Deruny.
Ukrainian Lacy Grated Potato Fritters
Деруни · Deruny · say it: deh-roo-NIH
Deruny are potato fritters made from raw grated potato rather than mashed, which is the whole reason they work: the shreds fry into a tangle with crisp lace at the rim and a soft, almost creamy centre that still tastes clearly of potato. The batter is barely a batter — grated potato and onion, one egg, a spoonful of flour to hold it, salt and a lot of black pepper. They take fifteen minutes to make and are eaten immediately, standing at the stove as often as at the table, with cold sour cream that melts into the hot surface. In Ukrainian homes they are weeknight food, hangover food and the thing you make when there is nothing in the house except potatoes.
- Gate
- Ukraine
- Prep
- 20 min
- Cook
- 25 min
- Total time
- 45 min
- Serves
- 4
- Status
- Easy
- Nutrition / serving · estimated
- Calories 430 kcal
- Protein 9 g
- Carbs 48 g
- Fat 23 g
- Fiber 5 g
- Sodium 640 mg
Why this recipe works.
- Squeezing the grated potato and reclaiming the settled starch is the technique that produces lacy edges instead of a soggy pancake.
- Grated onion goes in raw, which both seasons the mix and slows the potato from turning grey.
- Fried in genuinely hot oil at the right depth — the difference between crisp deruny and greasy ones is temperature, and the recipe says how to check it.
- Gives both classic finishes: cold sour cream for a weeknight, or the mushroom cream sauce Ukrainians make when guests are coming.
Ingredients.
13 itemsFor the fritters
For the optional mushroom sauce
To serve
Equipment
- Box grater or food processor with grating disc
- Clean cloth or muslin for squeezing
- Wide heavy frying pan
- Wire rack
Instructions.
Grate and squeeze
Grate 1 kg of potatoes on the coarse side of a box grater into a bowl, grating the onion in among them as you go. Tip the lot into a clean cloth and wring it out hard over a second bowl until no more liquid runs — you want the shreds damp, not wet.
Tip Do this in two batches; a full kilo at once is impossible to squeeze properly.
Reclaim the starch
Let the squeezed liquid stand for 2 minutes until a chalky white layer settles on the bottom. Pour off and discard the water, then scrape the starch paste back into the potato — this is free binder and the reason the edges go lacy.
Mix the batter
Stir in the beaten egg, flour, crushed garlic if using, salt and a generous amount of black pepper. The mixture should hold together loosely when pressed in a spoon and look like a tangle of shreds, not a smooth batter.
Heat the oil properly
Pour oil into a wide heavy pan to a depth of about 5 mm and heat over medium-high until it shimmers. Drop in a single shred of potato: it should sizzle hard and start colouring within a few seconds. If it sits quietly, wait.
Fry in batches
Spoon in heaped tablespoons of the mixture and flatten each one to about 8 cm with the back of the spoon, leaving room between them. Fry 3–4 minutes on the first side, until the rims turn dark lacy brown and the surface looks set, then flip and give the second side 2–3 minutes.
Tip Flip only once. Repeated turning compacts them and squeezes out the fat you just crisped them in.
Drain and keep going
Lift each batch onto a wire rack — not paper towel — and season with a pinch of salt while still hot. Top up the oil between batches and let it come back to temperature before the next round, or the fritters will drink it.
Make the mushroom sauce if using
In a clean pan, fry the chopped onion and mushrooms in a little oil over high heat until the water they release has boiled off and the edges catch gold, about 8 minutes. Pour in the cream, simmer 3 minutes until it coats a spoon, and season well.
Serve straight away
Stack the deruny on a warm plate, scatter with dill, and put the cold sour cream on the table in a bowl — or spoon the hot mushroom cream over the stack. Eat them now; ten minutes is the difference between crisp and disappointing.
Tips from our kitchen.
- Use floury potatoes, not waxy ones. Floury varieties release more starch and fry into a crisper tangle; waxy potatoes stay wet and turn rubbery.
- Squeeze the grated potato hard in a clean cloth, then let the drained liquid stand for two minutes — the white starch that settles at the bottom goes back into the mix as free binder.
- Grate the onion rather than chopping it. The juice disperses through the potato and noticeably slows the greying, and the texture stays even.
- Fry them the moment the mix is ready. Grated potato goes pink then grey within about fifteen minutes, and no amount of lemon juice truly stops it.
- The oil should shimmer and a shred of potato dropped in should sizzle hard on contact. Timid oil means the fritters absorb it and go limp.
- Drain on a rack rather than paper towel. Paper traps steam under the fritter and softens the bottom you just worked for.
Substitutions.
