You say po-tay-to…I say po-tah-to…

{Wait, does anyone actually say po-tah-to?}

What I actually say is: potatoes are awesome.

I’ve probably mentioned it more than once, but in my garden, there are two vital crops that play a prominent role in feeding my family year-round: tomatoes and potatoes. Hundreds of pounds of each are harvested and stored. And because potatoes- under proper conditions- can be stored for months, they are a survival food that everyone should consider. Not only does a fresh potato beat out any potato you’ve ever had from a store, it can be turned into a multitude of things.

Today we’ll be making some homemade hash browns and stocking up your freezer.

As well as give you the sudden urge to eat eggs and bacon for every meal.

(This post contains affiliate links)

You can use potatoes in just about any amount, any size. I will, of course, highly suggest that you use homegrown or at least organic as potatoes are one of the worst as far as pesticides go.

The first thing you will want to do is parbake your potatoes. What that means is you will be only partially cooking them to the point where they are just beyond the firm stage, but not quite a baked potato. {Do not skip this step and use raw potatoes- hash browns need this partial cooking!} Set your oven to 400 degrees, poke each of your potatoes with a fork a few times, and set them on one of your oven racks. Larger potatoes will take about an hour, smaller to medium size will be about 45 minutes. Fresh potatoes from the garden will take even longer than store bought as they are much harder. Keep an eye on them and check frequently to be sure you don’t over bake them.

Remove from the oven and transfer to your refrigerator to cool completely. It’s much easier to deal with cold potatoes, so it may help to parbake them in the evening and prepare to make hash browns the next morning, letting them chill overnight.

Peel your potatoes and shred them. You can use a cheese grater, an attachment for your mixer, or a really handy vegetable chopper like I use.

Once they’ve all been shredded, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spread out your shredded potatoes in an even layer. Use more than one pan if needed.

Put them in the freezer. Flash freezing in this way will allow you to fill your freezer bags with loose, frozen hash browns rather than in one big clump.

Once they are frozen (check in about an hour), you can scoop them into your bags {I prefer quart size}. They are now ready to be used just as you would the prepackaged ones from the store.

But better. Trust me on this. A little bit of garlic, onion, and butter with these babies will have your whole family singing.

Get your kitchen on, my friends. And grow more potatoes.

This post contains affiliate links. What this means is I link to a product on Amazon (that I love, use, and/or recommend), and if you decide it’s something you want, I will receive a small monetary compensation with no cost to you- just because you used my link! This helps support my blogging activities and I thank you. Homestead on, my friends.