When you have a large crop of potatoes from the garden or farmstand, you don't have time to casually include them in complicated recipes or to frantically figure out how to use them up before they go bad without getting sick of them. You want to make the most of your harvest and to actually enjoy it.
Here at Plant to Plate, we like to keep things simple! Here are some of my favorite ways to use or preserve potatoes:
- Bake them. So many herbs, veggies, and other foods make great baked potato toppings, but here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Make your own french fries. Slice your taters and top them with salt (and optional rosemary or thyme) and bake.
- Roast them with green beans and garlic.
- Roast smaller potatoes by cutting them in half and topping them with sage, rosemary, and/or thyme before baking. Fingerling and mini potatoes are great fits for this method.
- Make microwave potatoes. This works especially well with smaller varieties like mini and fingerling potatoes, but it can also work with diced larger potatoes. Check out this article on how to cook potatoes in the microwave from our friends at Lost My Kitchen.
- Mash them. Top mashed potatoes with butter or any of the baked potato toppings listed above.
- Make latkes. These are similar to thick pancakes or thin patties, but potatoes are the featured ingredient.
- Make your own potato chips.
- Make a simple potato-leek soup with potatoes, parsley, and leeks. You can use chicken broth, beef broth, veggie broth, herbal broth, or a cream base with this versatile combination.
- Make fennel-potato soup with potatoes, fennel (whole plant), and sage along with chicken broth or veggie broth. You can also add an allium like shallot, leek, onion, or garlic if desired.
- Add them to other soups.
- Make gnocchi. Gnocchi is generally made with potatoes, flour, eggs, and salt. Since gnocchi don't need to rise, it is generally fine to substitute gluten-free flours like sorghum flour, quinoa flour, rice flour, buckwheat flour, and others as well.
- Make a simple potato salad with diced potatoes, dill, avocado, and Greek yogurt or mayonnaise.
- Add (diced) cooked or baked potatoes to tzatziki to turn the tzatziki from a dip to a creative potato salad.
- Store them in the root cellar to save them for later.
- Dice and freeze them. If you do not have a root cellar or cellar substitute, freezing your potatoes is the next best option for preserving them.
Further Reading
Growing taters? Check out these quick facts like their best growing conditions, companion plants, and expected yields.
Potatoes are also featured in these articles: