Mashed potatoes in advance. Comments please.

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Would love to do my mashed potatoes ahead next year. Used organic Yukon Golds yesterday and didn't get them creamy or fluffy enough. Is this pretty much a function of how much butter/milk-cream is added, or whether you use a potato masher or a hand-held beater?

Girl, in my opinion, the success of perfect mashed potatoes begins with not mashing them with a masher, or a hand held beater, which will give you potato glue. Once you've used a potato ricer, you'll never do it any other way.
 
I have seen them in shrink wrapped bags also. Just drop in boiling water and heat.
We tried it at a restaurant I worked at once. We never had enough orders for mashed at lunch time, so we just bagged a few the previous evening. We would drop them in an insert of hot water in the steam table and they turned out fine. We cut a hole in the corner of the baggy and squeezed them out of the bag and curled them up like doggy poop. Sorry. It got pretty boring there, somedays.:LOL:


I have had good results freezing the high fat make ahead mashed potato casserole leftovers. I portion them in plastic sandwich bags, squeeze out the air and pop them in the freezer. I thaw mine and heat them in the microwave but, I think I will try your boil in bag method. I think I will even try your doggy poop swirl. Do you swirl clockwise or counter clockwise? It gets pretty boring here almost everyday.:LOL:
 
Girl, in my opinion, the success of perfect mashed potatoes begins with not mashing them with a masher, or a hand held beater, which will give you potato glue. Once you've used a potato ricer, you'll never do it any other way.

I've never been good at mashed potato. Sometimes it's because i've over/under cooked and then I can't make it smooth. I will try a ricer, thanks
 
If I make mashies from scratch, I don't slice and boil the potatoes. I bake some russets, whole, for about 45 minutes, cut them in half, and use a big serving spoon to take them out of the skins. Then I run them through the potato ricer, put them into a microwave safe serving bowl, mix in milk or half & half, butter and a little bit of sea salt, and nuke them to serving temperature. For home use just for myself, I'll buy prepared mashed potatoes. If I run low, I will sometimes even fortify them with Betty Crocker Potato Buds.
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BTW, I didn't buy the potato ricer for mashed potatoes, I bought it to frost my world famous spaghetti & meatballs cake!
 
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The Idahoan brand instant is really tasty and easy for everyday mashed.
 
I buy organic potatoes and they are not uniform in size, so I cut my potatoes into uniform size chunks. Sometimes I peel them first. Other times I just mash them with the peel on :rolleyes:

I use some of the potato cooking water to mash my potatoes, that's all. They still turn out yummy.

I like this potato masher:

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I don't like this kind:
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How do you get rid of the lumps?

I have occasionally used a food mill to rice potatoes, but I prefer my masher.
 
I made my potatoes 2 days before Thanksgiving this year and then reheated them and added the "goodie." They turned out amazing! I so liked not having to peel, cut up, boil, and mash them before dinner. I will make mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving this way from now on!

On another note, my mother taught me to add about 1/4-1/2 tsp of baking powder to the mashed potatoes when you are adding the butter and milk to make them lighter and more fluffy. I've usually use the mixer when mashing my potatoes and they always turn out fluffy and creamy when I add the baking powder.
 
The Idahoan brand instant is really tasty and easy for everyday mashed.

It's too late for your sojourn to Costco, but they have a good Instant Mashed Potato, the brand is "Honest Earth." Quite tasty and one of the reasons Shrek will cook dinner for me on occasion.
 
PrincessFiona60 said:
It's too late for your sojourn to Costco, but they have a good Instant Mashed Potato, the brand is "Honest Earth." Quite tasty and one of the reasons Shrek will cook dinner for me on occasion.

Good to know. I'm keeping a running Costco list on the fridge door. I got a huge box of Idahoan packets there last year.
 
Good to know. I'm keeping a running Costco list on the fridge door. I got a huge box of Idahoan packets there last year.

I do doctor them, double the butter, add pepper. I fed them to my Mom and had to convince her they were instant.
 
The type of pot is vital for good mash. Mashed Potato - Potato Council

It's too bad we really have to search to find different varieties of potatoes around here. Typical supermarkets have russets and reds and "baby" potatoes of either. It was like a miracle when they started having Yukon Golds readily available.

For all of our American excesses, we're really limited in many ways. We're stuck with uniformly sized and boring potatoes instead of be offered a variety.
 
This is the site I use to pick my seed pots each year, I have about 160 lbs of 3 types in winter store, Cara for jkt spuds, Roosters for roast and french fries, Maris Pipers for mash. I use these most years, we will use Charlotte again next year for salads and pick 2 other types. The British Potato Variety Database
 

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