Freezer-space when meal-prepping
Oven baking sheet or something similar when meal-prepping
(Optional) silicon cupcake molds when meal-prepping.
Baking paper when meal-prepping
Potatoes, ~400gr (i used the non-crumbly but it really doesn’t matter)
Salt&pepper, 1/4 tsp each
Smoked paprika powder, 1/4 tsp
Method 1, making them the day of:
Peel and shred the potatoes. Rinse the shredded potatoes until the water is clear, drain well (aka let sit for some time) and if needed squeeze dry.
Combine the shredded potatoes with the onion, egg, spices and however many flour you need to make it not watery anymore, mix well.
Heat your pan over medium-high heat. Add a good amount of oil, the hash browns don’t need to be deep fried but they do need to get a bit crispy. With a serving spoon or soup spoon, place a portion at a time in the pan, pressing the top after letting it drop in the pan to make sure they are as flat as possible for even cooking.
Turn halfway to make sure both sides are crispy. Remove from the pan when done and let drain on a plate with paper towels.
Method 2, meal-prepping a whole bunch of them:
step 1, dicing and slicing:
Peel and shred the potatoes. Rinse the shredded potatoes until the water is clear, drain well (aka let sit for some time) and if needed squeeze dry. This step is optional if you have a lot, it’s mainly to remove the starch from the water, but then later you’re adding starch with flour so whatever.
Combine the shredded potatoes with the onion, egg, spices and however many flour you need to make it not watery anymore.
Mix well. When doing this for big batches, towards the end of prepping the mix can be more watery. I added more flour but I can see that I did that in the end result. Maybe potato starch / maizena will work?
step 3: freezing without silicon molds
Add baking paper to your baking-sheet or other big flat surface you can put in the freezer to freeze them (big cutting board, baking sheet, big plates, etc).
If you don’t have silicon cupcake molds, make a hash-brown with your hands, on the baking paper, the shape you want them. Make sure the hash-browns don’t touch each other.
When the plate is full, add it to the freezer to freeze for a few hours at least, I recommend 3+ or overnight.
After they’re frozen, remove them from the baking paper (yes, this is difficult, because the hash-browns have lots of liquid in them they stick to the baking paper making it harder to remove. I learned this by not using baking paper and having to take a hair blower to my baking sheet).
Add all the frozen hash-browns to a freezer-bag, I use cheap zip-loc bags. They keep for a long time, I mostly use as reference that if something’s more than a year old I should throw it away.
step 3: freezing with silicon molds
This is easier when you also have the cupcake baking pan to put the molds in.
Add the potato-mix to the molds, fill them about halfway to 2/3rds of the way.
Put the baking pan with molds in the freezer for at least 1 hour.
Remove the almost frozen hash-browns from the molds, the outside will still be kinda liquid-y, this make the process easier.
Put the half-frozen hash-browns on a baking sheet lined with baking paper to freeze for 1 more hour. During this time you can freeze the next set of hash-browns in the molds.
Remove the hash-browns from the baking sheet, they’re now frozen enough to store in a bag. If you have a lot, this is the time to put the 2nd batch on the baking sheet and the 3rd batch in the molds.
Continue until all hash-browns have been made.
Final step: cooking them from the freezer
Don’t thaw the hash-browns.
Heat up a pan over low-medium heat. Add some oil and the hash-browns. Add a lid.
Cook for about 5-10 mins, turning them halfway.
If aren’t crispy enough at the end, turn up the heat for a minute or so, then serve.
This can be meal-prepped in advance or made on the day of. I meal-prep a bunch of then and then freeze them, highly recommend.
When meal-prepping: you can double/triple the recipe a bunch of times. I made it once with almost 2kg potatoes and other than using a very big bowl and freezing in batches it worked fine. (1900 grams of potato gave me 46 hash browns, i also only have 12 cupcake molds so that took me 4 batches aka 5 hours of freezing lol).
