17 Creative Ways To Use Frozen Hash Browns
Hash browns are an enjoyable addition to any meal. While they are most well-known as a breakfast or brunch item, you could also use them for everything from sandwiches to casseroles. There are a few frozen varieties available on the market, including bagged shredded hash browns, diced hash browns, and hash brown patties. There are even sweet potato and cauliflower hash browns. You could feel free to use whichever product or a mix, but it all depends on the texture and flavors you're looking to achieve in your dish.
We're opting for the plain potato variety, but you can alter the hack to use what you have at home and customize it to your liking. After all, hash browns are known for their versatility and can be flavored any which way with fresh or dried herbs, vegetables, cheese, gravy, and sauces to craft a cohesive dish. From quiche crust to quesadillas, there are plenty of creative ways to use frozen hash browns to make space in your freezer and serve up a satisfying, potato-forward meal.
Use them as a base for potato soup
A creamy potato soup is a cozy and quick meal that you can make for yourself, for a family, or a potluck. There's no need to get stuck washing and chopping a bunch of potatoes to make a tasty crock if you make frozen hash browns the base for potato soup. You'll need hash browns, cream or milk, butter, salt, pepper, and other add-ins like seasoning or veggies. A bag of diced or shredded hash browns will suffice.
Using frozen hash browns as the base will significantly reduce your cooking time. Simply drop the hash into the soup liquid to cook up. You can also include additional vegetables or herbs like grated broccoli, spinach, or chopped parsley. Keep the texture as is, or smooth things out by blending it with an immersion blender.
Assemble them into a breakfast burrito
Breakfast burritos, particularly California breakfast burritos, often have fries in them. You can easily substitute the fries for any type of hash browns. Shredded or diced hash browns make for smaller potato pieces, but you could also use a patty. Chop the oblong patties into pieces or strips so they slightly resemble fries, or leave the patty whole.
In its most basic form, breakfast burritos usually include eggs, meat protein, and cheese. But the great thing about making burritos at home is the ability to add your personal flair. Cook up a vegetarian breakfast burrito with hash brown patties, scrambled eggs, and vegetables of your choosing. Eat a rainbow of veggies or pick your favorite; roasted bell peppers, for example, go particularly well in a breakfast burrito. Feel free to customize the recipe with meat like chopped steak, breakfast sausage, chorizo, or ham for extra protein. You can use nearly any cheese that you like, too. While cheddar or pepper jack are often used, there's no rule against brie or Swiss. As a last touch, heat your burrito on a pan to get a slightly brown exterior.
Top hash browns on your shepherd's pie
Shepherd's pie has a comforting feel — like being tucked into bed with the fluffiest of blankets. It's a marvelous blend of protein, carbohydrates, and seasonings that can keep you satiated. This dish normally calls for mashed potatoes, but hash browns can give shepherd's pie a crispy upgrade. The hash browns bring a different texture to play, especially if you opt for thinly sliced bagged hash browns. Shredded spuds will provide a crispness that stands apart from standard shepherd's pie — but is equally as delicious.
Follow a simple shepherd's pie recipe and replace the mashed potatoes with your hash browns. Use beef, lamb, or mutton as your protein base, sautéed with veggies like carrots, peas, corn, and onion. Then, you can start assembling your dish. Sprinkle your frozen bagged hash browns on top of your shepherd's pie, along with some cheese, and bake it until crisp.
Turn them into cheesy funeral potatoes
Potatoes and cheese make a divine match that you'll see in many types of dishes spanning across cultures, such as in pierogi and enchilada filling. Cheesy funeral potatoes are also an opportunity to marry the dynamic duo. It combines cream of chicken soup, sour cream, butter, potatoes, hash browns, grated cheddar cheese, cornflakes, and seasoning together. While the exact history is hard to place, there's no doubt that funeral potatoes are part of religious culture for funerals and luncheons alike.
Since then, the recipe has been upgraded and substituted with ingredients like chicken broth or Gruyère cheese. But comfort remains the heart of the dish. Cheesy funeral potatoes can be put together in 10 minutes, just as long as you thaw the shredded hash browns ahead of time. Once in the oven, you'll have ample time to spend with your family or unwind before your new favorite side dish is ready to eat.
Bake a potato crust quiche
Pie crust might be standard for quiche, but a hash brown crust offers a unique spin and a gluten-free option. Start by defrosting your frozen shredded hash browns and squeezing out any moisture. This is an important step to ensure you get a crisp crust going rather than a soggy, floppy one. There's something so disappointing about attempting to dig into your dish only to have it crumble to oblivion before your very eyes.
You could also use frozen hash brown patties instead. Thaw them as well so they're not rock-hard, and then delicately mash them before squeezing in paper towels or cheesecloth to remove excess moisture. Once the excess water has been removed, you can push the mash into your pie dish and par-bake it until it is solid. From there, you can follow your favorite quiche recipe and include your favorite veggies, aromatics, and meats.
