20 Delicious Ideas for Leftover Mashed Potatoes

Who says you need beef to bake an incredibly delicious Shepherd's Pie? This vegetarian version uses hearty eggplant, pearl onions, and carrots as a stand-in for meat—and trust us, you won't miss it once you see how fresh and flavorful the veggies taste. Top with your leftover mashed potatoes and pair with a rich red wine for easy dinner perfection. 

Golden and crispy outside, plush and cheese-flecked inside, these mashed potato balls makes a great appetizer or fun side dish. The panko bread crumb coating adds a nice gentle crunch. No bacon? Skip it altogether—or use up other leftovers like sandwich meat (ham, for instance) or Italian sausage.

These crispy-creamy mashed potato fries are best eaten fresh out of the oven. To make it with leftover mashed potatoes, skip the mashed potato making portion of this recipe and go right to the sheet pan directive in step four.

Aside from the fact that they're already waffles (yay!), you can eat them solo, topped with a poached egg and hollandaise, or made into a meaty little breakfast sandwich.

While you can certainly go with traditional mashed potato matching flavors (cheddar, chives, etc.) with this super cool rethink of fried rolls, we say let your culinary creativity run amok. Warming spices and ingredients, like curry, onion, spinach, and fennel seed, work particularly well here.

These super savory spinach-stuffed leftover mashed potato patties are not only great at dinner, but can be topped with a poached or fried egg for breakfast, paired with a turkey burger at lunch, or even make a great finger-food appetizer if friends are coming over.

One-pan breakfast dishes are a great way to feed the family en masse (and on their own schedules—when the early birds are done, the stragglers can grab a fork and dig in).

We love how this creative re-think of a traditionally savory side dish is reborn as one of the all-time favorite sweet treats: doughnuts. Icing sugar adds the finishing touch, but a cinnamon-sugar combo would be great, too!

You need a little time to allow the yeast to do its work here, but these fluffy, golden-brown orbs of bready deliciousness are worth the wait. A round cake pan is suggested for baking these up, but a handy-dandy cast iron pan works just as well.

Feel free to add some sautéed leeks or chives in lieu of green onions to this soothing leftover mashed potato-based soup, sure to ease the chill on a cold day!

Shepherd's pie has got to be one of the world's best comfort foods. While traditionally made with lamb, beef works just as well—you could even go completely vegetarian. Either way, this mini version is a total treat.

Packed with mushrooms and onions, this veggie-centric snack can also be packed up for picnics and eaten at room temperature. They're great reheated if you want a grab-and-go lunch for work, too.

This recipe employs all the fun bits of a stuffed potato—cheese, sour cream, chives—but without the messy scraping out of potato skins. These easy puffs go right into a nonstick muffin pan and are a quick and easy side dish with little prep time and a lot of flavorful reward!

Serve these potato cakes with a dollop of sour cream for the ultimate comfort-food combo.

Leftover mashed potatoes make these gnocchi light and fluffy—just like we want them to be!

We love the crunchy bits of bacon and kick of red pepper in this twice-baked leftover mashed potato hack. If you don't like too much heat, half the amount of pepper (or exclude it altogether).

The saltiness of these leftover mashed potato pancakes is lip-smackingly evened out when topped with mildly sweet apple sauce.

Simple and classic, potato croquettes are a leftover mashed potato staple. These get a great crunchy coating due to the recipe's flour, egg, breadcrumb combo.

Hearty, cheesy, and filling, this leftover mashed potato casserole is great served with a side of peppery arugula.

Use an ice cream scoop to create even portions of this great fork-free recipe for leftover mashed potatoes.