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These are classic old world classic potato pancakes well loved by Slavic people. We call them draniki or deruny and they are super yummy for breakfast, lunch or even dinner. These potato pancakes are made by grating raw potatoes into the batter – weird but so good! They are a favorite in our house.
This is my Mom’s recipe and the pancakes are amazing as is but this time we added a tasty meat filling (inspired by one of my favorite bloggers, Olga). The filling takes these classic potato pancakes over the top. You can get creative and sub pretty much any ground meat for the filling; beef, chicken, turkey,..
Watch How to Make Stuffed Potato Pancakes – Draniki:
Ingredients for Stuffed Potato Pancakes (Draniki):
1 1/2 lbs (5 medium) potatoes (we used yukon gold), peeled
1 medium onion, peeled and divided (use 3/4 for potatoes and 1/4 for meat filling)
1 large egg
3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp sour cream
1 tsp salt, or to taste
1/8 tsp black pepper, or taste
Cooking oil (we use extra light olive oil)
1/2 lb ground pork
1 Tbsp reserved grated onion (see above)
1/4 tsp salt and a pinch of black pepper, or to taste
How to Make Stuffed Potato Pancakes (Draniki)
1. Into a large bowl, grate potatoes on the star grater. It should be the consistency of applesauce. Use a spoon to skim off 1 Tbsp excess potato water that floats to the top.
Note: If grating by hand, protect your fingers and use safety gloves like these. Grating is the most annoying step so once you get through it, you’re golden! We’ve made these by dicing potatoes and blending in our blender or using a good food processor like this one and they tasted great, but the texture was not as authentic as grating by hand.
2. Grate onion into the same bowl (reserving 1 Tbsp grated onion for the meat mixture). The onion will keep potatoes from browning.
3. Add 1 egg, 3 Tbsp flour, 1 Tbsp sour cream, 1 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp black pepper and stir well.
4. Mix together ground pork, 1 Tbsp reserved grated onion, 1/4 tsp salt and black pepper to taste. Form into 16 skinny patties and place them on a clean surface (I put them on a cutting board lined with plastic wrap).
5. Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium heat and add 2-3 Tbsp oil. Once oil is hot, add 1 Tbsp of the mixture at a time into the skillet, flattening it out. Top with a thin meat patty and cover the meat with another Tablespoon of potato batter. Saute until potatoes are golden brown then flip and continue sautéing until golden brown and cooked through (about 4 min per side). Repeat with remaining batter, adding more oil as needed. Remove to a paper-towel lined plate and server warm with sour cream.
Tip: if liquid starts to rise to the top of the potato batter, give it a quick stir – this will prevent excessive splatter when the batter goes into the skillet.
Meat Stuffed Potato Pancakes (Draniki)
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lbs 5 medium potatoes (we used yukon gold), peeled
- 1 medium onion, peeled and divided (use 3/4 for potatoes and 1/4 for meat filling)
- 1 large egg
- 3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1 Tbsp sour cream
- 1 tsp salt, or to taste
- 1/8 tsp black pepper, or taste
- Cooking oil, we use light olive oil
- 1/2 lb ground pork
- 1 Tbsp reserved grated onion, see above
- 1/4 tsp salt and a pinch of black pepper, or to taste
Instructions
- Into a large bowl, grate potatoes on the star grater*. It should be the consistency of applesauce. Use a spoon to skim off any excess potato liquid that floats to the top. Note: If grating by hand, protect your fingers and use safety gloves.
- Grate onion into the same bowl (reserving 1 Tbsp grated onion for meat mixture). Onion keeps potatoes from browning.
- Add 1 egg, 3 Tbsp flour, 1 Tbsp sour cream, 1 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp black pepper and stir well.
- Mix together ground pork, 1 Tbsp reserved grated onion, 1/4 tsp salt and black pepper to taste. Form into 16 skinny patties and place them on a clean surface.
- Heat large non-stick skillet over medium heat and add 2-3 Tbsp oil. Once oil is hot, add 1 Tbsp of potato mixture at a time into the skillet, flattening it out. Top with a thin meat patty and cover the meat with another Tablespoon of potato batter. Saute until potatoes are golden brown then flip and continue sautéing until golden brown and cooked through (about 4 min per side). Repeat with remaining batter**, adding more oil as needed. Remove to paper-towel lined plate and serve with sour cream.
Notes
**If liquid starts to rise to the top of the potato batter between cooking batches, stir it to prevent splatter while cooking.
If you make this recipe, I’d love to see pics of your creations on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Hashtag them #natashaskitchen
Natasha Kravchuk
Hi! I'm Natasha Kravchuk. Here you'll find delicious, trusted recipes with easy step-by-step photos and videos. 
These pancakes are very delicious however mine for some reason didn’t stay together. Meet filling would slide out so it looked like a sandwich lol. What am I doing wrong? I followed the recipe exactly.
Hi Alisa, I wonder if maybe your leftover mashed potatoes are too loose? Some mashed potatoes recipes call for hefty amounts of butter or cream, making the leftover mashed potatoes pretty soft. You may need to add slightly more flour.
I made these just now after stumbing across your site and this recipe only yesterday. They are awesome! So delicious and easy to make. Thank you (and Olga) for sharing this.
