I just don’t get it. The miracle of Chanukah is that one day’s worth of oil lasted eight days. How does that translate into eating everything that is fried as a way to celebrate the festival? It simply doesn’t make sense to me. And it’s not because I’m a dietitian.
When you consider what Jews do at every other holiday, Chanukah should be a low fat festival. At Passover, do we eat double-leavened bread because the Israelites fled Egypt in a hurry and couldn’t wait for the dough to rise? No we do as they did centuries ago. We eat unleavened bread – matzo. It’s the same at all the religious holidays.
So in the spirit of tradition, here is my recipe for baked latkes. They are absolutely yummy and my family actually prefers these over fried ones. Serve with light sour cream or applesauce.
Enlightened Potato Latkes
Makes 36 latkes.
2 – 3 tbsp (25- 45 mL) vegetable oil
4-5 scrubbed potatoes (about 2 pounds/ 1 kg), shredded
(place shredded potatoes in bowl of cold water as you peel and shred other potatoes, then drain well)
1 cup (250 mL) minced onion
2 large eggs
1 tsp (5 mL) salt
Freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup (50 mL) all-purpose flour or matzo meal
Prepare two baking sheets* by first spraying each generously with non-stick cooking spray and then brushing each with 1 tablespoon/ 15 mL vegetable oil. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F/230C.
To remove excess liquid, place shredded potatoes in batches in a salad spinner and spin until each batch is completely dry. Add each batch to a large bowl. (If you don’t have a salad spinner, place potatoes in clean dish cloth and squeeze to remove excess liquid.) *
In a large bowl, combine shredded potatoes, minced onion, eggs, salt, freshly ground pepper and flour until well-mixed. Place latke mixture on one of the prepared baking sheets in heaping tablespoons; flatten using a fork.
Bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven and turn latkes. Return to oven and bake another 5-8 minutes or until golden brown.
While the first batch is baking, place second batch of latke mixture on pan. Once the first pan is removed from the oven, bake the second using previous instructions. Remove latkes from pans and keep warm until serving. If latke mixture does not fit onto two pans, prepare pan again by and bake as above.
Per latke nutritional information:
Calories: 39
Protein: 1 gram
Fat: 1 gram
Saturated Fat: less than 1 gram
Carbohydrate: 8 grams
Dietary Fibre: 1 gram
Sodium: 53 milligrams
* Please note that baking these on some types of non-stick pans won’t yield crispy, browned latkes.
Enjoy! Happy Chanukah to those celebrating the festival.
©Rosie Schwartz
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What kind of latkes do you make for Chanukah? Please share your ideas below.
* This recipe was updated on November 28, 2021, to add the hack of how to dry potatoes well.
Enlightened Eater 
Definitely going to try this, at least with a sample batch. To tell you the truth, I get so fed up and stressed frying the quantity of latkes anyway….It feels like it goes on for hours.
@kitchencounterculture yeeees I totally agree
And thanks for the bowl-of-cold-water tip!
My pleasure! I hope you enjoy them!
Hi bubie this is Julia great recipe but the grater that you lent me was not the best ☹️☹️☹️
Sorry, Julia! I should have given you some tips on how to use it! ❤️
Ha!
I just joined the “club”
Also I found that I needed to use salt. For latkes a little does NOT go a long way when baking!!!