Potato Croquettes
These Potato Croquettes are absolute heaven! A crispy shell surrounds a mix of creamy mashed potatoes, queso fresco, and chorizo sausage for this bite-sized appetizer. They are especially great for parties and game day, and can be mostly made ahead of time for convenience.
Potato croquettes are the kind of food that I always tend to order at restaurants, but they are actually very easy to make at home. And they’re much better that way! They come out of the fryer piping hot and extra crispy, and you can also customize the filling exactly how you like it.
While I will show you how I make the mashed potato filling below, this is something you could even make anytime you have leftover mashed potatoes. It’s a great way to make something new out of leftovers you already have, especially around Thanksgiving time.
What’s Great About This Recipe
Comfort food at its finest – You can think of these potato croquettes as like cheesy mashed potato balls with a crispy shell. The combination of textures is a glorious experience.
Versatile – I add spicy, smoky chorizo sausage and queso fresco cheese to the mix, but you can add whatever you want inside. Swap in parmesan cheese and skip the meat altogether, or add little bits of ham or bacon. There are a million possibilities.
Make ahead friendly – While you will want to wait to fry them until they’re ready to eat, they can be mostly made ahead. Then when you’re ready to cook, they only take 3 minutes to fry. This makes them a little easier for entertaining.
Potato croquettes are traditionally deep fried, which is how I cook them here. I used to have a plug-in deep fryer, but now I just use a dutch oven or heavy stockpot to fry them right on the stove, checking the temperature with a thermometer.
While I do not have an air fryer and thus have not tested it, I think there’s a shot these could be good if made with that method. However, I do not suggest baking these in the oven, as they won’t be crispy enough. If you are concerned about the health factor for deep frying, use a healthy type of fat such as tallow or duck fat, which will taste amazing too.
Tips for Best Results
Leave some texture in the potatoes – This is totally preference, but I think it’s best not to make the potatoes inside too smooth. Some chunks here and there add to the textural experience of the potato croquettes, plus then you don’t have to stress about mashing the potatoes to perfection.
Chill the potato croquettes before breading – This will make it so it’s easy to bread the potato croquettes and you don’t risk them falling apart. Plus, you can make them ahead of time, then simply bread when you’re ready to fry and serve.
Bread lightly – In order to keep the shell delicate but crisp, only one coating is needed: one dunk in the egg, and one dunk in the bread crumbs. Make sure to shake off any excess egg before coating in bread crumbs, in order to prevent the breading from falling off.
Step by Step Process:
As an overview, we need to make the filling by combining mashed potatoes with sausage and cheese, or whatever ingredients you desire, then bread and fry the potato croquette balls.
Make the Mashed Potatoes
To make mashed potatoes, it’s as simple as peeling a couple russet potatoes and cutting them into chunks, boiling for about 15 minutes until fork tender, draining the potatoes, then mashing them up with a fork:
I find it is easier to mash the potatoes on a baking tray than in a large bowl, because of its flat surface.
The potatoes don’t need to be super smooth, but you may use a potato ricer or food mill if you want an extra creamy texture.
Also, feel free to use leftover mashed potatoes instead! I often have leftover from making Pierogies.
Add Sausage and Cheese
Place the mashed potatoes into a big mixing bowl along with some cooked chorizo sausage crumbles and crumbled queso fresco cheese:
Trust me, it is essential to get the queso fresco. It’s so delicious! I get mine from Whole Foods, but I know Walmart has it too.
Suggestions for Ingredient Swaps
Chorizo Sausage – Feel free to use other flavorful meats here, like crumbled Italian sausage, or bacon bits (I always have bacon in the fridge because I make big batches from How to Cook Bacon in the Oven).
Queso Fresco – You can use put pretty much ANY kind of cheese in here! Whether it’s shredded mozzarella, cheddar cheese, colby jack, or harder cheeses like grated parmesan, or feta crumbles. Use what you enjoy.
