The regional table / North Dakota

Lefse

Published September 23, 2026 · North Dakota

Two decisions settle whether lefse tears: which potato you buy, and how cold it is when the flour goes in.

Every other dish on North Dakota's table comes from the German-Russian south-central counties. This one comes from the other half of the state, and the other half is bigger than most people outside it realise. The Federal Writers' Project guide of 1938 counted it: "Norwegian stock today constitutes 30 percent of the population of the State, and persons born in Norway make up 29.8 percent of its foreign-born population", and of the forty-two countries that had sent people to North Dakota, "Norway has the largest representation." Their settlements ran through the northern and eastern sections; in Fargo, the guide says, almost half the residents were of Norwegian descent, and of the Old World customs still kept there the book names almost nothing except the food — "the preparation of Norwegian foods such as lefse, lutefisk, fattigmand, and flad broed". Its definition of the first of those is still the best short one in print: lefse is "an unleavened potato bread baked in great flat, rough, gray sheets on top of an iron range".

The part nobody writes down is why a batch tears, and for that the state's own land-grant literature turns out to be the document. NDSU Extension's Potatoes from Garden to Table, publication FN630, by Julie Garden-Robinson, Asunta Thompson and Duane Preston, carries a table of potato cultivars for garden growing in the northern Plains with the recommended use beside each one — and in that whole table exactly one cultivar has lefse listed against it. It is Kennebec, a white-skinned, oblong, high-yielding potato whose other listed uses are baking, boiling, chipping and mashing. The bulletin explains what that implies: cultivars high in starch, or dry matter, are mealy and suit chipping and frying, while those "with a waxy texture are lower in starch content and specific gravity, and frequently higher in sugar content" and hold together in boiling. A waxy potato is a wet potato, a wet mash needs more flour to come together, and flour is what makes lefse tough and brittle. The same bulletin gives the second rule flatly, in its Old-fashioned Lefse: mix the potatoes with the fat and cream, "refrigerate until thoroughly cool", and only then "add flour gradually and knead smooth". Three cookbooks out of the North Dakota State Library's Prairie Recipes collection say the same thing in fewer words — the Grafton Lutheran ladies' Tried Recipes of 1958 to 1961 prints three lefse side by side on one page, and two of them are nothing but "Cool before adding flour" and "Add flour bit by bit as you roll out thin."

Why this version works

A mealy potato, not a waxy one. The only cultivar NDSU Extension names for lefse is Kennebec, and the bulletin's own logic says why: high dry matter, mealy, the kind of potato that chips and fries well. A waxy red is lower in starch and specific gravity and carries more water, and every extra spoonful of water in the mash has to be balanced with flour later. Russets are the everyday substitute and they work; what does not work is a salad potato.

Cold before the flour, every time. Warm riced potato drinks flour and keeps asking for more, and the dough you end up with is a flour dough with potato in it. Chilled overnight, the starch has set and the same potato takes barely a cup and a quarter. All four documented North Dakota versions insist on this and none of them explains it; it is the single change that turns a tearing batch into a good one.

As little flour as you can get away with. The Ladies of the U.C.T. cookbook puts it in one clause — roll each piece "very thin, using as little flour as possible". Flour on the board gets rolled into the sheet and stays there, and a sheet carrying too much of it goes stiff on the griddle and cracks at the first fold. Brush the board rather than dust it, and sweep it clean between rounds.

A dry griddle, and freckles rather than a tan. There is no fat in the pan and none in the dough beyond the butter and cream already in the potato. The sheet is cooked when dark spots have come up across it and it has lost its wet sheen — NDSU Extension says to bake it "until golden spots form", and the extension recipe in FN1513 gives 400°F and looks for bubbles. Cook past the spots and the water is gone, and a dry sheet cannot be folded.

Ingredient notes

Flour: start at a cup and a quarter for three pounds of potato and stop as soon as the dough holds a ball without cracking. Keep a little more for the board. If you are past a cup and three-quarters, the potato was wet or still warm, and the batch will be tough no matter what you do next.

Potatoes: three pounds of Kennebec if you can find them, russet otherwise. Peel them before boiling; skins left on make the riced potato stringy and you will pick fragments out of every sheet. Weigh them if you can, because the flour is proportional to the potato and a guessed three pounds can be four.

Sugar and salt: a tablespoon and a teaspoon and a half. Lefse is barely sweet and mostly savoury, and the sugar is there for colour on the griddle as much as for taste. Salt it at this stage; there is no later stage.

Cream and butter: a third of a cup of heavy cream and four tablespoons of butter, beaten in while the potato is still steaming hot. They go in hot and the mixture cools afterward — the fat has to be absorbed, not sitting on top, and cold butter into cold potato will not do it.

