5 Spud-On Ideas For Leftover Potato

Potatoes might just be the most versatile food of all: they can be chips, wedges, mash, waffles, potato cakes, potato hash, roasties, potato salad, cottage pie topping, bombay potatoes. We’ll stop there, as we know we sound a little like Forrest Gump’s Bubba talking about shrimp. But potatoes are amazing.

Sometimes, after a long day, a huge bowl of creamy mashed potato is the only thing you need. Potatoes look pretty different whole to how they look mashed (obvs), so you inevitably always end up with an absolute mountain of mash that you cannot physically work your way through.

It’s the same when you’re making roasties to go with your Sunday dinner; you peel a huge pile of spuds with the best intentions, only to find you’ve got enough to feed the 5,000, not just the five people you’re cooking for.

Don’t just throw them away though – you’re better than that. Leftover potatoes are just as tasty and versatile as original intention-related potatoes, and they don’t just have to mean more mash. Here’s a few ideas for what to do when you’ve got too many spuds:

Hash browns are such a treat. They’re the kind of thing you only really have on your plate if you’re out for breakfast, or it’s a special occasion. But there’s really nothing – except for yourself – stopping you from having them more often.

They’re a great way to use up leftover grated potato, and if you fry up the mix in your Tefal Thermo-Spot pans with just a drop of oil or a few squirts of low-cal spray oil, they can be a pretty healthy addition to your breakfast plate too.

Comfort Bites’ hash brown recipe uses sweet potato, but you can use any type of spud you’ve got leftover, adding in any other bits and bobs you need to use up – a bit of grated carrot or some scraps of bacon, for instance.

Serve with just baked beans and enjoy dipping them in, add them to your fry-up or have them with fish or meat and veg in the evening as a slightly more interesting alternative to boiled potatoes. Seriously, what’s stopping you?

Cottage pie is seen as a very traditional British meal, but there’s no reason you can’t jazz it up a little by adding a spicy kick to the dish, bringing in a whole new flavour to this teatime staple.

Start by making up your usual mince, veg and gravy cottage pie filling, but add in a chopped chilli and as much hot curry powder as your taste buds can handle. Pour the mixture into a pie dish, and instead of topping with your usual creamy mash, cook up a batch of The English Kitchen’s bombay potatoes instead.

If cottage pie’s a weekly staple in your house, this recipe will add a welcome hit of heat to the dish. If you’re feeling extra experimental, try the same topping on a chicken pie or even a fish pie – adjust the seasoning in the filling to suit the spice and it’ll taste gorgeous.

Waffle makers are pretty magical; all you have to do is pour in a load of leftover mashed potato – and maybe some cheese and chives like in this recipe from Kirbie’s Cravings – close the lid and you’ve soon got gorgeous potato waffles that are crispy on the outside yet fluffy on the inside.

Obviously, we recommend that you make your waffles using the Tefal Snack Collection, and we also recommend that you go all out with the throwback to your childhood teatimes and serve up your waffle creations with chicken nuggets or fish fingers, plus baked beans or spaghetti hoops. Extra points for alphabet spaghetti. And for having all five of these options at once. Frankly, that sounds like the best possible dinner we could ever imagine.

Bolognese is for spaghetti, or at a push other-shaped pasta, and not potato, right? Usually, yes, but gnocchi is a sort of potato pasta, and it’s a slightly more unusual way to use up your leftover spuds.

Amuse Your Bouche has an excellent blog post on how to make homemade gnocchi, using just mashed potato, flour and butter. She suggests serving it with pesto you’ve made yourself, but we think it’s great to mix up your usual reliance on pasta with some gnocchi every now and again.

Have it with bolognese, or a carbonara sauce; make a tuna and sweetcorn gnocchi salad or try experimenting with gnoc’n’cheese. Food for thought indeed.

For most people, potato cakes are eaten at breakfast time, covered in butter, maybe with bacon and eggs – they’re not to be covered in sweet cream cheese frosting. No, this is a totally different kind of potato cake we’re talking about.

Grated sweet potato works just as well in a homemade cake as classic carrot or the slightly trendier but just as tasty beetroot and courgette, creating its own distinct flavour. And it works absolutely brilliantly covered in maple syrup-flavoured frosting, like in this recipe from The Dinner Bell.

A hint of mixed spice perfectly balances out that super-sweet icing, with added raisins and walnuts adding a bit of traditional to this tasty twist of a bake. Tuck into a slice, and you’d never believe a potato had been anywhere near it. See, we told you it’s not all about endless bowls of mash.