Kitchen Stewardship | Caring for All Our Gifts

Helping busy families live well without going crazy!

  • Home
  • About
    • About Katie and Her Mission
    • Overwhelmed? Start Here.
    • Free for Readers!
  • Recipes
  • My Products
    • eBook Store
      • Healthy Snacks to Go
      • Better Than a Box
      • The Healthy Lunch Box
      • The Healthy Breakfast Book
      • The Family Camping Handbook
      • The Everything Beans Book
      • Smart Sweets
    • Kids Cook Real Food eCourse
    • Affiliates
  • Contact
    • Email Me
    • Media Coverage
    • Guest Posting
    • Advertising Disclosure
    • Privacy Policy
  • START HERE
  • COVID-19
  • Kids Cooking
    • How to Teach Kids to Cook
    • Teaching Kids About Food
  • Categories
    • Natural Health
      • Healing Through Food
      • Home Remedies
      • Prevention is the Best Medicine
      • Fighting Cancer
    • Real Food Roadmap
      • Finding Real Food
      • How-to Tutorials
      • Kitchen Tips
      • Personal Stories
      • Real Food Preparedness
      • Sample Menus
    • Save Time
      • Freezer Cooking
      • Organization
      • Planning Makes Perfect
      • Quick Hacks
    • Save Money
      • “How-to” Do it Yourself
      • Eat Well Spend Less
      • Food Preservation
      • Gardening
    • Save the Earth
      • A Safer World
      • Natural Cleaning
      • Natural Personal Products
      • Reducing Waste
    • Little Foodies (Kids and Babies)
      • Kids in the Kitchen
      • Natural Babies
      • Natural Pregnancy
      • Notes from School
    • Real Food Geeks
      • Understanding Disease
      • Understanding Your Body
      • Understanding Your Food
      • Understanding Your World
      • Deep Thoughts
    • Faith Nuggets
  • The Reviews
    • Top Natural Sunscreen out of over 120
    • Comprehensive Cloth Diaper Reviews
    • Bento Boxes for Lunch
    • Best Reusable Bags
    • Blendtec
    • Nutrimilll
    • Excalibur Dehydrator
    • All (old) KS Reviews
    • Recent Reviews
  • What to Buy
    • KS Recommends
    • Kids Cook Real Food eCourse
    • Kids’ Cooking Resources
    • Kitchen Gadget Wishlist
    • Grand Rapids Local Resources

Feeling Stressed?

Reclaim Your Brain at our FREE Event Feb. 2-4

Sign Up Now
Mastering Your Stress for Busy Moms

FREE Event

Reclaim Your Brain Stress Mastery Feb. 2-4

Learn More

Feeling Stressed?

Reclaim Your Brain at our FREE Event Feb. 2-4

Sign Up Now
Mastering Your Stress for Busy Moms

FREE Event

Reclaim Your Brain Stress Mastery Feb. 2-4

Learn More

Easy Potato Vegetable Pancakes Recipe (Latkes)

August 12, 2011 (UPDATED: May 15, 2020) by Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship® 16 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Easy Potato Vegetable Pancakes Recipe LatkesThis Latke recipe (also called potato pancakes) is written in my own hand from 1988, when I would have been in third grade. Food has always been a part of my history, and this traditional dish from my Polish heritage is a perennial favorite.

When I first served them to my husband, he was incredibly skeptical and didn’t think he’d like them, but now they’re a great go-to “breakfast for dinner” meal for the whole family.


The Healthy Breakfast BookIs breakfast monotonous at your house? Uninspiring? Or worse…processed? Get a little inspiration from The Healthy Breakfast Book, over 60 recipes plus efficiency tips and sample meal plans to make every breakfast nourishing. This recipe is just one of the great ideas in the book!

Get the whole premium package with bonus mini eBooks and Kindle/Nook files right HERE.

Better yet, they’re an awesome way to have vegetables for breakfast! We all know we should be having veggies in larger quantities than most other foods, but sometimes they’re tough to get into the meal plan except at dinnertime.

Why not start the day off strong with one or two of your 5-a-day taken care of (and then shoot for 7-10)?

Latke (Potato Pancakes)…with Vegetables!

Print
clock clock icon cutlery cutlery icon flag flag icon folder folder icon instagram instagram icon pinterest pinterest icon facebook facebook icon print print icon squares squares icon
What better way to go green than these Potato Vegetable Pancakes {Latkes}?! They are a great kid-friendly real food breakfast option.

