Hash Brown Recipe | Air fryer Recipe | Vegan Breakfast Hash Browns - Twinkling Tina Cooks (2024)

FAQs

Should I soak hash browns before frying? ›

We want you to soak the potatoes in water, like really slosh them around to release some starch. This helps to avoid that awkwardly raw center between crispy outer layers.

Remove as much moisture as possible. In order to get evenly crispy hash browns, you need to squeeze out as much water as you can.

Preheat your air fryer to 380°F (194ºC). Lightly spray the air fryer basket with oil. Carefully place the hash browns in a single layer inside the air fryer basket, leaving a little space between each one. Close the air fryer and cook for 10 minutes.

You just want to press out the excess moisture. Work in batches and only fill the ricer half-way with the raw grated potatoes. If you don't have a ricer, wrap the raw grated potatoes in a clean tea towel and squeeze it until you have squeezed out as much moisture as you can. Work in batches to make it more manageable.

Dry Potatoes = Crispy Hash Browns

Most recipes for shredded hash browns advise squeezing the potatoes to release as much liquid as possible before they're cooked. This makes sense—potatoes are loaded with moisture, which makes browning difficult.

Using a drier, starchier potato such as Idaho, and rinsing away the excess starch is a sure-fire way to crispy, golden hash browns. Butter helps both browning and flavor, while oil lowers the smoke point, allowing your pan to do the steady, even cooking needed for perfectly crisped potatoes.

If you don't eliminate enough liquid (from the potatoes that you, again, just soaked in water), they will get soggy instead of crispy, a.k.a. a total bummer.

Cover and cook just until the perimeters start to get golden, about 5 minutes. Use a spatula to press the top down. Season with salt and pepper and flip. Cook, uncovered, until the bottom is golden and crispy, another 3 to 5 minutes.

Avoid soaking the potatoes

Peeling, grating, and rinsing the potatoes before making the recipe will cause the hash to struggle to hold together in the pan. Moreover, the starch helps boost the crispiness of the potato, so a hash devoid of it will just turn to painfully soggy mush on a plate.

If the heat is too high, the surface of the hash browns will overcook or burn before they are fully cooked internally.

Is it better to cook hash browns frozen or thawed? ›

A: Yes, you should because you need to get rid of the. excess moisture.

The great news about air fryers is that you can use foil along with parchment paper to cook your food in an air fryer. Just remember that if it's safe and effective to use in a conventional oven, it will work just fine in an air fryer.

When slicing they were exposed to air (which will cause them to quickly turn dark). One method to avoid this is to peel the potatoes, place in water covering the potatoes, remove and slice on a cutting board with a knife that is steel (some blades have iron in them and till will turn the potato dark).

This process, which is called oxidation, happens because potatoes are a naturally starchy vegetable. And when exposed to oxygen, starches turn gray, brown, or even black. An oxidized potato is completely safe to eat. The process doesn't affect the flavor or texture of the vegetable.

The biggest culprit that's making your hash browns come apart is moisture. You need to make sure the potatoes are dry before adding them to the flour and egg mixture. Whether you squeeze them out in a dish towel or use a salad spinner, get the potatoes as dry as they can be.

Most recipes require soaking your raw, shredded potato in cold water to rinse off the excess starch, then squeezing every last bit of moisture out before tossing it in a pan.

I tested simply rinsing the starch off, and the hash browns turned out much more gummy. So plan ahead to have that 10 minute soak. It makes a big difference. Drain and rinse the grated potatoes again, and squeeze out as much water as you can with your hands.

First, get the starch off! Rinsing or soaking the potatoes for an hour (or, even better, overnight) will remove some of the starch from the surface and prevent the sugars from browning before the potatoes are cooked.

Soaking potatoes in water helps remove excess starch. Excess starch can inhibit the potatoes from cooking evenly as well as creating a gummy or sticky texture on the outside of your potatoes. Cold water is used because hot water would react with the starch activating it, making it harder to separate from the potatoes.