I was out of bacon!
Can these lovely potatoe patties be made with packaged mashed potatoes?
Absolutely!
Love potatoes in any form
Going to make them tonight yum yum
They came out great I use turkey bacon instead of regular bacon and I saute the onions and the veggies and put them inside and I use less flour one third cup
LOVE,LOVE,LOVE these. I did research on potato cakes and most all of them were about the same until I came across yours! I’ve made potatoe cakes before but I wanted something with more flavor. I made these tonight, The only substition was using a left over shallot and replacing basil with fresh chives, and also using green onion to boot! I love that you included to add all kinds of extras one might have in their fridge. These were a HUGE hit which means they will become apart of our regular left-over mashed potatoes recipe! Thank you so much. I do want to note that the prep time and cook time actually take more time than stated, it was more involved than the recipe stated – probaby double the time, otherwise it was DELICIOUS!!
I’m so glad you loved them Gwyn. :) Thank you for stopping by!
I made these tonight and they were a big hit! I don’t normally make potato cakes so I researched online a lot of the recipes. Your recipe was the one that really caught my eye because it seemed to pop with flavor. I was right! The only change I made was to substitute the basil for chives. Otherwise I followed the recipe exactly. Hubby said “now we have a really good recipe for using left over mashed potatoes!” Thank you for a wonderful recipe. I did notice that the closer to 3/4 inch they were the tastier they seemed to be. I had a large shallot in my fridge that needed to be used so I used that along with some green onions. Yummy!!
I am so glad your family enjoyed this recipe Gwyn! It is really a delicious way to use the leftover mashed potatoes!
These were stunning. Thank you
So glad you loved them Annette!
I would love to make this recipe, but because it calls for eggs I’ve hesitated. I can’t have eggs. Period. Is there something I can substitute for them?
I have only made it as written, but you could try just omitting the eggs. Let me know how it turns out if you try it.
Will definite be trying this
Can I make and freeze mashed potato cakes for later luv luv luv your recipes I go to your website a lot thanks for helping us put delicious meals on our table
Thank you Mary! :) Yes, these freeze well.
DELISH!!
Made these …..oh so good.
thank-you
My Mom always made her Fish Cakes that way with a little chopped onion in them and of course the the cooked fish. I personally like to cook the salt Cod to make fish cakes.
I would make mashed potatoes JUST to make these!
I would make mashed potatoes just to eat mashed potatoes