17 Ways To Give Your Breakfast Potatoes An Upgrade

Whether you like them deep-fried and extra crispy or grilled with sauteed onions and peppers, breakfast potatoes are known for coming in all forms. Hash browns, tater tots, and potato pancakes make a name for themselves, giving you lots of freedom for creativity in your kitchen.

So, the question is, how do you take your home fries? Because Americans so love their potatoes, sometimes it's hard to decide how to cook them up. Not to mention, the breakfast entrée you plan to cook up makes all the difference when selecting your breakfast potato style.

A one-pot skillet meal tastes best with the original cubed and sautéed potatoes used as a base before being topped with other fun ingredients like cracked eggs, bacon, and shredded cheddar. But if you've made a breakfast sandwich, you know a crispy hash brown patty will add convenience and that blissful crunch factor to your egg sandwich. If you've longed for a new and improved way to celebrate the humble tuber during Sunday breakfast, tackle one of the following upgrades.

You might already have a good quality fat you prefer cooking your potatoes in, and that's fine, but for an exciting upgrade, we recommend using up any stored bacon grease you may have on hand. Your best bet when cooking potatoes is to use more than one cooking fat.

For smoke point purposes, you'll want to start with a fat that has a pretty high smoke point and won't fog up your kitchen during cooking. Vegetables or canola are both excellent because they work well on high heat, and that high heat will help crispy your potatoes up. Other good options include peanut oil and avocado oil.

Once your potatoes are nearly finished, add a bit of bacon grease or butter to help amp up the flavor. Bacon grease is excellent because of the tremendous meaty flavor it offers, but hey, who doesn't love an extra gob of butter?

Who doesn't love a good meat and potatoes meal for breakfast? Well, lucky for you, your home fries are a great place to add bits of protein. It's precisely why corned beef hash sells so well.

But beyond that Irish staple, you'll appreciate mixing your breakfast potatoes with other types of protein. Crumbled breakfast sausage, chopped bacon, and shaved ham taste lovely when dotted throughout your potato-filled skillet.

The idea here is to use what you already plan on cooking up. So if you've cooked up a little bacon, there is your base. Use the grease to fry your taters, and crumble a few pieces into the mix. Otherwise, chop up a few sausage links or mince a few slices of ham. And, since we're obviously not worried about our heart health here, a little shredded cheese wouldn't hurt either.

It doesn't need to be the weekend for you to enjoy breakfast, and it certainly doesn't have to be morning time either. If you've never had the opportunity to enjoy breakfast for dinner, then this skillet meal is a great place to start.

Featuring all the essentials like meat, potatoes, and vegetables, there's no reason to scuff at the idea of eggs at dinner time. To create a skillet meal, you need to start with a base, usually your potatoes, sauteed veggies, and a little protein of your choice.

Before throwing it in the oven, you'll crack a few eggs and a generous helping of shredded cheddar cheese. You'll know it's ready when the whites are cooked, but the yolks are still slightly runny. You can drizzle a little hollandaise from there or top it with fresh herbs.

Potato pancakes are the way to go if you're looking for ways to enjoy your leftover mashed potatoes for breakfast! A few cups of mashers combined with flour, an egg, plus some salt and pepper is all you'll need to make these little cakes. The best part is they pair beautifully with a few fried eggs!

While we won't recommend enjoying these with a generous dousing of maple syrup like typical pancakes, we wholeheartedly endorse eating these with a few other delicious condiments. Butter and sour cream are definite winners, but freshly chopped chives from the garden taste excellent with them too.

If you're looking for a yummy dipping sauce, we recommend combining equal parts ranch and sour cream. The dressing will help thin out the sour cream just enough to create a dreamy, tangy, rich condiment. Fresh dill or chives will lend well to the dip too.

Breakfast baked potatoes are lit! You can make them any way you choose, depending on what you already have to work with, and they can be really healthy if you're looking for a nutritious way to start your morning right. The general idea is to bake a few russets or sweet potatoes, score a line down the center, and fluff the insides up a little.

You may need to remove some of that potato to make room for other ingredients. Add bacon, sausage, or a little breakfast ham to the potato, crack an egg over the top, then crank a little salt and pepper over the egg. You'll need to put it back in the oven until the egg whites cook through, but you aren't done yet. While they are cooking, this is a great time to whip up a hollandaise sauce, shred some cheddar cheese, chop a few chive sprigs, or slice some avocado for your potatoes.

Next time you plan on making a batch of homestyle breakfast potatoes — you know, the ones cut into cubes and grilled in a pan — grab the jar of paprika. The spice is made from ground chiles and boasts a lovely touch of spice paired beautifully with cooked potatoes. What we love most about pretty paprika is that the hint of spice is subtle enough to tingle your tongue but mild enough that sensitive taste buds won't mind. 

Then there is color! Paprika provides a gorgeous red hue to potatoes that are both lovely and inviting. If you start your potatoes with the two-part cooking process, then give them an excellent crispy exterior with an appropriate high-smoke point oil, then finish those crispy spuds with a hint of paprika, you are well on your way to a plate of heaven. Don't forget the Creole seasoning and a knob of butter, which both provide a splendiferous swirl of flavor.

There is something special about a broken egg yolk flowing over a mountainous pile of breakfast potatoes. The yellow-hued richness creates a sauce-like finish for every bite, giving your breakfast a new name. You'll find that same satisfaction with runny yolks over sauteed vegetables. 

If you have leftover green beans, wax beans, carrots, and onion, cooked from the evening before, you'll love tossing them in the old skillet and topping them with eggs. Consider chopping those same nutritious ingredients and adding them to your home fries. Some favorite additions include sauteed onion, bell pepper, and mushrooms, but squash, zucchini, and fiddleheads taste delicious as well.

If you are looking to bring on loads of nutritious value, then grab your leafy greens. Chopped kale, spinach, and mustard greens bring health benefits and taste lovely, and sun-warmed diced tomatoes will give your potatoes a little brightness too.

We know you might be wondering how the heck pancake mix will help flavor your breakfast potatoes, but don't knock it until you've tried it. This tried-and-true trick will add a subtly sweet flair to your tubers while providing a nice crispy exterior. 

Simply grab your potato, give it a good scrub, then cube it up and boil them until they have cooked through. Make sure not to overcook them into a soggy wet mess. Once they have cooked through, you'll drain the starchy water and let your potatoes cool down. Once cool enough to touch, you'll work to coat them with a little pancake mix combined with baking soda. Fry them up and enjoy the newfound flavor and texture.