This recipe for “Make-Ahead Mashed Potatoes for a Crowd” will come in handy for Thanksgiving. Christmas, too. It’s a bit of everyday cooking that everyone should know about.
Make-Ahead Mashed Potatoes for a Crowd
20-30
servings25
minutes55
minutes1
hour20
minutesTake the butter out of the fridge first.
Ingredients
3 sticks of butter
10 lbs. Idaho potatoes, peeled, halved, and sliced into 1/2-inch chunks
2½ Tbs salt
4 cups of milk (see sour cream substitution)
4 light pinches of nutmeg
four regular-sized pinches (a four-second grind) of finely-ground pepper
2 cups heavy cream, for reheating
Directions
- Take the butter out of the fridge, so that it will soften a bit as you carry out next steps.
- Place the potatoes into an enormous pot (or two large pots). Cover with cold water by 1 inch. Set the pot on a large burner set to high heat. Add salt (dividing it between the pots, if using two). Cover and bring to a simmer, about 16 minutes. Lower the heat to just slightly north of low, and continue to simmer with the lid askew until the potatoes are fork tender, about 10 minutes. Strain.
- Warm the milk in the microwave for perhaps 1½ minutes at 100%.
- Toss the butter into the potatoes, pour in the milk, and add the nutmeg and pepper, dividing all of it between the batches. Mash the potatoes by hand with a potato masher, until you’re just starting to approach their desired consistency, and then stir and fold as necessary with a flexible spatula to finish them off off.
- The potatoes can be kept warm (in an Instant Pot, covered and set to the KEEP WARM setting) for as many as 4 hours, or they can be allowed to cool for no more than 2 hours, and then refrigerated for 4 hours or more (see Social Learning, below).
- To reheat, set an 6-quart Instant Pot to the KEEP WARM setting. Reheat the potatoes in the microwave in easy-to-manage batches. As you move the first reheated batch to the Instant Pot, check it for salt (it probably won’t need any) and consistency (add cream to loosen, as needed – you likely will not use all the cream).
Notes
- Substitutions: replace ¼ cup of the milk with ½ cup of sour cream – this is an especially good idea if you’re using low- or no-fat milk … however, it may add an element of tang to the potatoes, so go easy. Add it bit by bit and taste as you go.
I’ve often heard that you cannot make mashed potatoes ahead of time. To my way of thinking, that statement is a bit too simple to be the whole truth. The key is in how far ahead you make them.
Options
Option 1: keep them warm for up to four hours. As far as I’m concerned – and I’m not fussy but I am discriminating – these are just as good as freshly made. You can do this with an Instant Pot, or a steam table. A steam table? Yes, I have a stand-alone roaster that doubles as one. I bought it so long ago that I think it might qualify as something from another era. You can also MacGyver one; look it up.
Option 2: let them cool for no more than two hours, and then refrigerate them for up to four hours. Some might call this a “transition” rather than a true make-ahead. The potatoes may need liquid (milk or cream) to loosen them up after being reheated, but it will be easy to return them to their freshly-made state.
Option 3: same as Option 2, but keep them refrigerated for up to 24 hours. It will be more difficult to return them to their freshly made state.
Discussion
The first two options are useful, because they move the potatoes out of the “last minute” phase of putting together a huge feast.
With Option 3, what people say about not being able to make them ahead comes true. Over time, the starches in the potatoes will firm up; the potatoes will need work to become creamy again. The flavors will have had more time to meld, and may become muted. You can compensate for all of this with more cream/milk/sour cream, butter, and salt – but the more you add ingredients, the further away you move from the original.
Nonetheless, getting the potatoes out of the way the day before can be a huge help, so sometimes I do it. When I do, I skimp on the additions to the potatoes, leaving them tasty, but way too stiff. That way, when I add more ingredients in the reheating phase, I’m adding what I would’ve added originally, instead of adding “more.” (More or less.) You can get good – maybe not stunning, but good – results this way.
The Backstory
You can mash potatoes in so many ways. I prefer to use a hand masher, because I like my mashed potatoes to be a bit on the rustic side. Do I like them to be creamy? Yes, but small bits of potato here and there are fine by me. I feel like it gives them more potato flavor.
There’s so much obsession over having “perfect” mashed potatoes, especially around Thanksgiving. I have a friend who is a chef, and we’ve cooked together on many, many occasions. I say “cooked together,” but that usually means I watch, do what I can to assist, and ask a lot of questions. He puts up with it. 🙂 He once told me that I should not try to make “bakery” versions of desserts, or “restaurant quality” food. Those are for bakeries and restaurants, he said. He said that homemade food should seem homemade. “Homemade” is it’s own thing, and at home, you should strive to be good at that. He didn’t mean that “homemade” should be lesser than, or that it shouldn’t be as delicious as you can make it, but that it should be less fussy. I’ve definitely taken that to heart.
Make-Ahead Mashed Potatoes for a Crowd
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