Shape them into potato and cheese pancakes
These potato pancakes can be served as a fun side dish for breakfast or brunch or as a component of other meals. You can also customize your pancakes by adding some spices or herbs to switch things up, like garlic, cumin, parsley, or rosemary. The rounds are the Goldilocks of sizes — not too big, not too small. Serve it as a side for a juicy steak or grilled chicken, or you could eat it as part of breakfast with scrambled eggs, peppers, and some fruit. This method of utilizing frozen hash browns turns them into an ideal snack to top with sour cream or to serve on the side of your favorite meal.
Substitute thawed, shredded frozen hash browns for regular grated potatoes in these potato and cheese pancakes since they will integrate easily with the other ingredients and cook up well. We recommend using the shreds over the diced frozen potatoes for a more uniform look and texture.
Forget the bread and transform them into toast
Elevate your morning toast by swapping your bread for a crispy hash brown base. The easiest way to make hash brown toast is to use the hash brown patties because they're already toast-shaped. Fry it up in a skillet or toast it in your toaster. You could also easily make toast with frozen shredded hash browns. Shape them into a patty or some kind of toast-adjacent shape and fry them up so they develop a nice crust. You'll need the handmade patties to be thicker so they can support the toppings.
Get imaginative with what you want on the potato toast. Place items atop your toast to gear it towards your desired meal, whether that's mashed avocado and a fried egg for a hearty brunch or tomatoes, feta, red onion, and cucumbers for an afternoon meal. Top it like you would a piece of bread, they both serve alongside your entrée. If you're ready for a tastebud adventure, you can even make a dessert potato by putting honey and butter on your crunchy, fried tater toast.
Cook it into a casserole
When you don't know what to make for dinner or don't want to spend too much time slicing, searing, frying, or filleting, casseroles are a solid choice. They allow a lot of room for imagination and substitutions depending on your palate and what's in your refrigerator. From brunch to dinner versions, there are many types of casseroles to make with a bag of frozen hash browns. For example, bake a cheesy sausage breakfast casserole for a satisfying start to your morning — with the help of frozen hash brown shreds.
Make a designated hash brown casserole or follow your favorite casserole recipe, and just sprinkle in shredded or diced frozen hash browns into the mix of ingredients. Everything bakes and melts together in the oven, so you don't have to worry about defrosting anything ahead of time. It also helps that there aren't a lot of dirty dishes involved since it's all made in one pan.
Take your sandwich to a new level
Sandwiches are often served with fries, home fries, or something potato-related, so adding hash browns just makes sense. Rather than have it on the side, make it part of the main attraction. Hash browns can give your sandwich the perfect crunch and enhance the flavor. Add shredded hash browns to a breakfast sandwich, ham and cheese sandy, your hamburger, or sprinkle some onto a BLT (although in this case, it would be called a BLTHB: bacon, lettuce, tomato, and hash browns).
If you're unsure of how to integrate hash browns into a sandwich, just think about sandwiches often served with fries or chips. Layer your favorite deli meats, cheeses, vegetables, and condiments to make a sandwich with the spuds. It's a hearty meal that you can alter for different dietary needs, like gluten-free or vegan, and taste preferences.
Prep them for a potato salad
When you're heading out to a gathering and want to bring something that doesn't involve too much labor, choose potato salad. You can easily customize how much to make based on the amount of people attending. Save yourself the effort of peeling, chopping, and boiling a seemingly never-ending load of potatoes by swapping fresh ones for frozen ones. Besides the ease, it will also give you a crunchier twist to classic potato salad. We recommend using diced frozen hash browns for the best results since the cubes are reminiscent of what you'd find in most potato salads.
The diced hash brown addition can ensure uniformity in spud size without even having to pick up a knife and slice the potatoes carefully into bite-sized pieces. Blanch your frozen hash browns, then integrate the rest of your add-ins, like mayo, celery, salt, and pepper. You can alter the flavor of your salad by sprinkling extra chopped dill or lightening the amount of mayonnaise.
Add them to quesadillas
Use frozen shredded hash browns as a quesadilla filling, or try the diced version for a thicker wrap. You'll want to start by frying your hash browns in a pan with your oil of choice. Be sure to cook off any moisture and get the spuds super firm, as you also don't want any moisture to make your quesadilla wet. While your potatoes are cooking, you can heat up and prepare your other ingredients.
Make breakfast quesadillas with eggs, chorizo, and hash browns, or switch up the ingredients for lunch or dinner by adding vegetables or your favorite meat. Season your add-ons before assembling, as you won't be able to do so once everything's tucked away in it the tortilla. Place your hash browns and other ingredients onto each quesadilla and let the cheese melt and everything warm up. This potato addition will give your quesadillas the crispy contrast they need.
