A Genius Trick for More Buttery-Tasting Mashed Potatoes (2024)

Since you asked about turning mashed potatoes into glue? My mother insisted on "whipping" hers with a hand-held blender and thought that she was giving us exceptional restaurant quality spuds. My Dad didn't care-give him meat and potatoes of any sort and he was a happy man. The kids of the family? We all ate it only because we had no choice!

Boil potatoes in the cream, butter and herbs . Strain the liquid, then add enough liquid back while mashing. It's the best!

Good to know this is actually a thing, but disappointed as it is the way I've always made mashed potatoes this way and therefore can't make mine magically more buttery.
It has always seemed like the logical way to do things. I don't want to waste butter, and potatoes are a variable product that might need more or less liquid to achieve the right consistency.

I dry the potatoes in the pot, add butter and 2 heads of roasted garlic (immersion blend with enough heavy cream to make a thick paste). Once blended, correct flavor and consistency with more cream, butter and salt.

Now that I read this article it makes so much sense. Thank you for sharing.

My Grandmother use to add cream of tartar to her mashed potatoes... they were always super fluffy and white! I make mine with red potatoes, leaving the skin on, and of course adding the butter first then the cream! Yummy!!

Just the opposite of potato salad, where you want to add the flavorful liquids to the warm potatoes, followed later by the fattier dressing components.

I add a smashed clove of garlic along with the potatoes and boil until tender. Then mash the drained potatoes with buttermilk, salt, and pepper. That's all. Add butter when serving, if desired. Delicious!

You send me e-mails that someone has commented on one of my entries but, I can't find what they commented, just curious, I'd like to know if they agreed or disagreed. Inquiring minds like mine want to know! L.D

This is the method my mom and grandma used and the way I learned. They didn't even bother to melt the butter -just threw in knobs of soft butter that they had left out next to the stove.

I have always added butter first (never melt it but I do chop it up into small pieces), then I add milked warmed up in the microwave.

I am amazed that the gluey concoction could be rescued! Who knew?

Part 2
Following the directions and with the Pate a Choux ready she instructed me to mix equal parts of the Gluey Potatoes with the Pate a Choux, in other words 50/50, and I did.
Once mixed I was instructed to heat vegetable oil to 375 degrees, handed two tablespoons and shown how to scoop and drop dollops of the mixed “batter” into the hot [375 degrees] oil. The croquette shaped (oval) dollops bobbed in the oil, puffed up and very quickly turned golden brown. Once removed from the oil and laid upon a cut open brown paper bag they were salted and allowed to cool to the touch.
Our instructor’s French training truly saved the night as the gobs of ghostly white glue turned out to be my most memorable lesson of seeing a pro keep her cool and turn a potential disaster into the most sought after dish of the evening. None remained when we finished dinner that night.

Part 1
A local Cordon Bleu trained chef offered a French cooking class in her home years ago and I enrolled to check my understanding of what I’d self-taught myself from Julia Child’s books.
During the first night’s class a recently retired, newbie to cooking, male gentleman was given the task of preparing mashed potatoes. He peeled them, cut them to size, cooked them to softness, drain them, let them cool just a bit and then, becuz he’d seen his wife use her food processor at his home, filled the teacher’s processor to the brim. Lid on, unit on, and ever-so-quickly he successfully (sic) produced a container of glue.
When he proudly shows his handy work to our teacher she burst out in laughter and announced to the class “We’ve No Mash Potatoes tonight Class, Instead We’ll be having Potatoes Dauphine…”, and with that she handed me a cookbook and asked me to prepare a recipe of Pate a Choux.

I mash the potatoes, and then add cold butter and mix with a spatula into the butter melts into the potatoes. Next I add the milk or cream, salt and pepper and mix again. I use Yukon golds and find I can usually get away with less butter. So good.

My genius tip for the butteriest mashed potato? No milk. Just butter, salt and pepper. I never add anything else.

As an eager tween in the mid 70's my mother bought a Cuisinart that I still use today. "Wouldn't it be easy to put the spuds in there," I thought. NEVER AGAIN DID I MAKE THAT MISTAKE. Ewwwww.

I always add cold butter w/salt & pepper to the hot potatoes. When those are absorbed, I pour in milk straight from the fridge. My potatoes are still nice and warm. And no extra pots to wash. As far as I'm concerned, I still make the best mashed potatoes I've had and there are no tricks to it.

I've read that some chefs save the boiled potato water and add that back in, I don't know if they omitted the milk or made half potato water and half milk, I guess you could experiment. Melting the butter sounds like a good idea though, I'll have to try it......L.D. Yom Tov!