Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Food

Chef Yehuda Sichel’s Latke Secrets

We pried potato pancake preferences from a few of our favorite chefs around the country — and compiled them into a tell-all to help you make the best latkes of your life.

Image by Anya Ulinich

Chef
Yehuda Sichel

Restaurant
Abe Fisher, Philadelphia

Secret ingredient?
I use flour, which is not for everyone, but I think it makes them fluffier.

Type of oil used for frying?
Canola oil works best. However, if you are not worried about being vegetarian, I love to use schmaltz to fry them in!

What’s the one thing home cooks should not do?
I think the most important thing to remember is to not overcomplicate it. The latke doesn’t need that many ingredients to be delicious.

Preferred potato?
I prefer Idaho!

Applesauce, sour cream or other?
I know this isn’t traditional, but I love to put ketchup on my latkes.

Main components of your recipe?
I like to keep it simple and use only eggs, flour, potato and salt.

More Chefs’ Latke Secrets

Michael Kaminer is a contributing editor at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected]

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.