Make the best keto rösti with the ultimate keto potato replacement: daikon radish! These rösti are so delicious and so surprisingly easy to make — with only a few ingredients — so I bet you’ll find yourself preparing them over and over again!
What is rösti?
The fascinating word ‘rösti’ — ‘o’ with cute little dots — stands for a traditional Swiss dish made from grated potatoes fried into a sort of pancake. Rösti used to be a breakfast for farmers, especially in the canton of Bern, but the dish later spread all over Switzerland, becoming a national dish and being an essential part of the Swiss-Germanic culture. However, rösti is now known worldwide. Nowadays, rösti is served as an accompaniment to other dishes.
Rösti actually resemble one version of American hash browns. They are also very close to latkes, a type of potato pancake in Jewish cuisine.
The plain version of rösti contains only grated potato fried in grease (butter or oil), but you can add other ingredients like onion and bacon. Personally, I prefer adding onion because it lends flavor, working as a natural flavor enhancer. Be sure to check my tips for variations at the end of the post for further suggestions.
How to make these keto rösti
So, you’ll need just a handful of ingredients to prepare these wonderful keto rösti. Grated daikon is naturally the main ingredient, whereas onion works as a flavor enhancer, and psyllium makes the rösti hold together.
Potatoes are very starchy, and it’s particularly the starch that makes the traditional potato-based rösti hold well together. Daikon lacks starch, so a binder is needed to make the keto rösti hold together. Psyllium is the best ingredient for this. In addition, you’ll need one egg. It works as a binder, too.
I use just salt to season my rösti, but you can also add other spices, or just freshly ground black or white pepper.
If your grated daikon releases a lot of water, you might want to squeeze out as much excess water as possible so that the rösti won’t become watery.
One thing still: I recommend using an ample amount of butter for frying as butter makes everything better — so it does for these wonderful rösti.
But, let’s take a look at how to make these fabulous keto rösti:
Take 1 lb (450 g) daikon.
Peel it. Once again, I use my multipurpose tool, a cheese slicer, for peeling.
Grate the daikon coarsely.
Transfer the grated daikon into a bowl.
Add one chopped medium onion…
…one egg…
…and two teaspoons of psyllium husk powder. Make sure to use the powdered form, no coarse flakes.
Mix…
…until well combined.
Oh yes, don’t forget to add salt! I almost forgot!
Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add a good pat (about 2 oz = 60 g) of butter and let it melt.
Add a spoonful of daikon mixture to the skillet.
Pat until a 1/2-inch (1.3 cm) thick rösti forms.
Continue until there are several rösti in the skillet. Leave some space between the rösti.
Cover with a lid and cook until the bottom of the rösti is golden brown, about 10 minutes.
Flip the rösti.
Continue cooking from the other side, again covered, for about 10 minutes until the second side is also golden brown.
Remove from the skillet.
Continue making rösti with the rest of the daikon mixture. You can also make different shaped rösti. I wanted to make round rösti but forgot my large round cookie cutter at home (I was preparing this recipe at our summer house), and I found only a heart-shaped cookie cutter from the nearest store, so I used it to make heart-shaped rösti. Which, by the way, is a great idea for Valentine’s Day!
Serve as breakfast or as a side.
How I came up with this keto rösti recipe
After my dear reader, Gladys from Canada, introduced me to the ultimate low-carb potato replacement, daikon, there is no turning back. I came up with so many ideas on how to use this wonder veggie that I will certainly post them here on my blog. For example, I’ve already posted a recipe for Keto Hash Browns (Finnish Style) and Keto Spanish Tortilla.
Actually, before developing the Keto Spanish Tortilla recipe, I developed this Keto Rösti recipe with daikon. I experimented with psyllium and egg as binding agents since daikon lacks the starch that makes the regular potato rösti hold together. My experiments with psyllium worked well.
I made another version using our Ketokamu baking mix instead of psyllium. The rösti turned out gorgeous and delicious! I was happy to post the recipe to our keto baking group.
However, I certainly wanted to post the recipe with psyllium here on my blog. I actually didn’t make notes of my experiments — which is highly unusual as I always track and write down everything I do, so I had to think about the ingredients and their amounts almost from scratch.