Step by step

Cook and rice. Peel the potatoes, cut them into even chunks and boil in salted water until a knife slides through, 18 to 22 minutes. Drain them and return them to the dry pan over low heat for a minute to steam off. Press them hot through a ricer into a wide bowl — a ricer, not a masher, because lumps will tear the sheet later.
Enrich while hot. Beat in the butter, the cream, the sugar and the salt while the potato is still steaming. Spread the mixture out on a sheet pan in a layer an inch deep so it loses its heat quickly.
Chill it properly. Cover and refrigerate until thoroughly cold, at least 4 hours and overnight if you can. This is not a resting step you can shorten; it is the step that decides how much flour the dough will need.
Work in the flour. Tip the cold potato into a bowl and add the flour a quarter cup at a time, cutting it in rather than kneading, until the dough just holds together. Divide it into 16 pieces, roll them into balls, and keep the tray in the fridge while you work.
Roll paper thin. Flour a pastry cloth lightly, flatten one ball and roll it out from the centre to about 10 inches across, thin enough to see the cloth through. Sweep the cloth clean and re-flour it between rounds. Lift the sheet with a long thin stick or the back of a palette knife.
Bake dry. Heat a griddle or heavy pan to 450°F with no fat at all. Lay the sheet on and cook about 45 seconds, until dark freckles show and the surface loses its sheen, then flip and give it 30 to 45 seconds more. Stack the finished sheets under a damp towel as you go.
Cool covered. Leave the stack covered with the damp towel until it comes to room temperature. It is the trapped steam that makes lefse foldable; uncovered, the outside sheets go brittle within twenty minutes.

If the sheets tear as you roll, the dough has too much water for the flour in it, which almost always means the potato was not cold. Chill what is left of the dough for another hour rather than adding more flour — adding flour fixes the rolling and ruins the eating. If the finished lefse cracks when you fold it, it was on the griddle too long or it cooled uncovered: a damp towel over the stack for twenty minutes will bring back some of it, and the rest are still good torn and eaten warm. A sheet that sticks to the cloth means the cloth was carrying rolled-in dough from the round before; scrape it, re-flour and carry on.

Storage and make-ahead

Stacked with parchment between the sheets in a sealed bag, three days at room temperature and a week refrigerated. Do not leave them uncovered on a plate; they lose their flexibility faster than any other flatbread.

They freeze better than almost anything else in this collection. Cool completely, stack with parchment, bag flat and freeze up to three months. Thaw the whole stack sealed so the moisture goes back into the sheets rather than into the air.

What to serve with it

Butter and a scatter of sugar, rolled up and cut across — that is the default and there is no improving on it. Brown sugar or cinnamon sugar for a sweeter roll. Savoury, it takes cured fish, sour cream and dill, or anything you would put on a soft flatbread. At a Norwegian Christmas table in this state it goes beside the lutefisk the 1938 guide names in the same breath.

From the recipe box / North Dakota

Lefse

Riced potato worked cold with a little flour, rolled paper thin and baked dry on a hot griddle until it freckles — the Norwegian half of North Dakota, in a soft grey sheet.

Prep: 45 min
Cook: 35 min
Total: 5 hr 20 min
Serves: 16
Calories: 150 per serving

Ingredients

Scale

3 pounds Kennebec or russet potatoes, peeled and cut in chunks
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
⅓ cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1½ teaspoons kosher salt
1¼ cups all-purpose flour, plus a little for the cloth

Instructions

Boil the peeled potatoes in salted water 18–22 minutes, drain, dry them over low heat a minute, and press them hot through a ricer.
Beat in the butter, cream, sugar and salt while hot, then spread the mixture on a sheet pan to cool.
Cover and refrigerate until thoroughly cold, at least 4 hours or overnight.
Cut the flour into the cold potato a quarter cup at a time until it just holds, then divide into 16 balls and keep them cold.
Roll each ball on a lightly floured cloth to about 10 inches and paper thin, sweeping and re-flouring the cloth between rounds.
Bake on a dry 450°F griddle about 45 seconds a side, until dark freckles show, and stack the sheets under a damp towel.

Nutrition

Fat	5 g (3 g saturated)
Sodium	225 mg
Protein	3 g
Serving	1 round
Calories	150
Cholesterol	9 mg
Carbohydrates	23 g (2 g sugar, 2 g fiber)

Nutrition is an estimate calculated from the listed ingredients and is provided as a courtesy, not as dietary advice.

Questions readers ask

Why does mine taste of flour?

Because there is too much of it, and there is too much of it because the potato was warm or wet. Weigh the potatoes, chill the mash overnight, and treat a cup and a quarter of flour for three pounds as the target rather than the starting point. The old Grafton recipes add the flour bit by bit as they roll, which is another way of keeping the total down.

Can I use instant potato flakes?

North Dakota cookbooks print instant-potato lefse and people eat it, so it is not a fraud — but it is a different thing. Flakes are already dried, so the flour goes in against a mixture whose water content you control with the kettle rather than the potato, and the result is more uniform and less interesting. If you are making it for the first time, use real potatoes so you find out what cold, dry mash feels like.

Which potato should I actually buy?

Kennebec is the one NDSU Extension names for lefse in its garden cultivar table, and it is the only one in that table with lefse listed at all. Russets are the supermarket stand-in and behave the same way, because both are mealy and high in dry matter. Avoid red-skinned and salad potatoes: the bulletin classes those as waxy, lower in starch and specific gravity, and that extra water is what forces flour into the dough.

Do I need a lefse grill, a grooved pin and a turning stick?

No, but the stick earns its place. A 10-inch sheet rolled paper thin will fold and stick to itself on the way to the pan, and a thin flat lath under the middle of it solves that. A heavy skillet or an electric griddle stands in for the grill, and an ordinary rolling pin works if you sweep the cloth clean between rounds.