You may think that because you’ve gone Paleo or even Keto that you can never enjoy your favorite breakfast foods again. No, ma’am! Try this method for making dehydrated Paleo hash browns from Paleo and Keto approved veggies like butternut squash and beets. Dehydrating them before you use them is the secret to keeping them perfectly moist, without being a soggy mess.
How do you make perfect hash browns? This has been a question that has haunted me my entire adult life. I love hash browns but have never enjoyed making them at home because they end up soggy and smushy. Bleh.
One year, during a time when we were struggling financially, I opened a can of shredded, dehydrated potatoes from our food storage pantry. They were all I had to make the hash browns the kids were asking for for Pancake Night.
I followed the instructions on the package for re-hydrating them, but left out just a bit of the water so that the potatoes would be a little less wet. It turns out, I discovered that this – using dehydrated shredded potatoes – was the secret to making excellent hash browns!
I felt like I’d invented fire, or something.
How to Make Perfect Hash Browns
Since that night, here’s what I’ve learned about making perfect hash browns every time:
- Use dehydrated shredded veggies. Whether you’re making regular or Paleo hash browns, using dehydrated vegetables is THE best way to control the moisture level in your finished product. Freeze dried shredded potatoes work well, too.
- You can also shred raw veggies and strain them through a mesh sieve with a weight on top for at least an hour. This will remove quite a bit of the moisture. In my opinion, though, dehydrating is quicker and better.
- Use enough eggs in your Paleo hash brown mix. Don’t skimp.
- Use coconut oil in your fry oil mix. You can use your favorite fat – grass fed butter, ghee, bacon fat, whatever – but include a good amount of coconut oil for crispy edges.
I don’t suggest you use only coconut oil because it has a very low smoke point and might start smoking before you’re done cooking. I almost always mix coconut oil with another fat when I’m sautéing, and certainly when I’m frying.
However, nothing will give you those crispy edges like coconut oil.
Other Helpful Resources For Later Reading
Once a Month Canning – put your food preservation on a schedule!
To Dehydrate Veggies for Paleo Hash Browns
Dehydrating veggies isn’t something you’re going to want to do when you’re rushed in the morning and trying to make breakfast. This is something you’ll do in advance.
As you’re making your food preservation goals during the growing season, be sure to include time to make up these shredded veggies mixes to use for hashbrowns. It takes some time and some planning, but that’s the point of learning to dehydrate and preserve food, right?
I can suggest you visit my friend Shelle at Rockin W Homestead to learn how to dehydrate foods. She has a free mini course on learning to dehydrate foods. You can also check out her book, Prepper’s Dehydrator Handbook.
The Purposeful Pantry is also another really quality site on learning how to dehydrate food. Get started with her article, 200 of the Best Dehydrating Recipes to start learning.
For today, get started with dehydrating the veggies you’ll need for these Paleo hash browns, use your cheese grater or your food processor to grate at least four cups of Paleo/Keto approved veggies.
This is a great thing for the kids to help with, by the way. Don’t let a fear of sharp objects in the kitchen keep you from including your kids in cooking.
Back to Paleo-approved veggies for hash browns. The ones I typically use are:
- beets
- zucchini
- winter squash (butternut, hubbard, pumpkin)
- yellow squash (or zucchini – any summer squash)
- onion
- leeks
- turnips
- rutabagas
- sweet potatoes
Grow Your Own Paleo Veggies?
FYI, you can learn to grow all these veggies yourself! Growing your own veggies gives you power over how they’re produced, if they’re sprayed with herbicides and when they’re harvested.
Part of eating healthy is finding ways to eat food that’s been produced free of harmful chemicals. This is so much simpler to do when you’re growing your own!
Just as a quick example, My Homestead Life can teach you how to Grow Sweet Potatoes in 5 Easy Steps. Just read it and see what you think?
Is this your year to Grow Your Own Food?
Here are Whole 30/Paleo/Keto Low Carb Veggies to Grow.
Just a note for those on the Keto diet
Which veggies you use may vary according to your body, the way you track your carbs and even what day of the week it is.
If you see a veggie on this list (like sweet potatoes) that you don’t use, then don’t use it. No worries!
Steps to Dehydrate Shredded Veggies:
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- Wash, skin and shred your veggies.
- I like a mix of at least one of each of the above veggies – sometimes I’ll throw in an extra onion because I really love onion. You can also double the amount of each veggie so that you have a lot of extra. This makes for quicker breakfasts in your busy mornings!
- Loosely sprinkle them onto your dehydrator trays. If you have areas that are compact with shredded veggies, move those around and try to loosen them because they’ll take longer to dry.
- You may want to set your dehydrator to a living foods setting, but for speed I set mine at 135 for 2-4 hours. At this point I check the shredded veggies. Most will be done by now.
- If you still have clumps that aren’t quite dry, put them back in to process another 2 hours. Check them again.
- When you’re satisfied that all the shredded veggies are dry, remove them from the dehydrator. They should have reduced in size by over half. They should also be brittle and firm. (You can see how Chickadee Homestead dehydrated her yellow squash here.)
- To store, place your dehydrated veggies into a glass container with a lid away from heat and light. Store for about one year.
- Wash, skin and shred your veggies.
