Got Potatoes? Try These 4 Super Easy Recipes: Burgers, Balls, a Cheesy Parmigiana, and a Crispy Crunch

Before reaching for another side of roasted or mashed potatoes, look at these four recipes instead. The same vegetable turns into a burger, baked balls, a cheesy parmigiana, or a crispy potato and onion flatbread. Four easy ideas, each completely different from the last, and genuinely hard to pick just one to start with.

Potato Burger mashes boiled potatoes with stewed onions, herbs, and grated cheese, then shapes the mixture into thick patties and pan-sears them until golden. It's served alongside a crunchy cabbage and apple slaw, turning the whole thing into a full vegetarian plate rather than just a bun filler.

Pro tip: salt the shredded cabbage and let it sit for the full 30 minutes before assembling the slaw. That resting time draws out excess liquid, which is what keeps the slaw crisp instead of watering down the burger once it's plated.

Baked Potato Balls rice boiled potatoes into a smooth mash, roll it into balls, coat them in egg and breadcrumbs, and bake until golden. No frying at all, just a hot oven doing the work that oil usually does.

Pro tip: press the potato through a ricer while it's still hot, skin and all. Ricing hot potatoes gives a smoother mash than mashing them cooled, and the ricer itself catches the skins, so there's no separate peeling step needed.

Potato Parmigiana layers blanched potato slices with béchamel, ham, and provola cheese, then bakes the whole dish until the top turns deeply golden and the inside goes fully molten. Same layering logic as an eggplant parmigiana, just built on a completely different vegetable.

Pro tip: blanch the potato slices only until slightly softened, not fully cooked. They finish cooking in the oven, and starting them too soft is what causes the layers to fall apart once the dish is sliced.

Potato and Onion Crunch mixes thinly sliced potatoes and onions directly into a simple flour-and-water batter, then bakes it in a pan until the surface turns deeply golden and crisp. No yeast, no rising time. It's closer to a flatbread than anything else on this list.

Pro tip: slice the potatoes and onions as thin as a mandoline allows. Thick slices stay raw in the center even after an hour in the oven, while thin ones cook through evenly and add crunch throughout instead of just on the surface.

Whichever one gets made first, the other three are still sitting right there for next week. A burger night, then baked balls for a lighter version, the parmigiana for something more filling, or the crunch when a loaf of bread sounds like too much effort: four different ways to use up a bag of potatoes without repeating a single one.