Waffle House Style Homemade Hash Browns… Made with Yuca!!

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Scattered, smothered, and covered, you say? I’ve got you covered this week… with Waffle House style homemade hash browns from yuca!

These babies hit closer to home (as the nearest Waffle House is nearly a 7 hour drive)! Of course, you could make them from potatoes, but when you have an abundance of starchy potato-like veggies (yuca, tiquisque, or even green banana) on the homestead, these are excellent options as well! My favorite version is made with yuca though, so today I am going to show you how I prepare it! First, let’s talk a little bit about yuca!

Yuca vs Yucca…

Yuca (spelled with one c) is the root of the cassava plant.

Below ground though, is where the business takes place! It produces delicious tubers, but they must be peeled and boiled prior to eaten. More on this in a minute.

It is commonly confused with yucca (spelled with two c’s), which is a completely different plant. Yucca has spikey leaves and can produce a delicious, edible white flower.

For this recipe, we want the tuber yuca to make some outstanding homemade hash browns!

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Where can you find yuca?

If you would like to try yuca, it certainly is available fresh at local farmer’s markets here in Costa Rica, but in less tropical regions you can often find it at your local ethnic grocery store. Sometimes, however, yuca has a waxy preservative coating added to the outside. Yuca is at its best within a day or so of digging, so this practice is to help maintain its freshness. Yuca also can be found frozen in many areas. The brand Goya, for one, sells frozen yuca.

How do you prepare yuca?

First, if you are working with fresh yuca, you need to peel the yuca. I use my knife to score a line down the long edge then peel with my hands. No potato peeler needed!

Then I cut it into manageable-sized pieces and boil it in a large pot. (Feel free to salt the water if you choose, but I usually don’t.) Bring the pot to a boil and cook until fork tender. You want to make sure that yuca is cooked adequately, as raw yuca has a natural cyanide that is rendered harmless when cooked. This is less of a concern, however, in the case of the sweeter, less bitter variety found in Central America (and sold in North America), but it is still something to be aware of. Just make sure to cook your yuca well prior to eating, okay?

Next, I let the yuca cool until I can handle it and then remove and compost any woody-looking pieces using a knife and my fingers.

You can eat the yuca straight away, if you like, or use it in a variety of other dishes after boiling. I love to cook a large pot of yuca for the week and store it in the fridge for future goodness! Yuca fries, yuca hash browns, omelets, yuca quiche, yuca mash… so many options! I even make different versions of yuca hash browns! Today, though, I will show you my Waffle House version! It’s great for breakfast, as a snack, or as a side with dinner!

Some tricks and hacks for with working with yuca

Now, I feel there are a couple of tricks with yuca. First, it is softer when it is warm and in liquid. Also, when it is stored in liquid (even when it is cold), it retains a very soft texture, but once it is removed from liquid, it can become fairly firm once again (but in a good way!) We are going to take advantage of this characteristic to convert our boiled yuca into homemade hash browns that are soft on the inside and crispy on the outside!

So, once you have your yuca boiled and chilled for meal preps for the week, let’s make homemade hash browns… Waffle House style! Mmmmm, can’t you just taste it?

Ready to make homemade hash browns from yuca?

Check out my video below, where we take you through the process of digging fresh yuca all the way to some mouth-watering Waffle House style homemade hash browns!! I will show you my tips for a soft on the inside, crispy on the outside yuca hash brown! Hungry yet?

Customization time for your homemade hash browns!

So in the above video, I walked you through the basic scattered, smothered, and covered version, but there are a million other possibilities! Here are just a few:

• “chunked” with ham
• “peppered” with jalapeños
• “diced” with grilled tomatoes
• “capped” with grilled mushrooms

You get the idea! Have fun experimenting!