There is not a lot to write about homemade mashed potatoes so I imagine this will be a pretty short post. They are delicious and have entirely too much saturated fat to be included in my regular rotation of dinner sides, but for Thanksgiving or other celebrations or big family dinners? Yes please.
Granted this is a pretty big batch, you could probably half this recipe and be fine for a dinner for four, maybe even more than fine. But since I don’t normally make these mashed potatoes very often, I went ahead and just kept the recipe as is for a larger crowd.
I suppose you could also cut back on the butter if you like, to reduce the calories and the saturated fat content, but they won’t taste as good! Same with the salt, these potatoes really need a generous hand.
My recipe was based upon Claire Saffitz’s NYT’s recipe but I took the liberty to change up a few amounts as her recipe is really for a large crowd even though it states that it serves only 8. That would be over half a pound of buttery mashed potatoes for each of the eight recipients, that seems like a lot to me!
The two key takeaways from her recipe, and many others, are to work with two pots, one to heat up the butter and milk and the second for the potatoes, which is used again to dry off the potatoes after boiling them and before mashing them.
Basically one pot is used to boil your peeled and chopped potato pieces until just tender, and the second pot is used to gently heat your milk, butter and other flavorings such as garlic and thyme if desired.
Once the potatoes are boiled to the point where it is easy to slide a knife in and then back out they are dumped out into a colander, water drained, and then the potatoes go back into the hot pot that was just emptied. As the potato pieces sit in the hot pot they will dry off a little bit, which is the desired result.
At that point, the warm milk and butter mixture is poured over the top, and using your favorite mashing utensil, mash away and combine until you have achieved your desired level or smoothness or lumpiness.
And then season to taste.
Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lb russet potatoes
- 1 1/2 lb yellow potatoes
- 1 1/2 cups whole milk
- 8 tbsp butter 1 stick cut into smaller pieces
- 1 tbsp sea salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 4-6 cloves garlic cloves, peeled and crushed optional
- 3-5 sprigs thyme optional
Instructions
- peel and rough chop the potatoes
- place into pot, cover with water and place on stove over med-high heat
- add generous amount of salt to water and bring to a boil until potatoes are fork-tender
- while potatoes are boiling, add whole milk and butter (and garlic and thyme if desired) to a second pot and keep warm, but not boiling
- when potatoes are fork-tender pour into colander and drain, and then place back into still hot pot and let potatoes dry out a bit
- pour warm milk and butter mixture over potatoes, removing garlic and thyme if used, and mash until they reach desired consistency and the potatoes have absorbed all of the liquid
- season with salt and pepper to taste and serve warm
I tried my best to come up with a fair and realistic nutritional panel for these homemade mashed potatoes, but I really feel that the online calculator that I used undersold the caloric load of the potatoes, especially the Yukon Golds. Not sure whey I couldn’t get an entry that I liked on that ingredient, but my guess is that the information below is a little low on the calorie side.
As I’ve mentioned before on other posts, these nutritional panels won’t be exact, but should be close enough to give you an idea of what we are working with. Plus I have no idea how big of a mound of mashed potatoes you are consuming or how big the potatoes you mashed were.
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