Layered Mashed Potato Casserole | Slimming World recipes (2024)

FAQs

Can you make mashed potatoes ahead of time and reheat them? ›

Make-ahead mashed potatoes are a great option for the holidays. You can do nearly everything — boil, peel, and mash; stir in milk and salt — up to two days ahead. Before serving, reheat. Adding butter at the last minute makes them taste freshly mashed.

Add Egg Yolks For Richer And Creamier Homemade Mashed Potatoes. Eggs are an almighty staple with multifaceted culinary powers that can thicken, flavor, emulsify, and bind ingredients in countless recipes from baked goods to soups to sauces.

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 yolk emulsifies water and fat to create a cohesive, velvety bite, while providing a little fat and body of its own. You can add an egg yolk to nearly any existing mashed potato recipe. If you are worried about the yolk flavor being too dominant, start with a ratio of one yolk for every pound and a half of potatoes.

Add more cream and butter: More moisture and fat are the two secret ingredients to reheating any leftovers. For potatoes, reach for half-and-half or broth and butter. Cover and heat low and slow: Cover the baking dish and set it in a 350°F oven alongside any turkey leftovers you might be reheating too.

For the silkiest fluffy mashed potatoes, start with firm, cool Russet Burbank spuds, also known as baking potatoes. They're the easiest to mash without becoming pasty and are even tastier steamed instead of boiled.

Add the butter and warm milk to the bowl and mash with a potato masher or fork (or pass the potatoes through a ricer or food mill for a smoother mash). Season with salt and pepper. Plan on 1/3 to 1/2 pound potatoes per person for your feast.

Regular flour can also be used to thicken your potatoes as well, but I don't love using it because its raw flavor needs to be cooked out, and it more noticeably dulls the flavor of the potatoes themselves.

Add a Thickening Agent

This is the most common way to thicken mashed potatoes. You can use what you have on hand: Flour, cornstarch, or powdered milk are all solid options that are probably already in your pantry. Potato flour and potato starch would work as well.

Starch is released when potatoes are mashed, smashed, or whipped, and, if too much starch is released, the potatoes are gummy and unappealing. Limit the amount of time you handle the potatoes, mashing or whipping only until the potatoes reach the desired consistency.

Why do people add sour cream to mashed potatoes? ›

Sour cream adds a little bit of tangy flavor and a boost of richness to mashed potatoes. It's a fun change from the standard milk or cream and butter combo usually flavoring mashed taters. You can even try your hand at making homemade sour cream from heavy cream!

The secret ingredient is just ice-cold water.

You soak the potatoes in iced water before they are cooked. This eliminates much of the starches in the potatoes, resulting in a super light and fluffy mash. It's also like when you make rice.

I tried Ina Garten's simple recipe for mashed potatoes, and I loved the secret ingredient. In addition to Yukon Gold potatoes, butter, and milk, the ingredient list includes lemon zest.

The very best mashed potatoes start with a ricer, a relatively inexpensive piece of kitchen equipment that forces your cooked food through tiny holes. "If you don't have a ricer, you could use a stand mixer, a hand mixer and you could even use a whisk if you've cooked your potatoes properly," Harvey said.

If you'd like to replicate his mouthwatering recipe, the chef used peeled Yukon Gold potatoes. He was sure to not rinse them too much as he wanted to keep the starch, explaining that the starch gives the mashed potatoes their depth and richness.