Put a spin on stuffed peppers
Stuffed peppers are a colorful and filling meal housed inside of a vegetable. There is major variation across stuffed pepper recipes, including in the type of grain or protein used. Sometimes, there's sausage or ground turkey, and sometimes, there's riced cauliflower instead of rice. After all, you could replace or substitute most ingredients in stuffed peppers except for the peppers themselves. We recommend swapping the grains with the hash browns or adding a bit of potato to each pepper to help supplement the meal.
The key to delicious stuffed peppers is to ensure they are seasoned appropriately before assembly because you don't get a chance to do it once everything's in the pepper. For best results, season each component individually as you make it. Stuffed peppers are a nearly foolproof meal that allows you to use what you have in the fridge, freezer, or pantry.
Incorporate it into corned beef hash
Corned beef should be on the list of canned meats you should consider stocking in your pantry. The shelf-stable beef is preserved in salt water and serves as a convenient meat add-in for a cozy meal. This canned meat is a great option to have in the pantry when you're in a rush, whether you're craving corned beef hash or corned beef and cabbage.
Rather than boiling and grating potatoes for your hash, try using shredded hash browns from your freezer instead. You can skip a few steps by frying the hash browns until they become a golden brown color. Then, you open your canned corned beef and season it to your liking with aromatics, cheese, or eggs. Making corned beef hash with frozen hash browns slashes the amount of time you have to spend cooking, which means you'll have a bit of wiggle room in between work meetings or other responsibilities.
Crisp them up into hash brown waffles
You can revolutionize your brunch by turning your hash browns into waffles. The trick for super crispy hash brown waffles lies in the iron. It cooks the frozen hash browns from all sides, making them completely crisp without having to fry them in the pan. You can take this base recipe in many variations, from pastrami waffles made with shredded potatoes to sweet potato waffles with shredded sweet potatoes.
No matter which waffle recipe you go for, use frozen shredded hash browns to get the desired look. Put the hash browns in a bowl and season with ingredients like white pepper and scallions. You can also add in small, chopped meats like bacon, pastrami, or ham so it doesn't create large lumps. Sprinkle in a touch of shredded cheddar or pepper jack cheese for additional crispiness. Once your potatoes are customized to your liking, spread your hash brown mixture evenly on the waffle grid to ensure it gets its crispy exterior and serve hot.
Sprinkle some into egg breakfast cups
Since the eggs act as a binder to hold everything together, egg cups or muffins allow you to use whatever ingredients you have in the fridge and pantry. Have some spinach that's nearing the use-by date? Drop them into the egg batter. Is there a minuscule amount of frozen corn in your freezer that you don't know what to do with? Plop those kernels into the egg cups. What about that last crumble of feta or one random slice of cheese? In the egg cups, they go.
Bake a batch of egg white breakfast cups with assorted veggies, egg whites, frozen diced or shredded hash browns, and seasoning. If you want to use hash brown patties, just cut them into smaller, bite-sized pieces. Use chopped bacon, chorizo, sausage, and steak for breakfast cups, or switch things up for lunch with shredded chicken, pork, or tofu. You can mix in most proteins or cheeses to make it heartier. These have a balanced blend of nutrients and are guaranteed to leave you feeling satiated.
Elevate your flatbread with hash browns
Bring elegant restaurant dining to your home with a lively potato flatbread. It's a delectable dish to bring to a party or to bake for yourself when you want to create something interesting for lunch or dinner. Pair your shredded or diced frozen hash browns with flavors like rosemary, onions, and pepper. To assemble, roll out the dough, spread on some olive oil (plain or flavored), then add your toppings.
The result looks like something you'd order at a restaurant, but it has the convenience of using frozen hash browns and premade pizza dough or flatbread. Make a meat lovers flatbread with hash browns, pepperoni, Italian sausage, and bacon. Drizzle on some sour cream or garlic aioli for additional flavor. Fresh chives, thyme, green onion, or sliced garlic can also give your plate an aromatic jolt, or experiment with cheeses to pull it all together.
Create a hash brown meal in the Instant Pot
An Instant Pot or multi-cooker gives you the opportunity to adopt the set-it-and-forget-it mentality for meal time. You don't have to constantly stir or keep your eye on something as you multitask around the kitchen. One popular option is a cheesy egg bake made with scrambled eggs, melted cheese, savory bacon, and a layer of frozen shredded hash browns. It only takes 10 minutes with your Instant Pot and makes a flavorful savory morning meal.
Are you seeking something non-breakfast related to make? There are tons of options for Instant Pot recipes that can include hash browns like delectable soups and stews. A multi-cooker makes meal prep considerably quicker and cuts down on the number of dishes you have to do at the end of the day.
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