Herbs – Feel free to incorporate any herbs you’d like here. Fresh chives go beautifully with potatoes!
Mix it All Up
Mix that all together, and add salt and black pepper to taste.
Then, once it’s seasoned to your liking, mix in one egg. The egg adds a little extra fluffiness and structure, but the filling won’t taste eggy at all.
It will look fairly soft, but that’s okay because we’ll be chilling the mixture before breading.
Scoop into Balls
I find the easiest way to do this is use a cookie scoop (affiliate) to portion out a mound of potatoes:
Then roll that in your hands, until you get a uniform ball:
Repeat with the remaining potato mixture, and evenly space the potato balls on a sheet tray or your desired container.
Chill the Mashed Potato Balls
Now, refrigerate for 2 hours or freeze for 30 minutes, so the potato balls have a chance to firm up.
Do not attempt to bread and fry these at room temperature. It will be difficult to work with!
You may stop here for make-ahead
If you’d like, you can now “hold” the chilled potato balls for later, until you’re ready to bread and fry them for serving. You may refrigerate them for up to 2 days, or keep in the freezer for up to 2 months. Make sure they are well sealed in an airtight container so they don’t dry out.
Bread them
Then take the balls and dip them in beaten egg wash, then in Italian bread crumbs:
It’s easiest to use a shallow bowl for this job. Be sure to let any excess egg drip off before moving to the bread crumbs, so you don’t get any breading that falls off.
Place the balls back onto the same sheet tray, so you can carry them over to the fryer.
Fry for 3 Minutes
Heat up a few inches of tallow, duck fat, or your preferred deep frying fat in a fryer or dutch oven to 375F. You will likely need to do this over medium-high heat, and alternate between that and medium heat to maintain the proper temperature.
Then, fry the potato balls for 3 minutes:
That’s how long it takes for the balls to get golden brown and crispy.
Use a slotted spoon to remove the potato croquettes to a paper towel-lined plate:
The paper towels will help absorb any excess hot oil, and make for an extra crispy exterior.
How to Serve Them
The potato croquettes are at their best when enjoyed hot out of the fryer, so be ready to serve them. They’re tasty as is, but are awesome with a homemade aioli if you feel up to make it. I also love dipping them into Buffalo Wing Sauce when I have some on hand anyway for a spread of football snacks and Crispy Baked Chicken Wings. This Cilantro Jalapeño Sauce is also amazing!
You may wish to serve this with other indulgent snacks on game day like Buffalo Chicken Dip, Homemade Corn Dogs, and Homemade Nacho Cheese Sauce.
Or you can serve it with fresher and lighter appetizers for entertaining, like Tomato Burrata Salad, Tapenade, Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus, or even an Antipasto Platter.
What to do with the used cooking oil?
One benefit of using tallow or duck fat instead of fats like soybean oil or peanut oil, is it’s stable enough that it can be reused again and again. I simply filter it to remove the crumbs and sediment from the cheese sticks, then use it for another deep fried recipe, such as Homemade Mozzarella Sticks, Fried Calamari or Coconut Shrimp.
More Recipe Variations
This is an incredibly versatile recipe. You can do more classic potato croquettes, or add more ambitious or unusual ingredients to the filling. Here are some other great ingredients to use:
Garlic – Though I love to dip these in a garlic aioli, you can also add minced garlic to the filling.
Onion – Add thinly sliced green onions or even chives for a nice onion flavor. This is classic for mashed potatoes!
Spices – Feel free to add spice with cayenne pepper or ground chipotle.
Recipe FAQ and Tips:
Like many other fried foods, it’s never as good as when it’s freshly fried. But technically you can keep them in the fridge for up to 5 days, or freeze them.
You can assemble the balls all the way up to the point of breading them, then keep in the fridge for two days, or freeze a couple months ahead of time. I recommend coating them with the bread crumbs right before you fry.