Potato Pancakes (Latkes)

★★★★★ 5 from 1 reviews
  • Author: Katie Kimball
  • Yield: 4 (18-25 pancakes)
Print
Pin

Ingredients

  • 3 large potatoes (about 4 cups worth, grated)
  • about 2–3 cups other vegetables, grated (see Q&A notes)
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 Tbs. flour (see Q&A notes)
  • 1 medium onion
  • 1 tsp. salt (Use the code kitchenstewardship for 15% off of your first purchase)
  • oil for frying (refined coconut oil is excellent)

Instructions

  1. Wash, peel (optional) and grate the raw potatoes. Salt the gratings and allow to sit for 10-60 minutes (depending on how long you have before the meal), then drain the excess water that accumulates at the bottom of the bowl. If you’re hurrying and must skip this step entirely, the pancakes will survive.
  2. Grate or finely chop onion and add to potatoes, along with any other veggies you’re using. (Grate = lots of crying; finely chop = only a few tears. Another reason I like the food processor to do the job for me. Use the regular blade to chop onions.)
  3. Beat eggs well and add to the bowl (or just beat on top and then mix in).
  4. Add salt and flour. Mix well.
  5. Heat oil in frying pan or electric griddle at about 350F.
  6. Spoon potato mixture into hot oil and flatten with spoon or spatula to create 3-4” circles:
  7. Add a spoonful of the liquid that collects at the bottom of the mixing bowl right in the center. It’s mostly egg and will remind you of a fried egg around the edges of the pancake:
  8. This helps to hold everything together nicely so you don’t end up just making veggie hashbrowns. Flip when the underside is golden brown, about 2 minutes. The second side won’t cook quite as evenly brown, but when it starts looking like toasty hashbrowns, they’re done (about 3-5 minutes).
  9. Remove to a plate; drain with paper towel if necessary:
  10. Traditional toppings include sour cream or applesauce, but they’re also good with real maple syrup, homemade yogurt in place of the sour cream, or even ketchup. My son uses 3 of the 4, which makes my husband cringe, but hey – to each his own toppings as long as they’re eating their vegetables!

Notes

I highly recommend using a food processor with a grater attachment to make this a 30-minute meal. It’s possible to use a hand grater, but you’ll get tired of it quickly, especially if you have a large enough family for a double batch.

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @kidscookrealfood on Instagram

Need a little help getting healthy food on the table every day? Real Plans takes the stress out of meal planning and puts the nourishing food BACK on your table. There’s a plan for every diet type, including GAPS, Paleo, AIP, Whole30, vegetarian and more! You remain totally in control: use your own recipes, accept theirs, and teach the system what your family likes…Check out how powerful it is here!

Recipe Q&A: Getting more Out of the Latkes

Q: How do I make this dish even healthier?
A: Add vegetables!

Once your family is convinced that potato pancakes are wonderful (you might skip anything green on the first attempt if you have veggie-phobic children), slowly adjust the 6-7 cups of shredded stuff so that the ratio of potatoes to vegetables gets lower and lower. Eventually, you should be able to have just 2 cups of shredded potatoes and 4 cups of shredded vegetables.

Easy Latkes Potato Vegetable Pancakes
But if you want something fun for St. Patty’s Day, put a few BIG handfuls of washed baby spinach in! You really can’t taste it, and eating green food without nasty food coloring is a fun real food trick. 🙂

Q: What vegetables should I use?
A: Anything you have on hand:

  • spinach or other leafy greens
  • sweet potato
  • carrots
  • zucchini or summer squash
  • fall squash, raw
  • broccoli, stems included
  • cauliflower

Spinach will make the whole batch a shocking green, but I promise, you can’t taste it. Zucchini, especially peeled, totally blends in. Broccoli and cauliflower will impart some flavor, so use in smaller amounts until you know how they come through.

Sweet potato will naturally add a bit of sweetness, which some will love and some will hate. If your family likes these with maple syrup, you can use less sweetener if you include a few sweet potatoes.

Feel free to add green or colored peppers, but they will really change the flavor of the dish. You can always chop peppers finely and add to individual pancakes just for those who would appreciate the Mexi-flavor, and perhaps include salsa with the sour cream on the table.

Q: What kind of flour should I use?
A: Any flour from white to whole wheat will work just fine.

Your kids CAN make their own healthy breakfast!family in the kitchen making breakfast

Join the Kids Cook Real Food Weekend Challenge: Kids Master Breakfast and imagine your kids making breakfast independently! This is a live challenge with prizes and support but pro-filmed video lessons at your own pace. Truly the best of both worlds for busy families, and it starts THIS Saturday!

Q: What’s the gluten-free option?
A: This recipe will work with brown rice flour or even arrowroot starch in place of the 2 Tbs. of flour. You just need a bit to get everything to stick together.

Q: Is this breakfast or dinner?
A: Both.

I highly recommend making this a “breakfast for dinner” meal with your favorite meat on the side and planning leftovers for breakfast. You could certainly make them just for breakfast as well, but you’d have to get up quite a bit earlier than the rest of your hungry family.

