Make crispy hash browns part of your breakfast rotation
Fried potatoes can come in the form of french fries, tater tots or the crunchy breakfast staple — hash browns.
My childhood mornings regularly featured diced and pan-fried potatoes prepared by my mom, but I consider those “home fries” and not “hash browns.” To me, the latter are shredded rather than diced and are a staple at diners and fastfood restaurants across the country, not necessarily something made at home from scratch. I’ve even made hash browns numerous times during my line cook days, but until I revisited them for this recipe, I forgot just how easy they are to make in your own kitchen.
Here are a few fun facts about these beloved taters and some useful tips for making them at home.
Hash brown history
The word “hash” comes from the French “hacher,” which means to chop, so “hash brown potatoes” translates to “chopped and fried potatoes.” Before being shortened to “hash browns,” the dish was called “hashed and browned potatoes.”
The first known mention of it comes from “Miss Parloa’s Kitchen Companion,” published in 1887. The cookbook features a recipe for
“cold boiled potatoes, cut into cubes” heated in a brown gravy and then pan-fried until browned and has a texture that can be “fold[ed] like an omelet,” very different from the recipe many of us know and love today.
Shredding overtook dicing as the preparation of choice in the 1970s, according to “Breakfast: A History” by Heather Arndt Anderson, which was “likely inspired by Swiss rosti, the traditional farmer’s breakfast from Switzerland’s capital, Bern.” But when it comes to shredded fried potatoes,there are numerous iterations
around the world, with some of the most well known coming from Europe, including rosti, pommes darphin and potato latkes.
Potatoes first hit European shores in 1589 when Sir Walter Raleigh brought them to Ireland, and they took four decades to spread to the rest of the continent.
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact birth of the rosti, but I would posit it is the first in the category and originated sometime around the 18th century when “the potato had taken hold in Switzerland,” the Chicago Tribune reported.
One of the most popular potato pancakes in the United States is the latke, which, per PBS, originally didn’t contain potatoes at all but was instead made from cheese. However, potato latkes became popular with Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe during the mid1800s. Later, the French pommes darphin is believed to have been invented by its namesake, François Darphin, sometime around 1900.
So what’s the difference?
Hash browns, rosti and pommes darphin are typically just seasoned potatoes, but potato latkes also often include onion, egg and extra starch. Some of the recipes traditionally called for preor par-cooked potatoes, but all can be cooked from raw spuds. And when it comes to size and shape, rosti and pommes darphin are much thicker, sometimes clocking in around an inch or so, and formed into perfectly round circles, whereas hash browns and latkes are thinner, often with free-form, frilly edges.
So while there are minor differences here and there, at the end of the day, they’re all the same in my book — delicious fried shredded potato pancakes.
Po-tay-to or po-tah-to
Not all potatoes are created equal, and the choice of potato in hash browns will affect the final product. The main two types of potatoes are mealy and waxy, which have high and low starch contents, respectively.
“Though the Swiss use waxy potatoes [for rosti], those in the U.S. do not brown as well as Idaho baking potatoes,” according to a recipe in the Chicago Tribune. It’s the extra starch in mealy potatoes that helps them get nice and crispy, making russet potatoes (aka. Idaho or baking potatoes) ideal for hash browns.
Fat choice. In theory, you could use any fat you wanted to fry hash browns. A neutral oil such as vegetable or canola is pretty standard, but as its name implies, it doesn’t contribute anything in the flavor department. Many chefs love peanut oil for frying, but that’s a nonstarter for anyone with a peanut allergy. You could use a good olive oil, but its flavor doesn’t fit my idea of standard hash browns.
Bacon or other animal fat can be a great flavor booster, but some may find that it can overpower the potatoes. And last but certainly not least, there’s butter.
Some recipes do instruct you to use it as the sole fat for frying. “Yes, you can use butter for simple pan-fried recipes,” the Kitchn says. But I still worry about it burning over the mediumhigh heat and cook time called for in this recipe. Using clarified butter or ghee would erase this worry, but those are items that I don’t tend to keep on hand.
I chose to use a combination of vegetable oil and butter based on memories making hash browns as a line cook and wanting to impart some butter flavor without the anxiety that comes with using all butter.
I initially thought using a mix of the two raised the overall smoke point, but my research taught me that is a myth. However, there are still benefits.
“Though the milk proteins will still burn, if you cut the butter with oil, they’ll at least be diluted, meaning that you won’t have as much blackened flavor in that mix,” according to Serious Eats. I didn’t notice the milk proteins burning in any of my recipe testing.
Cooking hash browns
I chose to peel the potatoes, but you could certainly keep the skin on and just give them a good scrub instead if you want the extra nutrition. Then, with a handheld grater or the grating attachment of a food processor, shred the potatoes.
Next comes the most important: Get rid of as much moisture as you can to achieve shatteringly crisp potatoes. I like to gather the shredded spuds in a clean dish towel and wring out all of the water — nearly ½ cup in my trials —but you could also use cheese cloth, paper towels, a ricer or even just your hands.
While some recipes instruct you to rinse the potato under running water, don’t. Doing so removes the starch that helps the vegetable strands stick together and also aids in crispiness. Toss with salt and pepper so the seasonings are evenly dispersed throughout, and then it’s time to fry.
Grab a large skillet that is big enough to spread the potatoes into a very thin layer. A nonstick is preferable to cast iron due to the latter’s issues with uneven heating.
Heat a small amount of fat in the pan, add the potatoes, press them into a thin, even layer, and then cook until golden and crisp. (Pro tip: I like to regularly press the potatoes with my spatula as they’re cooking to help them stick together and ensure the hash browns get good contact with the pan to encourage browning.)
Then flip, let them brown on the other side, and you’re good to go.