Freeze Dried Hash Browns

Potatoes are one of the easiest and yet difficult thing to freeze dry and get perfect. Raw potatoes need to be rinsed with either salt water or water with citric acid, soaked and then blanched and still they may turn brown when they are processed through the freeze dryer. It’s so difficult for many to get the perfect brine and the perfect blanching time to end up with a useable and perfect potato.

Often at my local discount grocery chain I see these giant bags of hashbrowns readily available. They’re inexpensive and they’ve been blanched and soaked for me already, as well as prefrozen so I really don’t have to do much other than take them home and pop them on a tray. When I can buy a product that is 3 steps done for me cheaper than I can buy the raw product, I’ll give it a shot and see how it goes.

For these hashbrowns, and likely for any brand, I tossed half the bag onto each tray and evenly distributed. It’s ok to overlap, they’ll all dry perfectly. I put them in the freeze dryer and let it do the full cycle, which took about 26 hours to complete. 

Once these were finished I put them in a jar to ensure they were in fact dry, put a lid on and vacuum sealed and then inverted my jar to watch for moisture. When none was present days later I knew they were ready for long-term storage, but, we needed to sample them!

I love potatoes and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try these out. We first just crunched on the dried pieces, a bit bland but fun. I took about a cup and added them to a bowl, and added a small amount of water right over the top. My first observation was that they instantly soaked the water up and were like a fresh (unfrozen) shredded piece of potato. I added a little more water and watched as the potatoes soaked it up like a sponge, the excess simply just sat there. I gathered all of this up and pressed it between a layer of cheesecloth, squeezing the water out to make a perfectly pressed hashbrown, it held together wonderfully. I decided the next batch I would just use a small strainer and run the potatoes under water and allow the excess water to drain out, this method too worked perfectly. There was no waiting for these to reconstitute, they were ready in seconds.

Adding just a bit of oil to a frying pan, heated it on medium-high and then carefully added my pressed hashbrowns.

I let them cook for a couple minutes on one side and lightly seasoned with salt and pepper and then turned them. These were the easiest hashbrowns I’ve ever made. They held shape even when turning, and were wonderfully crisp and flavorful. The best part was I didn’t have to thaw them, or try to press frozen potatoes into form. I also don’t have to dedicate a large amount of freezer space to keep these anymore when I find a great deal.  

When sampling, everyone agreed that these were fantastic and loved them.