recipes:
The Basics
The Basics: How to Make Mashed Potatoes
Creamy, buttery, and good with Thanksgiving gravy
From the store to the kitchen to the table: We outline the steps that get you from raw ingredients to your dinner tonight, free of measurements and complicated techniques. It’s a method you’ll remember and whip out whenever you like. It is the most basic way to make the thing you’re making.
- WHAT YOU’LL NEED:
- - a vegetable peeler
- - a large pot
- - a potato masher
- - four or five large russet potatoes
- - salt and pepper
- - a stick of butter
- - a pint of cream
WHAT YOU’LL DO:
VIEW ONE STEP AT A TIME | PRINT PDF
1. Wash and peel the potatoes, then cut them into large chunks and place them in the pot.
2. Cover the potatoes with cold water by an inch or two and add a generous amount of salt. (You want the water to taste like the ocean.) Place the pot on the stove over high heat.
3. Once the water boils, reduce the heat and simmer the potatoes until they are easily pierced with a knife, about 20 minutes.
4. Drain the potatoes in a colander and let them rest in the sink while you prepare the butter and cream.
5. Combine the butter and cream in the pot you cooked the potatoes in. Cook over low heat, stirring until the butter has melted and the cream is hot.
6. Turn off the heat and add the drained potatoes to the hot butter-cream mixture. Mash the potatoes until they are fluffy and creamy. Season with salt and pepper to taste. See more Thanksgiving Basics.
Illustrations by Bill Russell
For more flavorful potatoes use Yukon Golds and the secret to perfectly fluffy mashed potatoes, return drained potatoes to the pan and turn the burner on low and mash them halfway, allowing excess water to boil/steam out. Turn off the burner and then add the butter and cream and finish mashing. Perfect potatoes.
We've always added a couple of dollups of sourcream and whipped the potatoes with a hand mixer. Sooo good! Be careful not to over whip though.
The only step I don't do is add salt to the potatoes while they boil...I add it when the potatoes are whipped...no big deal...one thing that dramatically improved my mashed potatoes was heating the cream or milk and butter before adding the hot potatoes like they do in this recipe...that is a very important step and really improves the dish!
Use half the cream and use low-salt chicken broth. Instead of a masher, MDK's hand mixer makes whipped potatoes alot easier!
I love the tip of heating the cream and butter first. Genius!
Salting potato water for mashed potatoes is kind of silly. Not only is it an extra step/wasted time, but you're throwing salt down the drain. Seasoning them with salt/pepper at the same time you add the cream is more than sufficient.
You add salt to boiling water so that it penetrates foods- foods that remain intact, like pasta or veggies, not something you completely pulverize down the line, such as mashed potatoes.
Also, it's a good rule of thumb to mash the potatoes dry, then fold in the liquid/seasoning. The less agitation of the final product, the less starch is released, the less gummy they get. Mashing potatoes dry comes the closest to mimicking the effect of a ricer- the implement of choice for most professional chefs.
I've found steaming potatoes works quite well and goes faster than I thought it would. I don't have to waste so much time waiting for the water to boil either since there's such a small amount in the pan.