I strongly believe that most items are made better at home, from scratch. Baked goods, ice cream, pickles, hummus etc. . .once you taste the sweet success of a from scratch item made from your hands it’s hard to go back to the store bought kind. Now I’m practical, I’m not saying everything I use I make myself. It’s not I’m going to sit and churn my own butter and buying pasta or bread is much faster than making it yourself on a regular basis.
However sometimes you want to take those practical “who would make this themselves items” and have a little fun – just like my homemade tater tots I’m sharing with you today.
I’m not going to lie to you, this is not a quick project, making these tots took the better of my afternoon and you are going to need some decent knife skills to get through it. In the end though, you will be rewarded with crunchy on the outside, creamy on the inside homemade tater tots without any preservatives. Oh best part? They are baked not fried!
There are a lot of tater tot recipes out there, most of them call for shredded potatoes or mashed potatoes bound with flour and eggs and then fried or baked. I wanted to do my best to recreate the filling you are used to with a frozen tot and have the interior be tiny little pieces of cubed potatoes.
This is where your knife skills will come in handy. 🙂
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Ingredients
- 3 large russet potatoes
- 1/2 -3/4 cup potato flour (or starch)
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 6 tablespoons rendered duck fat or olive oil
- optional: 1 medium onion, shredded
Instructions
- Peel your russet potatoes and cut them in quarters and then the quarters in half. Cut the potatoes into thin planks about 1/8 of an inch thick.
- Stack the planks and cut the potatoes into matchsticks 1/8 of an inch thick. Gather the matchstick potatoes and finely dice them.
- Insert a steamer into a medium-sized pot filled with 2 inches of water and steam the potatoes for 2-3 minutes or until just tender.
- Immediately drain and let cool slightly. In a large bowl mix the potatoes with 1/2 cup potato flour and an egg. If the potatoes don't seem like they are going to bind together, add an additional 1/4 cup of potato flour. Stir in the salt and pepper. If using an onion, mix it in now.
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and take about 1 1/2 tablespoons of the potato mixture and tightly pack it together.
- Place the tater tot on the baking sheet to freeze for 10 minutes to set.
- Heat your oven to 425 degrees.
- Drizzle half the duck fat or olive oil over the tater tots and bake for 35 minutes. Remove from the oven, flip and drizzle with the remaining fat. Bake for an additional 20-25 minutes or until the tater tots are completely browned and crispy.
- Season immediately with salt and serve with your favorite dipping sauces.
Notes
When molding the tater tots, I recommend wearing non-latex gloves. The potato mixture is very starchy and sticky and the gloves help bind them together. You will need to wet the gloves ever 4-5 tots made to keep them from getting too messy.
You know, you could call me the next time you’re making these. I could help you make them…or eat them… 🙂 I used to think I didn’t like tater tots because I’d only ever tasted the frozen ones. But a few years ago I got to try the homemade kind and my eyes were opened!
Mea cupla? But you didn’t invite me over for your PB&J Parfaits so I think we are even. 🙂
I got a Pampered Chef hand crank food processor and it would be PERFECT for this! Would cut down on chopping time, so long as shards will work as well as cubes 🙂 I want to make them with sweet potatoes…
I think shards will work just fine. Let me know how yours turn out and I’m totally doing sweet potatoes next time!
OMG! This is life-changing! *pinned*
I want to eat like ALL of these Susan – they look soooooo good!
It’s tough to get a decent tater tot in the UK and these look soooo amazing! I may have to try these once my flat is cool enough to turn the oven on!
Awesome job on these tots. I’ve never made ones from scratch before but now I have a itch to try! Thanks for sharing this!
Would it perfectly acceptable to have my dad dice the potatoes? He always slices them for scalloped potatoes. And cube for mashed potatoes. Yup, Dad is good at potatoes haha I absolutely love tater tots. I’m not a fan of french fries but tater tots. I could eat a whole tray.
Damn, Susan, you’re amazing! I’d have never attempted making my own tater tots (my knife skills are pretty lacking) but after seeing how gorgeous yours look, I totally want to! Homemade is always better, in my opinion, and I love that these are baked and they still look as gloriously crispy as the deep fried kind. High five, girl!
ahhhhhh SO AMAZING!
and of course you used duck fat ahahahaaa