You can freeze leftovers for up to 2 months. When ready to eat again, roast in a 300F convection oven until crispy and hot, about 10 minutes.
Yes, but as much as I love panko, I think they are inferior here to the fine breadcrumbs.
Did you enjoy the recipe? Please leave a 5-star rating in the recipe card below and/or a review in the comments section further down the page. Or, follow me on Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest!
Potato Croquettes
Ingredients
For the Potato Croquettes:
- 2 lbs russet potatoes
- 1/2 lb fresh chorizo sausage
- 3/4 cup queso fresco crumbled
- 3 eggs divided
- 2 cups italian bread crumbs
- salt
- pepper
- tallow or vegetable oil for frying
Optional Dips for Pairing:
Instructions
- Peel the potatoes, then cut them into large chunks. Place them in a big pot of water, and generously season the water with salt (it should taste as salty as the ocean).
- Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer, and cook the potatoes for about 15 minutes, until fork tender.
- Drain the potatoes and spread them out on a sheet pan. Mash them well with a fork.
- Heat up a large skillet over medium high heat.
- While that heats up, remove the chorizo sausage from the casing, then brown it in the pan for about 5 minutes, until fully cooked.
- In a large mixing bowl, stir to combine the mashed potatoes, chorizo, and queso fresco.
- Taste and season with salt and pepper, then stir in 1 egg.
- Use a 1.5 Tbsp cookie scoop to portion out balls, and shape them with your hand.
- Set them on a sheet pan and refrigerate for at least 2 hours so they retain their shape while frying. Alternatively, you can freeze for 30 minutes, or refrigerate as long as overnight.
- Set up a breading station with the bread crumbs in one dish and the other two eggs in the other.
- Whisk to blend the eggs, and season with salt and pepper.
- Roll each ball in the egg, let the excess drip off, then dip it in the bread crumbs. Repeat with remaining potato balls.
- Heat up a deep fryer (or a big stockpot with a couple inches of oil) to 375 degrees F.
- Fry the croquettes for 3 minutes, until golden and crispy, then let them drain on a paper towel. Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition is estimated using a food database and is only intended to be used as a guideline for informational purposes.
[Recipe updated from the archives with new photos, writing, and a video in January 2021. Originally published August 2011]
41 Comments on “Potato Croquettes”
Any way you can bake these after they’re frozen instead of frying? Or will they not turn out
Made these footballs today and thumbs up all round! Had left over mash from day before so it was really easy to do! Served with chips peas and aoli yummy give them ago!
Hi Carole, so great that you could turn some leftover mashed potatoes into these croquettes. Wonderful, and glad you enjoyed!
My kids will surely love this!
We made these for a dinner party once, and they were such a big hit!
I love potato croquettes, but I love your version with chorizo! Can’t wait to try them!
Wow, my potato loving family will swoon! Love the addition of chorizo!
How many do you get from this recipe?
delicious!
I absolutely love the idea of these appetizer bites. A perfect way to enjoy potatoes.
This is the food of my dreams!
What’s truly impressive about your recipe is the fact that you put in extra effort to provide your readers with nutritional information at the end of the blog. So thanks a lot for this, Joanne! And I hope you keep up the awesome work. The recipe itself is also ideal for instances when we have lots of leftover mashed potatoes and meats that we can smash and mince/grind to make croquettes. It makes for an easy meal plus a way to not waste leftover food. As a cheese lover, would you recommend another kind of cheese that would work well in this recipe? Thank you!
Hi Elizabeth, thank you! As far as cheese, the sky is the limit in terms of flavor variations. You could change the chorizo to italian sausage for instance, and instead do parmesan, mozzarella, asiago, or other cheeses in here. Feta would be delicious too, though I wouldn’t do the sausage with that.
As a cheese lover, it’s really nice to know I can use any kind of cheese for this recipe. I think I do understand why sausage won’t go well with Feta cheese. Thanks so much for the tips, Joanne!
These are so fun to serve as a starter, too.