It’s also possible to grate the veggies in advance and keep covered in the refrigerator for the morning, as long as you have time to fry them up while you’re getting ready for your day.

Q: How do I reheat leftovers?
A: Leftovers are awesome to have with this recipe. I often make a double batch just so I have leftovers for quick breakfasts. They are best reheated in a frying pan or griddle to retain the crispy outside, but a toaster oven does a good job, too.

Easy Latkes Potato Vegetable Pancakes

Other healthy breakfast ideas:

  • Soaked Whole Grain Pancakes
  • Healthy Pumpkin Muffins
  • Best Scrambled Eggs Ever
  • Banana Flax Muffins
  • Homemade Granola and Granola bars
  • Sourdough Pancakes (3 options)
  • Cherry Almond Coconut Crepes
  • Paleo Pancakes (Banana)
  • Soaked Oatmeal
  • Pumpkin Pie Baked Oatmeal

See my full disclosure statement here.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • shares
You've probably seen 1000s of products recommended by bloggers you follow...but what would you ACTUALLY use?

Filed Under: Real Food Recipes Tagged With: breakfast, dairy-free, eggs, gluten free, grain free, kid-friendly meals, meatless, nut-free, onions, pancakes, potatoes, spinach, sweet potatoes, vegetables, vegetarian, zucchini

« Previous Post Unrefined Dehydrated Whole Cane Sugar (Sucanat, Rapadura, Panela and Muscovado)
Next Post » Offering Up My Labor

About Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship®

Katie Kimball, CSME is a trusted educator and author of 8 real food cookbooks. She is passionate about researching natural remedies and making healthy cooking easier for busy families. She’s been featured on media outlets like ABC, NBC and First for Women magazine as well as contributing regularly on the FOX Network.

See more of Katie Kimball, CSME in the Media.

Over the last 10 years, Katie has spoken prolifically at conferences, online summits and podcasts and become a trusted authority and advocate for children’s health.

Busy moms look to this certified educator for honest, in-depth natural product reviews and thorough research. She often partners with health experts and medical practitioners to deliver the most current information to the Kitchen Stewardship® community.

In 2016 she created the #1 bestselling online kids cooking course, Kids Cook Real Food, helping thousands of families around the world learn to cook.

Certified Stress Mastery Educator BadgeA mom of 4 kids from Michigan, she is a Certified Stress Mastery Educator and member of the American Institute of Stress.

See all blog posts by Katie Kimball.

16 Bites of Conversation So Far

  1. Nance says

    August 27, 2014 at 1:38 pm

    Looks great!

    To remove the acrylamides that are carcinogenic, produced when starches like potatoes are fried, I’d suggest soaking the potatoes in salted water for the 10 minutes or more, then rinsing and pat-drying them.

    Soaking will also keep the potatoes from oxidizing to brown or pinkish as they would once cut.

    Reply
  2. shakti says

    September 30, 2013 at 5:14 am

    Madly delicious!
    Those curry latkes.
    Would I be strange if I thought the latkes, huge salad, and then being rather piggy with a pumpkin muffin would be several heavens on a plate?

    ★★★★★

    Reply
  3. Brian via Facebook says

    October 9, 2012 at 10:49 pm

    I bet a bit of homemade pumpkin puree would sweeten this dish up for a festive treat.

    Reply
  4. Adri says

    June 4, 2012 at 12:52 pm

    Thanks so much for this recipe and for suggestions on how to make this gluten free. I made these gluten free with brown rice flour this morning and they came out awesome! I had tried making these before without a recipe and they were a disaster the gf flour and egg ratio were wrong. I will be making these again.

    Reply
  5. Gordon says

    September 18, 2011 at 11:55 am

    I so want to make this now. What fat do you cook it with?

    Reply
    • Katie says

      September 20, 2011 at 2:07 am

      Gordon,
      I prefer coconut oil for frying because it holds up really well under high heat, but butter is a simple choice as well and olive oil would work as long as you don’t get it up to smoking. 🙂 Katie

      Reply
  6. Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine says

    August 18, 2011 at 1:42 pm

    I thought you were supposed to eat them with jam. They look delicious. Thanks for sharing the recipe 🙂

    Reply
  7. Tiffany (As For My House) says

    August 15, 2011 at 2:17 pm

    I was wondering if you had a suggestion for minimizing (or removing) the egg… I see how you need *something* to keep it together.

    I have a weird particular digestive issue, and I avoid eating starch (potato) with animal protein (egg).

    Any thoughts appreciated – since I think this would otherwise be a great meal for us!