- Sunflower oil for frying → Rendered salo, lard, or a neutral oil with a knob of butter added at the end
- Lard is the traditional fat and gives the best flavour, but it browns faster — drop the heat slightly if you use it.
- Egg → Omit entirely and add an extra tablespoon of the reserved potato starch
- This is the Lenten version and it genuinely works, though the fritters are more fragile and need a gentler flip.
- Sour cream to serve → Thick Greek yoghurt loosened with a little milk
- Less rich and slightly sharper, but the cold-against-hot contrast is preserved, which is the point of the pairing.
Variations.
- Deruny with mushroom cream sauce
- The Sunday version: fried deruny topped with forest mushrooms cooked down with onion, cream and dill. Common across the north and west where wild mushrooms are picked, not bought.
- Deruny zapecheni (baked deruny)
- Fried fritters layered in a dish with browned minced pork and sour cream, then baked until the top sets — halfway between a fritter and a gratin.
- Stuffed deruny
- A spoonful of meat or mushroom filling sandwiched between two spoonfuls of potato mix in the pan, sealed at the edges before flipping.
Storage & reheating.
Deruny are at their best within minutes of leaving the pan and decline steadily after that. They keep a day in the fridge and can be revived in a dry pan or a 200°C oven for 6–8 minutes — never a microwave, which turns them to steamed potato. Raw grated batter cannot be stored at all; it oxidises grey and weeps water within half an hour. If you need a head start, peel and hold the potatoes whole in cold water, then grate at the last moment.
Serve with
A bowl of cold sour cream, chopped dill and spring onions, and pickled cucumbers on the side.
The story behind Deruny.
The potato reached Ukrainian fields relatively late, spreading widely only in the nineteenth century, and once it did it rewrote the peasant kitchen from the ground up. Deruny come out of that shift: a dish designed around a cheap, storable crop, a hot pan and a bit of fat, requiring no oven, no meat and no skill beyond a grater. The name derives from the verb for scraping or grating, which is a fair description of the entire recipe.
Grated potato fritters exist across the whole region — Belarusian draniki, Polish placki ziemniaczane, Jewish latkes, Lithuanian bulviniai blynai — and it would be silly to claim any one country invented them. They emerged wherever potatoes became a staple and cooking fat was available. What varies is the finish, and that is where deruny become Ukrainian: the classic accompaniment is not apple sauce but smetana, and the celebration version is a mushroom cream sauce with forest mushrooms, or a baked casserole in which fried deruny are layered with pork and cream and put in the oven. In the Zhytomyr region deruny are enough of a local emblem that the city holds a festival for them.
They also do quiet duty in the fasting calendar. Made without egg and fried in sunflower oil, deruny are a legitimate Lenten dish, which is one reason the recipe survives in so many variants: with egg, without egg, with a spoon of sour cream in the mix, with garlic, with grated carrot. Every family has a fixed opinion about whether the potato should be squeezed dry or not, and the answer determines whether you get lace or a pancake. Squeeze it.
Questions, answered.
Why did my deruny turn out soggy instead of crisp?
Usually too much water in the potato or oil that was not hot enough. Squeeze the grated potato hard in a cloth before mixing, keep the layer of oil about 5 mm deep, and wait until a test shred sizzles immediately on contact. Crowding the pan also drops the temperature sharply, so fry in batches with space between the fritters.
How do I stop grated potato from going grey?
Grate the onion straight into the potato as you go — its juice slows the oxidation noticeably — and fry the mixture within ten to fifteen minutes of grating. Some cooks add a squeeze of lemon, which helps a little. Nothing stops it completely, and mild greying does not affect the taste; the fritters brown in the pan anyway.
What potatoes are best for deruny?
Floury, high-starch varieties such as Russet, Maris Piper, King Edward or Bintje. They shed more starch, which binds the fritter and crisps at the edges. Waxy salad potatoes hold their water and give a dense, slightly rubbery result. If floury potatoes are all you can find with too much moisture, squeeze them twice.
Can I make deruny without eggs?
Yes. The Lenten Ukrainian version has no egg at all and relies on the potato starch that settles out of the squeezed liquid — pour off the water, scrape the white paste from the bottom of the bowl and stir it back in. The fritters are more delicate, so make them slightly smaller and let the first side set fully before flipping.
What is the difference between deruny and latkes or draniki?
Very little in structure — all three are grated raw potato fried into fritters, and they come from the same overlapping Eastern European food culture. The differences are in the table around them: deruny are Ukrainian and served with sour cream, mushroom sauce or baked with meat, while latkes belong to Jewish Hanukkah tradition and are often served with apple sauce, and draniki is the Belarusian name for essentially the same fritter.
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Recipe by The DishRoute Kitchen · published August 20, 2026 · updated August 20, 2026