A little trick I learned from Shelle is to keep your stored dehydrated veggie container out on the counter for a few days to check for condensation. If you get condensation inside the jar, your veggies aren’t all the way dehydrated.
This can be really helpful when you’re first learning to dehydrate foods.
To Re-Hydrate Shredded Veggies for Paleo Hash Browns
This is super simple, so don’t worry too much about amounts and measuring.
For a decent batch of Paleo hash browns:
- Place 4 cups of dehydrated shredded veggies into a heat-proof container.
- Cover these in boiling water.
- Allow the veggies to sit in their bath for at least 10 minutes.
- Fluff with a fork and check for saturation. If you have a pocket of dry veggies left, add a little more boiling water. If you added a little too much water, pour it off and save it as vegetable stock the next time you make soup.
The wonderful thing about this method is that you can control how wet your finished Paleo Hash Browns end up. Dry hash browns = crispy, tasty hash browns!
Dehydrated Paleo Hash Browns Recipe
This is really more of a method than a recipe, but I’ll share it here so that you have guidelines to follow. If you’ve followed the above instructions for making your Paleo Hash Brown dehydrated veggie mix, then the rest should be easy.
Dehydrated Paleo Hash Browns
Ingredients
- 4 Cups Dehydrated shredded Paleo veggie mix
- 3-5 Cups Boiling water
- 3 Fresh eggs
- 1/4 Cup Almond flour or 2 Tbsp. coconut flour
- 1 Tbsp. Curry or Turmeric
- 1 tsp Granulated garlic or 1 Tbsp. minced fresh garlic
- 2 tsp Sea salt and black pepper
- 1/4 Cup Coconut oil
- 1/4 Cup Other fat - grass fed butter duck fat, bacon fat, ghee, etc.
Instructions
- Place the dehydrated shredded veggies in a heat-resistant bowl. Cover in the boiling water. You may not need all the water, or you might need all of it.
- Allow veggies to sit for at least ten minutes. Fluff with a fork and check for saturation. If you still have pockets of dry veggies, add a bit more boiling water. If you have extra water, save and use as veggie stock for soup.
- Once hydrated to perfection (according to your tastes), mix in all other ingredients besides the fat.
- Heat a cast iron or other frying pan on medium heat. Melt the fat. Heat the melted fat until a sprinkle of water over the pan pops and fizzles.
- Place three large scoopfuls of hashbrown mix into the pan on low-medium heat in three separate patties about 1/2" thick.
- Fry the hashbrowns about 4 minutes on each side, flipping them each twice. It takes roughly 15 mintues to completely cook the hashbrowns. The flipping keeps the heat evenly distributed and helps prevent burning.
- Add more fat as needed and continue cooking until the mix is gone.
- Serve immediately.
Notes
Why Do Hash browns Stick to the Pan?
Not enough oil! Hash browns are a fried dish, that means they need enough oil to thoroughly brown and crisp as they cook. If you’re using healthy oils like butter, olive, coconut or ghee, you’re paleo hash browns will still be suitable filling and healthy when you use enough fat to fry them well.
Be sure to pre-heat the fat in the pan before you add the hash brown mix. Do NOT overheat! Keep your temperature right in the middle and be patient while the hash browns cook. Don’t be tempted to turn up the heat to speed up the process.
This will result in uncooked centers, sticking to the pan, and an off flavor.
Other Paleo Breakfast Ideas:
I think that hardest meal of the day to switch over to grain-free/carb-free has got to be breakfast! I’m so wired to think of breakfast as oatmeal and waffles and toast.
As healthy as I’ve made these items (kefir fermented bread without yeast, for example), I still can’t eat them every day without having an adverse reaction.
Just switching to using almond flour and baking as often as I did before wasn’t the answer either, though. The only thing that’s really helped make breakfast better with Paleo and Keto ways of eating has been to think of breakfast as another veggie meal.
It’s taken time, and I still eat an almond flour breakfast here and there, but simple, sautéed veggies or these stellar Paleo hash browns have become my staple breakfast foods.
To jump start your brain in coming up with Paleo breakfasts (don’t worry, there are plenty of baked breakfasts here, too), here are a few ideas:
Paleo Breakfast Ideas
Easy Root Vegetable Pancakes (Gluten Free, Paleo, Vegetarian)
Paleo Cranberry Nut Muffins
Paleo Breakfast Casserole {Whole30}
Paleo BLT Frittata (One of My Favorite Breakfasts!)
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What a great idea and makes total sense. Going to try this next hash making morning. And going to throw in some new veggies!
So glad it was useful to you, Kelly! Thanks so much for stopping by!
I love meals that hide veggies so I can serve them to my family.
Me, too – we can be super sneaky moms together. We’ll form a club! 🙂
I think that this discovery is right up there with fire! I love hash browns but I have the same problem–too soggy! I can’t wait to try this. I love the idea of doing it with other root veggies besides potatoes.
Right?! And the flavor combination is an added bonus. I usually use my Kitchen Aide to grate up a huge batch of whatever I have on hand and then dehydrate it for when I need it.
Thanks for stopping by!
How is this the first I’m hearing of dehydrated veggies? Oh my, this opens up a whole new world to hiding veggies from my kids.
Ha! Glad to add to your repertoire of evil mom tactics. 🙂