On Thanksgiving, mashed potatoes are, for a lot of, an integral a part of the meal, with its craters serving as tidal swimming pools for gravy and cranberry sauce. To mess them up is a tragedy disappointment. However making good mashed potatoes is not solely in regards to the recipe you select: It is also in regards to the approach you utilize to execute that recipe (or, if following the tactic as written, figuring out what kind of ultimate mash it would produce).

We put 4 strategies to the take a look at to be able to use the approach that is best for you—whether or not you are searching for potatoes which are creamy (hand-mashed), silky (food-milled), or glue stand-ins (food-processed). Plus, we have added a number of additional simple concepts that can positively turn out to be useful should you do not occur to have a cumbersome potato masher (or any of those different instruments) mendacity round your kitchen.

The overall rules are as follows:

1. (Get this one embroidered on a pillow.) The much less you mess with the potatoes, the lighter they will be. Repeatedly bashing the potatoes (or placing them in a meals processor—consult with rule 6) will injury the potato cells in order that extra starch is included right into a remaining mash, giving it a gummy consistency that’s, within the phrases of Molly Wizenberg, “gooey and bizarre.”
2. This clearly presents a problem as a result of smoother potatoes should be messed with so as to, properly, get that approach.
3. Thus, the answer for ethereal, chunk-free mashed potatoes is a meals mill or ricer, which disturbs the potatoes the least and offers lump-free outcomes.
4. Use a hand masher for chunkier, extra textural potatoes which are nonetheless mild and creamy.
5. Use a stand mixer or electrical hand mixer for densely creamy potatoes, the heavy type you must use your fork as forklift to move from plate to mouth.
6. However do not go too far as soon as you’ve got reached the creamy-dense-rich place, and, generally, avoid the meals processor: Dense shortly turns to sticky.
7. Potato kind issues, too: We advocate Russets, as does Kenji over on Severe Eats: Russets have cells that, as Kenji places it, “readily fall other than one another.” Meaning you do not have to prepare dinner them or work them too arduous to realize a easy consistency and, referring to rule 1, much less work offers you a fluffier mash.

You should use these guidelines alone to anticipate the mashed potato kind any given recipe will yield: The crushed Silver Palate’s Thanksgiving Mashed Potatoes, blended electrically, are supposed to be denser than Diane Morgan’s Traditional Mashed Potatoes, which she recommends you cross by means of a meals mill, for instance.

However how does altering the approach in a single recipe, whereas holding all different elements the identical, alter the completed dish? We made the identical recipe—we selected Derek Laughren‘s Pre-Seasoned Mashed Potatoes due to its simplicity (just for cream and butter (versus bitter cream, cream cheese, and all kinds of different complicators)—with 4 totally different methods:

1. Meals mill (just like potato ricer)
2. Meals processor
3. Hand masher
4. Stand mixer

For the primary technique, we milled the potatoes earlier than folding within the cream and butter. For the opposite methods, nevertheless, we crushed the potatoes as we progressively added the fat.

Meals Mill:

The potatoes that put by means of the meals mill had been the smoothest of the bunch, so ethereal that they are scooped simply with a finger, so mild they dissolve in your mouth with none chewing in your half. You may see within the photograph that the milled potatoes type spoonfuls so satiny that they appear extra like scoops of vanilla ice cream than scoops of mashed tubers.

What is the distinction between a mill and a ricer? A ricer is an extrusion software, by which cooked potatoes are plunged by means of tiny holes (a large garlic press), obliterating any probability of textural anomaly. A meals mill does an analogous job, however somewhat than power the potatoes by means of holes in a downward movement, it whirs them ‘spherical and ‘spherical, utilizing centripetal and downward strain to power them by means of the perforations. Whereas mills are much less light than ricers (thereby producing potatoes not fairly as fluffy), they’re extra versatile across the kitchen.

Our crew known as the milled potatoes the “lightest” but in addition “bland,” “ricey,” and “grainy,” with “not a lot taste.”

Meals Processor:

The potatoes blended within the meals processor had been far and away the stickiest, glue-iest, and glom-iest—it was tough to even unfold the inside track into a good swatch.

Whereas some Meals52 tasters known as the meals processed potatoes “gluey” and “sticky,” others stated they had been “wealthy and buttery,” “custardy even,” and “not dangerous” (although “not the most effective“). So whereas most mashed potato-meisters would admonish you to avoid the meals processor, should you do like a forkful that sticks to the highest of your mouth, peanut butter-style, go for it.

Hand Masher:

The potatoes mashed by hand had creamy lumps and had been wealthy however not overwhelmingly dense. Meals52 tasters stated they had been the “saltiest, similar to they need to be” (although no extra salt was added) and lots of remarked on the “scrumptious butter taste” (although, once more, no extra butter was added).

Whereas some hand mashers have a squiggly S palm, many specialists desire the instruments that look, truly, like primitive ricers: “One of the best mashers, accessible from Oxo, Rosle and others,” writes Julia Moskin within the New York Occasions, “are these with a flat face, a grid sample and crisp edges the place the potato meets the masher. These mashers mimic the extrusion impact of a ricer, work simply as properly and are simpler to handle, producing fluffy mountains with a minimal of lumps, butter and bodily exertion.”

Stand Mixer:

As you’re employed the potatoes with machine power, they go from light-fluffy to dense-creamy. “In case you like your mashed potatoes extra-creamy,” declares Good Housekeeping, “use your hand or stand mixer as a substitute [of a ricer]. Simply watch fastidiously and cease when the potatoes are silky-textured—earlier than they develop into gluey.”

Electrically-mixed potatoes mix the smoothness of milled potatoes with the denseness of the often-lumpy hand-mashed, however our tasters additionally known as them “bland,” “blah,” and “meh,” with “one vote for the worst.” This could possibly be a product of the blending itself: When extra of the starch molecules are left intact, the butter and dairy can coat every particular person particle, making the potatoes creamy, and, it appears, permitting a extra pronounced butter taste to come back by means of.

• If you need silky-smoothness, use a meals mill or a ricer.
• If you need lumpy and light-but-creamy, mash by hand (a ricer-like masher will produce the lightest, least chunky outcomes).
• If you need gummy (…are these of you on the market?), go along with the meals processor.
• If you need dense, hefty, and uniform, escape an electrical mixer.

In case you do not occur to have any of those instruments—like a hand masher, meals processor, electrical mixer, meals mill, or potato ricer—do not fret, there are nonetheless loads of different objects mendacity round your kitchen you need to use to make creamy mashed potatoes.

As an illustration, do you’ve gotten a fork in your cutlery drawer? (I wager you do.) If that’s the case, then you’ll be able to truly use a big fork on cubed, freshly boiled potatoes drizzled in heat cream and melted butter to interrupt and fluff them up till they’re as easy or as chunky as you want them. With this technique specifically, you’ll obtain the consistency you like.

One other simple possibility: use a sturdy whisk. You don’t need the flimsy, silicone type, however somewhat a strong stainless-steel whisk with a good-size deal with to be able to break up these potato bits.

Probably the most low-tech, but completely workable concept: use the underside of a mug. It’d really feel somewhat rudimentary, however should you’re actually in a pinch, then you’ll be able to completely use the underside of a mug to smush the potatoes till they attain a mashed consistency.

Do you swear by your meals mill for excellent mashed potatoes? Or do you utilize the again of a wood spoon? Inform us within the feedback!

This recipe has been up to date by the Meals52 editors in 2019 to incorporate new potato-mashing ideas and methods.