Finnish rieska, potato flatbread (gluten free!)

Posted: January 14, 2025 Updated: January 14, 2025

I posted a late night photo to Facebook asking if folks wanted a flatbread recipe, it got 300 likes by the time I woke up – yes, yes they do want to know about gluten free potato rieska. 😅 I’m not sure why I didn’t anticipate the enthusiasm, who wouldn’t want a new bread option when gluten free breads can be so limited (and expensive!).

It’s pretty rare that a standard bread recipe converts so well to gluten free, but this Finnish flatbread is perfect. Made with just three ingredients and cooked in the oven. You can have freshly baked bread within 30 minutes.

It’s taken me a little while to get the hang of making this, but after three goes I was definitely much more confident.

Now I’m happy to make extra mashed potatoes knowing that I can make rieska with it the next day or even later that night 😅.

What is rieska

Rieska is actually a pretty generic term for flatbread in Finland. Originating in Northern Finland, there are so many varieties including using rye flour, oat flour, barley and of course, potatoes!

It’s very much about making an easy bread in your own home. I love potato rieska because it uses leftover mashed potatoes, making it a great zero-waste option.

I’ve even made one using carrots! If I figure out a no fail ratio for making carrot rieska (porkkanarieska), I’ll let you all know!

Making gluten free rieska

Because rieska is a flat bread without a need to rise it’s actually an easy one to convert to gluten free. I think the only thing you’d find different is that the dough is more sticky than if you used wheat flour.

In terms of ingredients you only need three things

• Leftover mashed potato
• Egg
• Flour

I’ve used plain flour and self-raising for this recipe. It was an accident that I used plain recently but it didn’t make a difference!

While I’ve got measurements in the recipe you’ll likely need to adapt it a bit yourself. After all, who has exactly 220g of leftover mashed potato?

I have made gluten free rieska with as little as 100g of mashed potato. I still used a whole egg because I didn’t want to waste a half. I top up with flour until the mix becomes a workable dough.

The two most important things when making this, I would say, are pressing the dough out very thinly and a very hot oven.  200℃ or even 220℃ depending on what your oven is like will help it cook, brown, and if you’re lucky give a little puff in the 10 – 15 minute cooking time.

How to serve rieska

Being a flat bread there’s no cutting of this one. I had a friend ask me if you can slice open like a sandwich thin. I’m going to say no, it’s too thin for that.

Typically you’d top rieska with butter and then whatever you like! My husband always has cheese. Cucumber slices on top of cheese is very Finnish.

Bread is eaten with every meal in Finland. It’s very typical to have a side of bread at both lunch and dinner.

I used to get mad at my husband when I made a nice meal and he’d go get a piece of bread with cheese and ham on the side. It felt like he was cheating on my dinner with his side bread!

One meal I really like having rieska with is lohikeitto, a traditional Finnish salmon soup, which of course is also gluten free.

How to store gluten free rieska

I’ll be frank, rieska is best eaten fresh out of the oven with butter so it melts everywhere. Because this rieska is gluten free, I think it has the same issue as most GF bakes which is that it can become a bit stiff as it ages.

When I’ve made it I have put it in a container on the bench and eaten it the next day. I usually give it a little zap in the microwave (30 seconds) to warm it up. I have noticed that it is a little bit drier, but still tasty.

If you’re working with less than 200g of mashed potato, you’re only going to make a few pieces. So just eat it all on the day and enjoy.

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Finnish potato flatbread, peruna rieska

An easy flatbread made with just three ingredients ready in under 30 minutes. You'll never look at leftover mashed potatoes the same way.

5 from 1 vote

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 13 minutes mins

Total Time 28 minutes mins

Course Bread

Cuisine Finnish

Servings 8 breads

Equipment

• 1 Mixing bowl
• 1 Baking tray
• Baking paper optional

Ingredients

  

• 220 g mashed potato
• 1 egg
• 110 g gluten free flour see notes
• rice flour or regular flour for dusting and shaping

Instructions

 

• Preheat your oven to 220℃.
• Crack an egg into your mixing bowl and add the mashed potato. Mix to combine. Note you can also add some salt at this stage, but if your potatoes were already seasoned this may not be necessary.
  1 egg, 220 g mashed potato
• Add in flour gradually, mixing well until a dough forms. I found my dough very sticky at 100g, and more workable at 110g.
  110 g gluten free flour
• Dust your baking tray with some flour (or baking tray + baking paper if using).
  rice flour or regular flour
• Scoop dough (about 40g per scoop / ping pong ball size?) and coat with dusting flour.
• Using your fingers gently press the dough out into a circular shape, making it very thin. Mine were about 13cm in diameter.
• Bake in the oven for 11 – 13 minutes. You do not need to turn over the bread, but depending on your oven you may want to rotate the tray at the half way point to ensure even browning.
• Serve with butter or whatever you please!

Notes

Flour: I realised as I was writing this up that when I made this most recently I used Caputo gluten free flour. This a plain flour, when I’d usually be using self-raising. 

It actually worked well with both, so it’ll be absolutely fine!

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