16 Creamy, Buttery Mashed Potato Recipes for a Side That Steals the Show (2024)

FAQs

Why add butter before milk in mashed potatoes? ›

Overworking the potatoes will cause them to get gummy, potatoes should still be light and fluffy. 6. Add the butter first. Adding the butter first helps to coat the starch in the potato, resulting in a creamier potato.

Anthony Bourdain's Robuchon-style mashed potatoes take inspiration from Michelin-starred chef Joël Robuchon, who is famous for his buttery mashed potatoes. The recipe calls for a whopping six sticks of unsalted butter and only a half-cup of heavy cream.

Mashed potatoes can have butter and perhaps a bit of milk. Creamed (or whipped) potatoes are beaten with an electric mixer -- or one of those old-time hand-held manual mixers -- and they have lots of butter and cream to create a smoother texture. I've even seen a friend creaming her potatoes in a huge food processor.

Adding egg yolks to a pot of mashed potatoes is an easy, dairy-free texture and taste upgrade that doesn't require any special techniques. The yolks harbor all the flavorful fats and emulsifying components and will thus effectively unify the fat and water in potatoes, translating to a smoother, uniformly creamy pot.

Mash potatoes with half-and-half or milk using a potato masher. Add in the cream cheese and smash until the cheese melts into the potatoes. Add chives or scallions. Season with salt and pepper, to your taste.

Instead of regular milk, pro chefs generally use a generous helping of buttermilk and plenty of half-and-half or (even better) heavy cream in their potatoes. If you think the bartenders up front are pouring heavy, they've got nothing on the cooks in the back who are in charge of the mashed potatoes.

The Best Mashed Potato Recipe In The World. With just four ingredients, Joel Robuchon's luxurious puree de pomme really brings the wow factor. Buttery mashed potatoes. Photo, Erik Putz.

Heavy Cream - While you, hypothetically, could use whole milk or something, I don't recommend it. Part of what makes these the creamiest mashed potatoes is the CREAM! Use the cream, we aren't eating mashed potatoes for our health. Sour Cream - This recipe is rich and it needs some tanginess for balance.

Is milk or cream better for mashed potatoes? I use half-and-half: it gives the potatoes the perfect creamy texture and rich taste. As a half-and-half substitute, you could also use heavy cream or whole milk. Whichever you use, just start with a little and add more as you need it.

According to The Kitchn, sour cream is much denser than milk and so you'd end up with very stiff potatoes if sour cream replaces the milk in your recipe. Because milk is a liquid, it helps take the potatoes' stiffer mass and soften it, giving them their signature texture.

What do professional chefs use to mash potatoes? ›

The secret weapon, a good potato ricer (affiliate). This pushes the potatoes into strings, which helps them soak up every bit of the cream and achieve maximum fluffliness.

Garnish With Herbs

Speaking of delicious green things, both woody herbs like sage, rosemary, and thyme, and leafy herbs like dill can add freshness to this starchy side. A herb-based sauce like pesto swirled into mashed potatoes is another way to add vibrant flavor.

If you're looking for a fluffy, dry texture in a potato, especially for mashed, roasted, or fried potatoes, Gordon Ramsay suggests you opt for a floury type of potato like a King Edward, with a smooth, creamy flesh, a Desiree, which comes with red skin, or a Heritage potato, which comes in several different colors, ...