Every year since I was born, my mom, my dad, and my sister and I have flown to Wisconsin to celebrate Christmas with our grandparents, cousins, and my aunt and uncle. One of my earliest memories of the holiday was the first time I was old enough to make lefse on the grill with my grandparents.

Lefse is a traditional potato-based dessert eaten in Norway, where I visited in the summer of 2022 with my family. My grandfather’s grandfather, or my great great grandfather, was born back in 1869, where he grew up in a small village called Singsaas. We visited the farmhouse he grew up in while I was in Norway, where we took a tour of the house and ate lefse out on the house’s front porch.

Back in Wisconsin, my grandfather would prepare the lefse dough in large batches and keep them in the fridge to stay cool. Then, he would roll the dough out and spread it out on the lefse grill to cook. Since the grill was hot, and my grandfather didn’t want me to burn myself, I was relegated to the position of carrying dough from the fridge in the garage to the kitchen inside the house until I was about seven or eight years old.

Once I was old enough, though, I got to cook the lefse myself for the very first time. I waited eagerly in front of the grill, watching as bubbles began to form on top of the lefse as it baked, my grandfather warning me not to flip it too quickly. Then, carefully, exactly as my grandfather had taught me to, I flipped the lefse over to cook on the other side.

When my first lefse was done, I meticulously removed it from the grill, being cautious not to tear the thin, tortilla-like wrap. I placed it on a cloth next to the grill, where my grandmother spread butter and sprinkled sugar on the still-warm lefse before rolling it up, cutting it in half, and handing it to me. It was delicious.

To me, lefse serves as a reminder that even as you grow up and your life changes, traditions, like Christmas and lefse, remain the same. Lefse is the food that I can come back to, again and again, year after year, and never get sick of. Even if you don’t have the same connection to it as I do, you’ll still enjoy this recipe.

Besides the ingredients listed below, you’ll need a lefse grill. The one we use has been in my family for a long time, but if that’s not the case for you, you can purchase one online either from Amazon or a specific lefse grill retailer, of which there are a surprising number. 

Ingredients

• 2 cups potatoes, riced
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tbsp. shortening
• 3 tbsp. half and half
• 1 cup flour

Instructions

1. Rice and cook potatoes without salt. 
2. Mix potatoes and other ingredients in a large bowl until a dough is formed. 
3. Form into long loaf, cut into 6 even pieces.
4.  Take one piece of dough and roll out like a pie crust. 
5. Bake on a lefse grill. 
6. Repeat step 5 with each of the other 5 additional pieces. 
7. Cool on cloth placed on a rack. 
8. Fold into fourths, cut into 4 pieces. 
9. To serve, spread with butter and sprinkle with sugar. Roll into wrap and serve immediately.