Vegan, Gluten Free, Delicious Latkes

It's hard to believe, but this is my third Chanukah with Anne. That means I have become pretty adept at making vegan latkes. Traditional latke recipes almost always include egg as a binder. Getting around that took some advanced Googling and testing, but I now have a tried and true method to share with you.

This year I also made the latkes gluten free (no matzo meal or wheat flour). I used brown rice flour, but any gluten free variety would be fine (oat flour, garbanzo bean flour etc).


Finally, I have always fried latkes in vegetable or canola oil. Last year I used canola and high heat safflower oil. The other night I used grapeseed oil and I think we found a winner (plus Anne says it's good for skin).

This recipe makes a lot of latkes for a party (something like 4 dozen--wow!). To make fewer just divide the ingredients.

A special thanks to our friend Amanda for this lovely picture!

1 cup quick-cooking oats (oatmeal)
1/2 cup of boiling water
9 large potatoes, peeled
2 medium carrot, peeled
3/4 cup gluten free flour
Salt and ground pepper to taste
Onion powder to taste
Grape seed oil or some other vegetable oil for frying
Applesauce
Tofutti sour cream
cream of tartar

Combine the oats with the boiling water. Stir and set aside while preparing the other ingredients.

If you have a food processor, shred the potatoes using the shredder attachment (this makes birds-nestesque/hash brown like latkes, as opposed to potatoes mushy ones).

Transfer the potatoes to a strainer set over a large bowl and press the moisture out. Continue this until all of the potatoes and carrots are shredded.

Sprinkle some cream of tartar on the potatoes while you are working to keep the potatoes from turning brown while you shred and press.

Combine the grated potato, carrot, and GF flour in a large mixing bowl. Stir in the oatmeal, then season with salt and pepper and onion powder.

Heat just enough oil to coat the bottom of a large, nonstick skillet on medium high. Drop potato batter to form 2 1/2– to 3–inch pancakes, squeezing some of the water out before adding to the pan. Fry on both sides over medium-high heat until golden brown and crisp.

Drain briefly on paper towels and place in the oven at 200 degrees to keep warm until serving.