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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Tried it and liked it however; next time I will roll the gushy patties in breadcrumbs and put them in the oven instead: I’m want to cut back on butter/margarine etc.
That sounds like a great idea to me Johanne! Let us know how they turn out for you.
I just finished making these. The flavor is great. I changed a few small things. Also mine should have had a little more flour and cheese. I started with some leftover kfc mashed potatoes, which are thin to start with. I’ll keep a few out for dinner and heat them up in the air fryer. The rest will get frozen. Thanks for this I will definitely do this again.
I love the idea of freezing then popping into the air fryer as desired! Thanks for sharing Shelby!
I am almost 80 yr’s old and my Mother made these for our dinner frequently. They were called potato patties. never have had w cheese. can’t wait to try your recipe. sounds wonderful.
Let me know how they turn out!
I will never toss out left over mashed potatoes again! This recipe was a hit! I didn’t have green onions so I sautéed a quarter onion and then added I small clove garlic for the last minute. My recipe was half the portion because I only had one cup of potatoes left over. This would go nicely as a side dish for any meat entree as well.
Glad you loved them Liz!
Great recipe , these were delish!
So glad you loved them Debbie!
I made these tonight since I had leftover mashed potatoes and all but the fresh herbs but I used dried in it’s p,ace. I also decided to bake them in the oven as another person mentioned and they came out great. My husband loved them, as did I.
So glad you loved them Patty! They’re a great way to use up those leftovers!
Excellent mashed potato pancakes! I did not have bacon so I used garlic powder but everything else was as specified. I used green onions.
My husband loves them too!
So glad you loved them Cindy!
Absolutely scrumptious! I made ‘nugget’ sized versions and baked mine in a hot oven because I hate frying. My children were begging for more and it was really hard to stop at one.
Great idea Michele! Love to hear that your children loved them so much too!
Fantastic recipe! Thanks so much for all of the comments and recipe notes, they really helped! I used leftover twice-bakec potatoes and leftover steak added. Came out GREAT! This is a 5 star “keeper”.
So glad you loved it Al!
I made this and followed the directions exactly and my cakes turned out dry, rubbery, and totally bland. a real disappointment considering the prep work that went into this recipe. Also, potato cakes should not be fried in butter as the cooking temp is much too low and your cakes will just burn. I will not be making this recipe again
Sorry these didn’t work out for you Melissa, our family loves them!
What would you use as an egg replacement for these please?
I’ve only made this was written. Depending on the consistency of your potatoes, you can skip the egg if they’ll hold together. The egg is used as a binder in this recipe.
Boil linseed really thick use that as the replacement if needed
Everyone loved these it was a real hit. The only thing I changed was adding a little hunk of shredded Swiss cheese. Used my cast iron skillet and they browned beautifully just like the picture.
So glad to hear Elaine! Yum!
Just what I was looking for. Thank you for helping me be creative and use what I had in the fridge. The fresh basil was such a nice touch. They were delicious!
You’re so welcome Lissette! Glad you loved it!
Made these tonight with leftover garlic mashed potatoes and they were excellent. We were surprised at how the basil and parsley added to the yummy flavor without standing out. I only used one egg since everything held together fine with just the one and only added 1/2 teaspoon salt since there was already some in the potatoes and it was perfect. I will definitely make these again. Thanks for the recipe!
I’m so glad you loved them Shari!
I have tried many recipes similar without success. This was absolutely delicious! Thank you for sharing.
I’m so glad you loved it!
Item No. 2 seems to be messed up. It starts off by talking about onions then says to put the garlic in the pan?
If using white onion, it is added in step 2 with the garlic. If using green onion, no precooking needed. Updated, hope that helps Monty!
I made these and found them to be quite flavorful! I was wondering if you might be more specific on the skillet temperature. From the recipe, I couldn’t quite get a handle as to how hot my skillet should be. I use an infrared thermometer to help me with sauteing and searing. I cooked the cakes at 280 F, and they didn’t brown all that well at 3 minutes I cook pancakes at 350 to 375 F. America’s Test Kitchen suggests using 350 F and a quarter inch of oil for latkes. I placed a poached egg on each pancake with a basil chiffonade and got many compliments from my brunch guests.
Thanks much!
I don’t have an exact temperature, you may need to adjust the settings based on your own appliances. :)
I made these this moring…they are AWESOME….didn’t put the called amount for the parsley or basil..used a little over half the amount…flavor is perfect…Thank you….yummy…
Hi Holly, What alternative gluten free flour would you recommend for this delicious recipe?
I don’t follow a gluten free diet, so I’m not sure what the best option would be.
I used “Cup4cup” multipurpose gluten free flour. I’m sure you could use rice flour, but you would have to add xanthan gum. I have had lots of trial and error over the years, converting regular recipes to gluten free. Hope that helps!
Thank you for sharing!
I made these cakes with sauteed onion, a shredded slice of both cheddar and gouda, salt, pepper and they came out AMAZING! Easy and delish. Not as floury as other recipes i found.
Gouda sounds like a perfect variation for this recipe! Thanks for sharing!