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Trisha Yearwood’s Sweet Potato Pancakes are here. With the recipe comes a tip from the celebrity chef and Food Network star. Yearwood has a simple trick to getting crispy potato pancakes. Serve them alongside Yearwood’s Sweet Potato Pudding or simply grab the applesauce and sour cream and get ready for perfect potato pancakes. 

Trisha Yearwood’s Sweet Potato Pancakes are a twist on traditional potato pancakes

Trisha Yearwood on the set of her Food Network Show Trisha's Southern Kitchen.
Trisha Yearwood | Discovery Press Web/Food Network

Potato pancakes are a classic. They’re made with potatoes of the Russet or Yukon Gold variety. However, Yearwood switches it up. She likes using sweet potatoes. As the country singer explained on Trisha’s Southern Kitchen, it’s an easy way to elevate potato pancaked. “I love changing up the potato,” she said. “The sweet potato just makes it really decadent. 

That’s not the only way Yearwood puts a twist on potato pancakes. She also, according to Food Network, adds dill to sour cream for a fresh take on traditional potato pancake toppings. Featured in the “Fall Festival Faves” episode of Yearwood’s cooking show, her Sweet Potato Pancakes would also make a great addition to any Hanukkah menu. 

The trick to crispy sweet potato pancakes is squeezing out all the water, according to Trisha Yearwood

Time for Yearwood’s sweet potato pancake hack. The trick is to remove as much of the excess water as possible. After combining grated sweet potato and onion, Yearwood explained why she began squeezing the mixture together in a dishtowel. 

“We’ve got some oil heating up and people are going, ‘What are you doing right now?’” she said on Trisha’s Southern Kitchen

Yearwood continued, sharing why it’s a key step in the sweet potato pancake-making process. “The potatoes and the onions have a lot of water in them. And we want really crispy potato pancakes,” she said. “So you actually just grate them over some kind of cloth. Then you squeeze out all the water.”

“See now it’s kind of dry,” she said upon opening the cloth. “It’ll give us a nice, crispy potato pancake.” Yearwood’s easy tip stunned her guests who were helping her cook. “So is that the trick for hashbrowns too?” one asked to which the cookbook author replied, “Yes! It totally works.”

Regardless of whether Yearwood’s Sweet Potato Pancakes are on the menu, remember her trick. Use it for hashbrowns or any other potato dish where the end goal is to have the crispiest bite of potato possible. 

The Food Network star has other tips to getting crispy potato pancakes

Trisha Yearwood stands in a gray sweater and smiles
Trisha Yearwood | Dominik Bindl/Getty Images
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Yearwood’s potato pancake tips don’t stop at one. In addition to squeezing out all the excess water, she also recommends not rounding the edges of the potato pancakes. “We want to make them kind of flat,” she said. “But we don’t want to round them around the edges because these little rough edges will make nice, crispy little bits on the outside.” 

Immediately after they’ve cooked it’s important to sprinkle the potato pancakes with salt. That way, according to Yearwood, they’ll soak in the salt. What she’s left with is a bunch of “fabulous” sweet potato pancakes that are “nice and creamy in the middle and crunchy on the outside.”