This post was first written in June 2013 and updated in June 2021.
Delicious little lunchtime patties, if you aren’t at home, they could be eaten cold in a lunch box, or use the same ingredients to make a soup and take to work in a flask.
How To Make Potato, Sweetcorn and Onion Cakes
Peel, chop and saute the onion. If you aren’t using leftover mashed potato, peel, boil and mash them now. Combine the vegetables in a bowl. Season and mix very well. Taking a sixth of the mixture, fashion into a patty with your hands.
Place on one side. They are quite fragile at this stage, so be gentle
Heat a frying pan and put a little oil in. When the oil is hot, add the patties to the pan and fry gently until golden brown on one side, then carefully turn them over and do the other side.
Meanwhile, grill the bacon to how you like it.
Serve with ketchup on the side and the peanuts sprinkled over, if using
Variations
Hash
You could make a hash with this by coarsely grating the raw potato, leave the peel on if you like. Squeeze as much water as you can out of the potato by using a clean tea towel, pile in the potato and squeeze. Combine the vegetables in a bowl, season and mix very well. Heat a pan with some oil in it. Put all the mixture in and cook very slowly until a thick golden crust has formed.
Put a plate on top of the pan and using a tea-towel to protect your hands, flip the pan over so the hash is on the plate, crust side up. Slide back into the pan and continue cooking until the second side is done and the potato is soft and cooked.
Serve with the bacon and ketchup as before, or for either version you could add the bacon into the patties/hash before cooking
Soup
If you need a packed lunch, or as a change, simply put the onion, potato, sweetcorn and bacon in a saucepan and simmer gently for 20 minutes to make a soup. Blitz or not, as you like. Season with salt and pepper and a little ketchup.
Jacket potato
Bake a jacket potato and use everything else to make a filling
Oven wedges
Or cut the potatoes into wedges, no need to peel, toss with a little oil and seasoning and bake for about 45 minutes until crispy and brown. Fry the onions. Serve the wedges with the onion, sweetcorn on the side and the cooked bacon, with ketchup.
Other variations
Got some other vegetables that need using?
Try a bit of
- chopped cabbage
- grated swede
- grated parsnip
- grated carrots
- a handful of peas or mange tout
- a handful of edemame beans
- some frozen mixed veg
- 2 tblsps tomato puree
These are from Meal Plan 1, a complete 7 day plan for 2 adults. Contains 3 meals a day, plus snacks, all recipes and a shopping list
Want some more fritter recipes?
This one is from a series of posts stretching a chicken to the max
https://thriftylesley.com/rubber-chicken-7-fritters-47p-portion/
And this one uses the mega-cheap mushy peas to make something interesting
Ingredients
- 500 g onion chopped
- 700 g potato cooked and mashed
- 100 g sweetcorn
- 20 g flour for coating
- handful salted peanuts optional
- oil for cooking
- 150 g bacon
- ketchup
Instructions
- Combine the vegetables in a bowl. Season and mix very well. Taking a sixth of the mixture, fashion into a patty with your hands.
- Put the flour on a plate and coat each patty in a little of the flour,
on both sides. Place on one side. They are quite fragile at this stage,
so be gentle - Heat a frying pan and put a little oil in. When the oil is hot, add the
patties to the pan and fry gently until golden brown on one side, then
carefully turn them over and do the other side. - Meanwhile, grill the bacon to how you like it.
- Serve with ketchup on the side
Equipment Needed
Notes
Variations
You could make a rosti with this by coarsely grating the raw potato, leave the peel on if you like. Squeeze as much water as you can out of the potato. Use a clean tea towel, pile in the potato and squeeze. Combine the vegetables in a bowl, season and mix very well. Heat a pan with some oil in it. Put all the mixture in and cook very slowly until a thick golden crust has formed. Put a plate on top of the pan and using a tea-towel to protect your hands, flip the pan over so the rosti is on the plate, crust side up. Slide back into the pan and continue cooking until the second side is done and the potato is soft and cooked. Serve with the bacon and ketchup as before, or for either version you could add the bacon into the patties/rosti before cooking or you could make a soup using the same ingredients Per serving, without the peanutsCalories 647, Protein 28, Fat 18, Carbohydrate 98
Cost 47p per serving These are from Meal Plan 1, a complete 7 day plan for 2 adults. Contains 3 meals a day, plus snacks , all recipes and a shopping list Got a great recipe? How about submitting it to appear on Thrifty Lesley!
Goodness – I can’t remember what I originally intended, so I’ve updated the post to say sprinkle them over the top
You don’t say what to do with the peanuts?
Thanks for letting me know. I’ll see if the guys who look after the site for me have any suggestions
Howdy just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The words in your article seem to be running off the screen in Opera.
I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue or something to do with internet
browser compatibility but I thought I’d
post to let you know. The design look great though!
Hope you get the issue fixed soon. Thanks
When I did these, I cooked them very gently and slowly, which allowed the onion to cook through. It is up to you really, if you would like to cook the onion off a bit first, that would work too
I wonder, do you need to soften the onions first? I think the onions would be crunchy and too raw by just incorporating into the spud and frying?