Lulu, welcome to the site and thank you for the nice review. I hope you’ll find lots more favorites here 😀.
Oh, boy – these are my favorite thing ever. You can ask my husband. I’m embarrassed to admit how often I make them. Thanks for mentioning me, Natasha. That was very sweet of you.
I totally love your idea of putting meat inside of them! Just when I thought they couldn’t get any better, they did! 🙂 Thanks Olga!
Hi Natasha,
I am using groun turkey instead of pork and from 1/2 pound it doesn’t come out 16 piece. In the picture patties don’t look too tiny?
They are pretty small and skinny patties – about 1 1/2″ in diameter. You also want to make sure they are skinny little patties so they cook through properly. Even if you are shy a few patties, you can make remaining batter as plain pancakes – they are still super yummy even without a filling! 🙂
Hi Natasha
I would like to know can I make half mixture one day and keep it in refrigerator for next day? looks so yum….can’t wait to make it today. Hope it will be as perfect as yours:))) you’re an amazing person and of course your recipes are perfect.
Thank you so much for that sweet compliment :). I don’t think the batter for this recipe would store well in the refrigerator overnight – it would probably discolor by morning. I would just sautee all of the pancakes and then reheat them on the skillet the next day.
Potato Pancakes. What a lovely variation on an old favourite. Can’t wait to try them.
Re: Raspberry Pretzel Jello: I wonder what I can substitute for Cool Whip if I can’t find it anywhere? I’ve never heard of it. What are the ingredients in it? Wonder if I can replicate it. Bless your beautiful recipes and your style. Seashalia
Hi Pamela, I do have a note on that recipe regarding the use of whipped cream instead although it tends to soften the pretzels and isn’t quite as good. It’s normally in the freezer section of the grocery store next to other frozen desserts and ingredients like puff pastry or frozen berries.
Natasha, is it really 16 patties from 1/2 pounds of meat? I know that you are very precise in your recipe, that’s why I am checking. From other hand I understand that it’s quick cooking inside of potato layers.
Hi Yelena, yes, they are thin small patties. If you make them too large, they won’t cook through properly. I weighed out the meat to get an exact 1/2 lb and then formed 16 skinny patties.
Hi Natasha, what do you call all purpose flour? Here in England we have plain flour or self-raising flour. Sorry if I sound ignorant, want to try and make these pancakes because they look delicious.
John, our all-purpose flour is your plain flour. Let me know how they turn out 😀.
I’ve had draniki my whole life but my grandma and mom never made them stuffed with meat. I didn’t even know that was a thing!! I am so bummed that I have been eating un-stuffed draniki my whole life – what a waste! lol
Going to have to make these sometime, they have to be SO good with meat!!
I admit the unstuffed ones are seriously amazing on their own and we probably make them that way more often but these are a treat! 🙂
Do you always grind the potatoes on the grater? I put them through the food processor… I love my fingertips way too much lol..yeap, I’ve done that haha
I totally forgot about the food processor! I wrote about the blender but forgot about my trusty food processor! Oh boy. 🙂 I always use safety gloves when using the food grater because it’s a little scary otherwise 😉
We make these too (plaki’s) never tried with meat. We serve with apple sauce or sour cream. Polska…
I’ve never tried with apple sauce! I love that different regions make them differently! Do you make them plain or fill them with something else? We love them plain also served with sour cream 🙂
Mmmm yummm always love how u post new recipes can I sub farmers cheese of i don’t have ground meat or are they better off with meat yo my mouth is watering right now
Hi Tzivia, I haven’t tried with farmers cheese but that does sound interesting. I really like them with meat but it might be worth experimenting. If you test that out, let me know how it goes. 🙂
I love meat it just never hurts to be prepared on one of those days lol u use pork was wondering if it would work with ground turkey or beef @ long @ it’s not lean but yea if I do try it with farmers cheese I will definitely let ya kw gurl keep things coming hun gnite sweet dreams cheers
You can use pretty much any ground meat you like. 🙂 thanks Tzivia!
Thanks Natasha, my husband just did it last Saturday, yammmmmmm.
I’m so glad you liked the recipe! 🙂
Made them on Saturday. Delicious!!!
I’m so happy to hear that! Thank you for sharing your great review!
Goodness gracious………… these look good! Pinned. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Mary and you are welcome 😀.
Can a different meat be used instead of pork? I can’t eat pork.
Yes, you can substitute for pretty much any ground meat, just don’t use the leanest meat.
Does the sausage get completely
cooked inside the potato in that amount of time? That would be my fear that for some reason my meat wouldn’t get cooked all the way through. I’ve got to try this though. it looks so good.
Ginger, meat cooks through since it is a thin patty. Give it a try, it won’t disappoint 😀.
I am really enjoying your blog. It’s great to see the occasional Ukrainian recipe posted. My Baba passed away about 8 years ago. Her Ukrainian delicacies are really missed by all of her grandchildren. I have given a few of these a try and they are close to what I remember.
That is the best when recipes bring back some nice memories. I hope you’ll find more favorites here 😀
Looks delicious, my husband asked me to make them for today, so let’s do it :))
Thank you for the recipe!
Thank you Galina! I hope you both love them. 🙂
Those are my favorite. Love them.
Thank you Vera! I can’t seem to get enough of them either. Such a treat!