8 Mistakes You're Probably Making When Cooking Mashed Potatoes

Updated on Nov 28, 2019 at 1:10 PM

POPSUGAR Photography | Nicole Perry

Mashed potatoes are a nonnegotiable staple at any Thanksgiving table, and they're nearly impossible to screw up . . . right? Well, turns out there are a few crucial mistakes that could make all the difference between smooth, fluffy mashed potatoes and gluey, bland ones. And it doesn't matter whether you're bringing the beloved side to Friendsgiving or helping your mom in the kitchen at home before your family arrives, you want them to be perfect. These are eight mistakes to fix if you want to avoid underwhelming mashed potatoes and serve perfect ones that everyone will devour.

Adding your potatoes to boiling water.

Unlike pasta, you don't want to let the water come to a boil before adding the potatoes. To properly cook the potatoes, add them to a pot and then cover with cold water, enough to cover about an inch above the potatoes.

Not salting the water.

Just like you should liberally salt the water for pasta, it's important to do the same for mashed potatoes to infuse them with flavor. Add salt to the water as the potatoes are cooking and you won't have to add as much later.

Not cutting the potatoes into even chunks.

It's important to cut the potatoes into even chunks so that they cook evenly. You don't want to end up with partly mushy and partly hard potatoes when it comes time to mash them.

Not draining the potatoes enough.

Soggy mashed potatoes? No thank you. Take an extra minute when draining the potatoes to make sure every last drop of water comes out before adding the potatoes back to the hot pot.

Adding the butter and cream straight from the fridge.

You shouldn't add cold butter, milk, or cream to your freshly drained, hot potatoes because it will cool everything down and won't blend in as smoothly. Allow your ingredients to come to room temperature before mixing them in.

Overworking the potatoes in a food processor or blender.

Gluey mashed potatoes are the worst, and the quickest way to get them is by overworking your mashed potatoes. Mash the potatoes while they're still hot and dry, and don't mash them in a food processor or blender, no matter how tempting the quick preparation may seem. Overworked potatoes quickly develop an undesirably starchy consistency.

Not trying this trick: cooking the potatoes in cream.

Chef Tyler Florence's mashed potato recipe has a hack to end them all: cook the potatoes in cream instead of water. "Potatoes have a really delicate, beautiful minerality to their flavor profile, and when you cook potatoes in water and you pour that water down the drain, you've extracted all the flavor of the potato," he told us when explaining the method. If you're going to add butter and cream to your potatoes anyway, you might as well cook them in the flavorful mixture (along with garlic and herbs) and then fold it back into the potatoes after draining them.

Thinking inside the box when it comes to mix-ins.

Yes, butter and cream are essential to fluffy and decadent mashed potatoes, but the traditional ingredients aren't the only ones you can incorporate. Don't be afraid to experiment with your favorite mix-ins to make customized mashed potatoes, like pesto mashed potatoes, garlic and sour cream mashed potatoes, and rosemary paremsan mashed potatoes.