How To Make Fluffy Potato Kugel

In this dish, earthy potatoes mingle with mellow yellow onions and golden, savory chicken schmaltz in a casserole as light and fluffy as a perfectly tender baked spud. Basically, potato kugel is potatoes, onions, and eggs at their very best.

Kugel is, at its essence, a baked casserole. It can be sweet (like this jam and poppy seed kugel) or savory, made with starch-based foods like noodles (see our classic noodle kugel recipe) or rice. Perhaps the best-loved savory kugel of all is a potato kugel.

As Jews moved around the globe, kugel ingredients shifted depending upon what was available in each locale. In Europe and Russia, the ingredients were based upon what had been introduced from other lands and what could be found locally.

Then came the potato. Potatoes, a transplant from the Americas, were not a well-known vegetable in Europe until the mid-1800s. In Eastern Europe, the potato’s popularity soared, and boy did it soar fast. Potato kugels became the go-to savory kugel there. Potato kugel is particularly popular among families with Polish roots, for whom the kartoffel, aka bulbe (both Yiddish for potato), was both everyday and holiday fare.

Today, potato kugel still just as delicious a side dish, ready to grace many a meal. (Want to know more? Check out Rabbi Gil Marks’ Encyclopedia of Jewish Food.)

• Cut the potatoes into pieces for grating: I feel the urge to start with an “oy” here. The “real” way to make this is with a handheld box grater. It produces a fine grate that is neither mushy purée nor stringy. It’s a pain in the hand. Literally. If you don’t want to do that (I really do understand, as do my ever-scraped knuckles), you can use the modern marvel of the food processor fitted with a shredding blade, but — and this is a big but here — you must cut the potatoes into small pieces. If you use the shredder blade but you don’t cut the potatoes first, you will have long strings of potato that don’t break down or integrate into the whole. Of course, if you use the processing blade, you would have puréed mush, so skip that.
• Use Russet or Idaho potatoes: I strongly prefer Russet or Idaho potatoes for kugel. You need the fluffiest and driest potatoes, not the waxiest. A purple potato kugel sounds fun and colorful, but it won’t come together and won’t, let’s say, kugel. Most sweet potatoes, however, work just fine (although the Japanese or purple-skinned ones are actually too dry).
• Whip the eggs separately: This is a quandary for the ages. Traditionally potato kugels did not have whipped whites or even foamy lightened whites. Potato kugel was supposed to be dense. Over the past few decades, that notion has evolved. If you like a flatter, heavier kugel, don’t whip them — just add the eggs, mix, and bake. This method represents a potato kugel that is both classic and of the moment.

Fluffy, light, and creamy — it is hard to ask for more when served a slice of potato kugel. After spending much of December frying up latkes, I was excited to take on Tami Weiser’s version of this Passover staple. With an eerily familiar ingredient list and many of the same steps, I used what I had already learned from shredding and squeezing mounds upon pounds of potatoes.

• While you certainly can grate four pounds of potatoes by hand, your knuckles will thank you for using the food processor instead — even if you have to do it in multiple batches.
• Squeezing the shredded potatoes in a cheesecloth tourniquet removes significantly more liquid (and potato starch) from the taters.
• Speaking of potato starch, there’s no need to purchase it separately — simply pour off the potato water and use the starch that settles to the bottom.
• A preheated pan means crunchy edges. Resist the temptation to press down on the potatoes; instead leave them in wild waves to brown and crisp.

This recipe will feed a crowd, so bring your appetites or scale it down for smaller gatherings.

–Patty Catalano, March 2018