Based on my memory and an educated guess, I came up with this daikon rösti recipe. I was so sure it would work that I started shooting photos for this blog post while preparing my first experiment.
I was actually hesitating between using 2 teaspoons or 1 tablespoon psyllium husk powder but opted for 2 teaspoons. It was just the right amount to make the rösti hold well together, but it didn’t create a slimy consistency typical to psyllium.
I was very happy with the result — especially when fried in a generous amount of butter. The rösti tasted awesome, and they held well together. Fantastic!
Here’s the recipe for you to enjoy:
Keto Rösti with Daikon
Make the best keto rösti with the ultimate keto potato replacement: daikon radish! These rösti are so delicious and so surprisingly easy to make — with only a few ingredients — so I bet you’ll find yourself preparing them over and over again!
Ingredients
- 1 lb = 450 g daikon
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 organic free-range egg
- 2 teaspoons psyllium husk powder
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Peel the daikon and grate it coarsely.
- Combine the grated daikon, chopped onion, egg, and the psyllium in a bowl. Mix until well combined. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add a generous amount (about 2 oz = 60 g) of butter and let it melt.
- Add a large spoonful of the daikon mixture to the skillet. Pat it with the back of the spoon until about 1/2 inch (1.3 cm) thick.
- Continue with the daikon mixture until the skillet is filled with rösti. Keep about an inch (2.5 cm) distance between the rösti.
- Cover the skillet with a lid and cook the rösti until the bottom is golden brown, about 10 minutes.
- Flip the rösti and continue cooking, again covered with a lid, until the bottom is golden brown.
- Remove the rösti from the skillet and continue with the rest of the daikon mixture.
- Serve warm as a side dish or as breakfast.
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| Nutrition information | In total (butter for frying included) | Per rösti if 12 rösti in total |
| Protein | 12.4 g | 1.0 g |
| Fat | 103.6 g | 8.6 g |
| Net carbs | 11.0 g | 0.9 g |
| kcal | 1032 kcal | 86 kcal |
Tips for variations
There are numerous ways to give variation to this simple dish. Below are some suggestions of ingredients and seasonings you can add to the daikon mixture before frying the rösti:
- bacon
- garlic
- spring onion
- grated cheese (especially Swiss cheese)
- chopped ham
- chopped fresh herbs such as parsley, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, or oregano
Instead of making small rösti, you can make one large rösti that fills the whole skillet. In that case, use a lower cooking temperature and longer time to ensure even cooking and prevent the bottom of the rösti from burning.
General prattling
Currently, it’s Midsummer, the biggest celebration after Christmas in Finland. Most people go to their summer houses or to the countryside and towns are empty.
Finnish Midsummer includes grilling, drinking (lots of alcohol, unfortunately), sauna, swimming, and making bonfires if the weather allows. Now, the weather is just perfect for the Midsummer celebrations, but you are not allowed to make a fire because there is a forest fire warning which means that the weather is so dry that if you make a fire, it might burn down the whole forest. So, no bonfires this Midsummer.
I had a busy week with Bantu language issues. However, I also had time for cooking and making an instant keto ice cream recipe for our Ketokamu followers (based on this recipe). I used our Ketokamu sweetener in the Finnish recipe. I topped the ice cream with our keto chocolate-covered raspberries.
I also made nettle pancakes using our Ketokamu baking mix (photo below). Spinach and nettle pancakes are very popular in Finland. Actually, spinach pancakes are among the most popular ready meals sold in stores! Naturally, those pancakes contain wheat and other questionable ingredients, so I have developed healthier keto versions of that dish. Nettle is a wonderful replacement for spinach. Plus, it’s free of charge and grows in your backyard!
I came to our summer house with my son and my mother to celebrate Midsummer. I was also baking and cooking a lot — and working on my new Finnish book and some linguistic issues, among others. I haven’t had long holidays for a couple of decades, but on the other hand, I’m not missing those as I’m able to do the work I love (which doesn’t feel like work), I have so many various jobs and tasks which gives the feeling of variety, and I can work whenever I can which means that I can take free hours during the day and use them as I wish.
Happy Midsummer!
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