The Fruity Spin You Should Try With Your Next Batch Of Latkes

For Ashkenazi Jews, latkes are the quintessential Hanukkah holiday food. While these are most commonly made from shredded potatoes, these fried pancakes can be made from a variety of other ingredients. One underrated fruit you can make them with is green bananas. These underripe starchy versions of their sweeter yellow siblings are the perfect stand-in for potatoes and can be used in the same way for many recipes. They work well in latkes because of their slightly bitter but also mildly sweet flavor, and in their immature stage, they're still firm enough to shred. When you buy green bananas, they'll keep fresh for longer, and this is a good way to utilize some of them before they start to soften.

Historically, how latkes became an integral part of Hanukkah traditions didn't always involve just potatoes. In fact, European diaspora Jews originally made latkes from cheese or grain flours, and as documented in the 1938 Yiddish cookbook, "Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook," latkes were also made from buttermilk, rice, carrots, and apples.

To make the fruity version, simply swap green bananas for potatoes in any classic latke recipe, or you could even use a mixture of both. Blend in some shredded onions and dried herbs like parsley or dill for just the right savory touch. These go great with traditional toppings like sour cream and applesauce, but any of your go-to condiments will do. Kids will like them with ketchup while grown-ups might enjoy a cilantro and yogurt dip or even a spicy zhoug or salsa.

You can also make sweet dessert latkes by opting for ripe bananas. These will be too soft to shred, but since you can use leftover mashed potatoes to make latkes, you can do the same thing with yellow bananas for similar results. What's more, bananas make for an excellent binder, which means you can substitute them for eggs to create vegan latkes.

While it's certainly possible to bake latkes, oil is symbolically central to the Hanukkah story, which celebrates the miracle of light. For this reason, the holiday glorifies fried foods, like the delectable, powdered sugar-coated, and jelly-filled donuts called sufganiyot.

Conveniently, since they're often consumed on the same night, or on any of the eight nights of Hanukkah, the best fillings for sufganiyot also happen to complement latkes as well. Try giving the old standby of applesauce an upgrade by topping latkes with apple butter instead, it's an especially nice combo with bananas. A drizzle of caramel sauce or dulce de leche is an all-out decadent option, and you can never go wrong with chocolate and nuts on bananas, which you can achieve here by spreading your banana latkes with Nutella.

If you're entertaining, you can go all out and create a Hanukkah latke bar, so guests can customize their meals. Set up separate buffet-style savory and sweet stations with bowls and trays of assorted ingredients, toppings, and sauces so that people can pick and choose their favorites.