How to Make Lefse with 2 Different Recipes (Traditional & Instant) (2024)

FAQs

How was lefse traditionally made? ›

Lefse is a soft Norwegian flatbread, made using traditional recipes and baking methods. Lefse is usually made with potatoes, flour, butter, and milk, cream, or lard. Traditionally, lefse is cooked on a flat griddle, with particular wooden utensils used in the process. Lefse has its roots in Viking food traditions.

American lefse is sometimes served with butter, cinnamon sugar, brown sugar, or lingonberry jelly before being rolled, to be eaten like a crêpe. One may also add eggs, sausage, and cheese to make it into a breakfast burrito. One may even roll smørrebrød into their lefse.

Lompe is only used about the potato leaf you wrap around a hot-dog, while lefse is, well, your definition. I have seen lefse that are thin, like lompe, which you're supposed to butter and put something (like salmon) in, though.

Her family is Swedish, and many Scandinavian foods are enjoyed by our family each year, including søtsuppe (Scandinavian sweet soup), lutfisk (a dried fish), köttbullar (Swedish meatballs) and of course lefse. Lefse is a flatbread made from flour and potatoes, and is a little thicker than a tortilla.

Klenning – The Trøndelag region's version of sweet lefse with butter, cinnamon and sugar. Kling – The name for sweet lefse in Buskerud, Eastern Norway.

ˈlefsə plural lefsen. -sən. or lefses. : a large thin potato pancake served buttered and folded.

These lefse are made with potatoes, which gives them a delicious texture and flavor, and they are a perfect vessel for your favorite toppings!

Spread with butter and sprinkle with brown sugar. This is a traditional way to eat lefse. Spread with mustard and wrap around Polish sausage, brats, or hot dogs. Spread with butter or cream cheese and wrap around leftover chicken, turkey, pot roast, or your favorite deli meat.

Lefse is a Norwegian flatbread that is a lot like a tortilla, but more delicate. After from intense research (Wikipedia), I found out that lefse is traditionally served with lutefisk, whitefish meat (often cod) and lye.

Lefse should be refrigerated or frozen. Our lefse is made with no preservatives, so it can take a week or so in the fridge. In the refrigerator, it needs to stay in its sealed package or it will dry out. If you don't plan on eating it right away, toss it in the freezer.

What ethnicity is lefse? ›

Although lefse was available year-round in Norway, it is more often a holiday food in the U.S., served especially around Christmas. Grooved lefse rolling pin. Photo courtesy of Elaine Hanson. The ingredients of the lefse I've consumed are simple: russet potatoes, butter, milk or cream, and flour.

On to the proteins, Lefse offers 4.37g per 100g, essential for building and repairing tissues in the body. It also contains a variety of vitamins and minerals. With 172.0mg of sodium, it supports electrolyte balance and nerve function, while the 271.0mg of potassium can contribute to cardiovascular health.

It brought back good memories of the trip and filled our bellies with comfort. As I said, lefse is traditionally made with potatoes, and Hardanger Lefse is made with flour. I read somewhere that it dates back to the Vikings before potatoes were introduced to Norway.

Like a tortilla, the lefse is rolled out and baked on a hot, round griddle on the stovetop, an electric lefse cooker or even on a Mexican comal (griddle). The technique is surprisingly similar for two countries so different. Sometimes lefse is made without potatoes–only milk, flour, butter and sugar.

What is Lefse? Lefse is a Norwegian original. Colorful stories carry it back to the time of the Vikings, but history shows potatoes first appearing in Norway some 250 years ago. On the traditional Norwegian homestead, enough lefse would be made at one time to last for up to a year.

While in Norway lefse was traditionally made from a variety of flours, when brought to America it became strictly potato-based — because potatoes are what most Norwegian immigrants were able to grow quickly and successfully here.

The story of lefse is intertwined with Norwegian history. Just as the Norwegian flatbread was developed as a way to store food over the harsh winter months, lefse served a similar purpose. During the 19th century, the lefse was a popular way to store wheat or potato, which would otherwise be unusable.