Easy Russet Mashed Potatoes
I absolutely love mashed potatoes. You can make them creamy with Cream Cheese Mashed Potatoes. Or you can go all rustic with no peel Yukon Gold Mashed Potatoes. Or heck, prepare to be shocked and make these Dairy Free Mashed Potatoes. Or you can go incredibly simple with my go to favorite mashed potatoes recipe. I hate to call these “basic” because they are far from basic tasting, but they are so simple. Made with potatoes, milk, butter and salt – there’s nothing fancy about them. They’re just great tasting homemade creamy mashed potatoes that your kids will ask you for seconds. 9/10 times when I make mashed potatoes for dinner, it’s this recipe here. I hope you try them soon!
Best Potatoes For Mashed Potatoes
I recommend using Russet, Idaho or Yukon potatoes for mashed potatoes.
Russet Mashed Potatoes Ingredients
Potatoes, you will need 2 pounds of Russet potatoes. Peel them and chop into 1-2 inch size pieces. If you don’t have Russet, you can use Idaho instead. Salt, this gets added into the water while they’re boiling. Milk, I use whole milk for ours. You can use heavy cream or half-and-half instead of milk if you’d like them to be super creamy. Butter Salt and Pepper to taste.
How to Make Mashed Potatoes From Scratch
Peel and chop your potatoes. I am a lazy peeler and leave a little bit of skins on them, but you can peel them clean if you want Chop them up into 1-2 inch pieces, the key is cutting them to be the same size so they cook evenly.
Add potatoes to a large pot of water, along with salt.
Cook until a fork easily slides into the potatoes, about 15-20 minutes.
Drain the potatoes and place back into the pot.
With a spoon, masher or your hand mixer (don’t turn it on yet), mash up the potatoes. This helps break them down before you mix them.
Add milk and butter into the pot and turn your hand mixer on and mix until creamy and smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Adjust as needed, need to be more creamy? Add a little bit more milk or butter until you have the consistency you want. I like to add 2 tablespoons of butter at a time, and/or just a small splash of milk. Sometimes you need to adjust to get the perfect consistency if you used slightly more than 2 pounds of potatoes.
Eat them! Enjoy!
Storing Leftover Mashed Potatoes
Store leftover mashed potatoes in a container in the fridge for 3-4 days. You can also freeze mashed potatoes if you have lots of leftovers! Pin for later:
