Southwest Potato Croquettes

Southwest potato croquettes are mashed potatoes mixed with Southwest seasoning and fried to a crispy golden brown. Served with a spicy cool green chile ranch dip and they are the perfect appetizer.

Do you even have leftover mashed potatoes? If you do, and you want to change them up a bit to make them new again, try making them into potato croquettes.

Not sure what a potato croquette is? It is a delicious ball of mashed potatoes, cheese, and spices. They are coated in breadcrumbs and fried to a crispy golden brown. Doesn’t that sound delicious?

I love that potatoes are so versatile and you can add any flavor profile to them to make them into a new dish.

More Easy Appetizers

• Southwest dipping oil with tortillas
• Southwest chicken wings
• Bacon manchego croquettes
• Taco tater tots
• Green chile dip
• Chile relleno dip

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Ingredients Needed

Mashed potatoes – Leftover mashed potatoes are the best or whip up some fresh ones.

Spices – Southwest seasoning is best or substitute taco seasoning. Ranch seasoning too.

Cheese – A blend of Mexican cheeses, substitute sharp cheddar cheese.

Sour cream – Full fat, fat free, or low fat works well too. Plain Greek yogurt too.

Green chiles – Small can of chopped green chilies.

Kitchen staples – Large eggs, all purpose flour, vegetable oil, breadcrumbs,

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How to Make Potato Croquettes

First: Heat the oven to 200F. Mix the mashed potatoes, egg yolks, Southwest seasoning mix, flour, and cheese together in a bowl. Scoop out the mixture and roll into 1 inch balls. Place on a baking sheet and pop in the fridge to set.

Second: Crack the whole eggs in a small bowl and whisk to scramble. Add the breadcrumbs in a separate bowl to make the coating stations. Heat the oil in a medium frying pan t0 375F

Third: When the oil is ready, remove the croquettes from the fridge. In batches of 4 or five, dip the croquettes in the egg, then roll in the breadcrumbs to coat. This is where I smash mine into disc shapes but you can leave round if you want to.

Fourth: Place in the oil gently and fry till golden brown, flipping or moving around to cook all sides. When crispy and golden brown, remove from the oil and place on a baking sheet lined with paper towels or brown bag paper.

For the full recipe and detailed instructions, please refer to the recipe card at the bottom of the post.

How long do they last?

Store any leftovers in the fridge, in an airtight container, for up to 4 days. Reheat in the oven or the air fryer until heated through.

The air fryer is my favorite way as it gets the outside crispy again.

Tapas Tips & Tricks

• You have to work in batches when you fry them so don’t crowd the frying pan too much. Too many croquettes in there at one time and the oil temperature will drop. This makes for greasy croquettes and that is not fun at all.
• While I am frying up the subsequent batches, I keep my cooked ones on a baking sheet in the oven. I have it set on 200F to keep them all warm. I serve these hot and with a great ranch dip that I spiced up with green chilies! To make the dip I use my homemade Ranch Dip seasoning mix. I add it to some sour cream, plain Greek yogurt, and a spoonful of chopped green chilies.  
• I always have a can of these in my pantry! You can make the dip ahead of time (as you might use it for chips or fries) and just have it sitting in your fridge ready to go!

Freaky Friday

Making potato croquettes is pretty easy, and with a basic recipe in your head (or on your mobile device like me) you can start to add your own spin to it! That is what I did with these. I hopped on over to my friends’ (Dan and Scott) blog Platter Talk and grabbed their recipe.  

I didn’t really need to mess with it too much as it is perfect already, but I did want to kick up the spice factor a bit. After this recipe I am definitely making their Beer Dip Recipe, because who doesn’t want to combine beer and dip, and their Corn Fritters with Jalapeno Aioli. I can’t wait for all the fresh summer corn to start rolling in just thinking about them.

It just so happens that today is our Freaky Friday Blog Swap – Winter Edition. A group of us food bloggers get together and try recipes from each other’s blogs.  

Two dads that have a ton of boys are running Platter Talk! I can relate as I have two boys myself, three if you count the hubby, so I love to hear their stories of parenting and trying to feed those hungry kids. It is nice to know that I am not alone in constantly cooking and keeping the boy’s bellies full.

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