Vegan Potato Cakes with Carrot and Rice

Vegan potato cakes made with leftover mashed potatoes, rice, carrots, onions, and parsley! These potato cakes are crispy and lovely from the outside, but super soft from the inside.

They are so easy to make, and the kids love them. Naturally gluten-free, and suitable for toddlers. Also great for freezing and make ahead meals.

Vegan Potato Cakes

I grew up eating potato cakes. My Mum always made different variations of potato cakes (maybe that’s a Russian thing?), and our whole family really loved them.

I shared my Mum’s cheesy potato cakes recipe on the blog a couple of years ago, and as so many of my readers loved the recipe I thought that it’s time to share a different variation that I really love.

This recipe is dairy-free, vegan, gluten-free, uses more vegetables and will also save the leftover mashed potatoes that you don’t know what to do with from being thrown out.

The cheesy potato cakes recipe uses an egg to help bind the mashed potatoes to create dense cakes (can be subbed with flax egg), it also calls for some starch or flour. However, this recipe is totally vegan and gluten-free! We add rice and some veggies for that extra flavour.

We don’t normally use any spices to make these vegan potato cakes but feel free to do so especially if you’re not cooking for really young children.

The Ingredients

The ingredients used to make these potato cakes are quite simple. You will need:

• Leftover mashed potatoes, or just boiled potatoes
• Cooked white rice
• Sauteed diced onion with shredded carrot
• Chopped parsley
• Salt
• You could also add some spices if you like

The Directions

After you mix the ingredients together in a mixing bowl, shape the mixture into small patties.

If you’re finding it difficult to shape patties because the mixture is too soft, pop in the fridge for 15-20 minutes and then work with it.

Shape the patties, and shallow fry them in a frying pan until they’re golden and crispy. Serve warm.

Expert Tips

• If you’re boiling potatoes to make these potato fritters or cakes, use a potato ricer or masher to mash them and make sure that there are no lumps left.
• Fully cook the rice before adding it to the mixture.
• Make patties that are not too big. Big patties start to break and won’t easily cook through.
• You could add different herbs to the patties, I’ve added parsley this time but I also add dill or chives sometimes.
• When shallow frying the potato cakes, fry on medium heat until the patties start to crisp as the crispy exterior is what’s so special about these potato fritters.

Whether you are making these for yourself or for your family including young children, I hope that you love them as much as we do!

Recommended Tools

• Non-stick pan. I like to shallow fry fritters and vegetable cakes on a good quality non-stick pan, it ensures that they never stick to the pan and they always cook evenly.
• Glass bowl. This is the set that I have and use for everything from baking to cooking.
• Stainless steel measuring spoons. I’ve had this set for so long now, honestly, the quality is amazing and they will last you for ages!
• Turner. Always make sure that the turner that you’re using is heat-resistant!

More Potato Recipes

• Smothered potatoes (my fav!)
• Cheesy scalloped potatoes
• Instant Pot buttered potatoes
• Smashed potatoes
• Cheesy mashed potato cakes
• Vegan potato soup
• Instant Pot potato salad