Vegan Pan-Fried Potatoes with Vegetables
Pan-fried potatoes are such a humble and simple food. I always associate this dish with my dad. He doesn’t cook often, but there is a handful of dishes that he cooks with passion – pan-fried potatoes are one of them. He uses, as most people do, pre-boiled potatoes for this. Pan-fried potatoes are just one of the best ideas for leftovers - not just for potatoes, but any kind of vegetables that you can find in your kitchen. There’s some tofu in the fridge? Use it too! The same applies to dips, toppings, etc. Everything is allowed in the frying pan!
However, there are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to pan-fried potatoes. When cutting in slices, I personally prefer to prepare them in a pan. When cutting in chunks, the oven is a good idea to bake wedges, or smashed potatoes, as we did so a few days ago. For the classic version of fried potatoes, a frying pan is just a convenient way to make sure that the sliced potatoes get crispy and golden brown from both sides. But for the perfect browning, potatoes need one thing above all else: space. It might be worthwhile to work in two pans parallelly, in case your frying pan is too small. In today's recipe, we also use sweet potato, which needs less time to cook. If you use pre-cooked potatoes and sweet potatoes, make sure to add the sweet potato later. In our case, the potatoes were pre-cooked, the sweet potato was still raw – this way, the preparation times are balanced.
Vegan Pan-Fried Potatoes with Vegetables
Ingredients
- 250 g (9 oz) waxy potatoes
- 150 g (5.5 oz) sweet potato
- 1 onion
- 1 garlic clove
- 10 brussels sprouts
- 10 cherry tomatoes
- 1 bell pepper
- 200 g (7 oz) smoked tofu
- 1 handful fresh spinach
- vegetable oil for frying
- ajvar for serving
Instructions
This step is optional. If you’re using pre-cooked potatoes, just continue with step 2. Otherwise, add unpeeled potatoes to a pot, cover with cold water, and season with salt. Boil potatoes for approx. 20 minutes, or until fork-tender. Drain and let the potatoes steam to cool down. Once they are cool enough to touch, peel and slice the potatoes.
In the meantime, finely slice sweet potato. Peel and finely chop onion and garlic. Clean and quarter Brussels sprouts, halve cherry tomatoes and chop bell pepper, and smoked tofu.
Heat some vegetable oil in a large frying pan. Start by frying the smoked tofu for approx. 3-4 minutes, or until browned. Add Brussels sprouts and bell pepper and keep frying for 5 minutes over medium heat. Season with salt and pepper.
Remove the vegetables from the frying pan and set them aside for now. Add some more vegetable oil to the same frying pan and now add the sliced potatoes and sweet potato. Fry both sides until golden brown and crispy. Season with salt and pepper. If you want to give the potatoes more space, feel free to do this step in two frying pans at the same time.
As soon as the sliced potatoes are crispy, add onion and garlic and keep frying for approx. 2 minutes, or until the onion is translucent. Then add the vegetables that were already fried, tomatoes, and fresh spinach. Stir to combine, season with salt and pepper, and keep frying everything in one pan for approx. 3 minutes or until the spinach begins to wilt. Serve pan-fried potatoes with ajvar or any other dip of your choice!