    Reply
    • Katie says

      August 17, 2011 at 1:30 am

      Tiffany,
      That’s a tough one! I don’t know if the egg substitute with flax seed and water would work for this one. Since you don’t actually have an egg allergy, maybe getting rid of the starch and just using zucchini and other veggies (see comments here for other ideas!) would be best. Hope that helps! 🙂 Katie

      Reply
      • Danielle says

        September 16, 2011 at 9:10 am

        You might be able to use the Flax Seed or another egg substitute if you bake them. It will, of course, not taste as good as the fried ones though. We avoid egg in recipes and have found baking seems to work with substitutes as they don’t stick to the pan.

        Reply
  8. BookishIma says

    August 14, 2011 at 1:35 pm

    It makes a lot of sense that latkes are Polish, but I never thought about it! You might be interested to know that there is a divide between those Jews that put applesauce on their pancakes and those that put sour cream (based on where in Poland they lived). The applesauce camp likes sweet in everything, like gefilte fish and stuffed cabbage, while the sour cream camp likes garlic in everything instead. We are a sour cream family and I’d never heard of applesauce on latkes until I encountered it in the US, where all the Jews from Eastern Europe have mixed up their food traditions. The two camps like to tease each other over which way is best. It’s sour cream, obviously!

    Reply
  9. etteloc says

    August 13, 2011 at 1:42 pm

    Beet + kohlrabi + sour cream and horseradish = the best latkes.

    Beet latkes on their own, with a little onion, are divine and slightly sweet.

    Reply
  10. Camille says

    August 13, 2011 at 1:27 am

    I am Polish and my husband was raised Jewish so we come from a long line of latke (potato pancakes) eaters! We usually only have them for Hannukkah, but what a fabulous idea to put shredded veggies in! I’d never even thought of that. Duh!

    Reply
  11. Barefeet In The Kitchen says

    August 12, 2011 at 8:34 pm

    These look great, Katie. I just saved a recipe for sweet potato latkes the other day. I’ve never made them before and I’m looking forward to trying them.

    Reply
  12. lizi says

    August 12, 2011 at 4:40 pm

    i agree coconut oil is soooooo yummy!!
    i make Curry Veggie Pancakes with summer squash, peas, dried cranberries, feta, walnuts, and curry powder, plus whatever other veggies will do (carrots, potatoes, kale, red pepper) and they are to die for, i swear!! i just squeeze out excess water to make sure they fry right. Yummy i am thinking i might make some veggie pancakes tonight!!

    Reply
  13. Leanna says

    August 12, 2011 at 12:41 pm

    I can’t wait to make these! They look SO yummy. Thanks for the recipe!

    Reply

Take a Bite (of conversation) Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Looking for something?

Hi there!

I’m Katie, the voice of healthy kids cooking, and I’m on a mission to connect families around healthy food.

You’ll find recipes, research, reviews and remedies here to help you figure out how to stay healthy without going crazy!

Read More

Rookies Start Here
Free Email Course

 

Katie’s Cooking Class

We teach kids how to cook with online video lessons!
Better Than A Box eBook

Katie Kimball, CSME

Making real food and natural living possible for busy families!

Katie Kimball, CSME

Certified Stress Mastery Educator Badge

Stay Connected!

Kitchen Stewardship® Books on Amazon

Subscribe By Email

Subscribe

Readers’ Favorite Posts

  • Best Natural Hand Sanitizers
  • Recipes for Side Pork [Bacon Included]
  • How to Cook Frozen Ground Beef in the Instant Pot
  • Foods For Gut Healing
  • Everyone has Parasites - Get Rid of Them Naturally!
  • How to Freeze Avocado and Guacamole
  • Healthy Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk Substitute
  • Why is Sugar Bad for You?

Some Articles Medically Reviewed By

  • Scott Soerries, M.D.
  • Sheila Kilbane, M.D.
  • Jess Sherman, RHN
  • Madiha Saeed, M.D.

Katie Kimball Has Been Featured On:

Featured on Wellness Mama Featured on Rodale Wellness Featured on Popsugar Featured on Money Saving Mom Featured on Huffington Post Featured on Fox News Featured on BuzzFeed Featured on Amazon Kindle Top 100 List

Please remember that I’m just a gal who reads a lot and spends way too much time in her kitchen. We at Kitchen Stewardship® are not doctors, nurses, scientists, or even real chefs, and certainly the FDA hasn't evaluated anything on this blog. Any products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please talk to your health professional (or at least your spouse) before doing anything you might think is questionable. Trust your own judgment…We can’t be liable for problems that occur from bad decisions you make based on content found here. Here's the full legal disclaimer.

Some posts on this blog contain affiliate links which generate commission if you purchase anything starting with those links. KS also accepts private sponsorships and we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. More info here.

Contact · affiliates · ad disclosure · privacy policy · ebooks
Copyright © 2021 Kitchen Stewardship®