You Can Make Instant Mashed Potatoes Taste Homemade (Seriously)

Welcome to The Cheater’s Guide to Thanksgiving. While there are plenty of tips out there for folks making scratch desserts and artisan loaves, the Cheater’s Guide focuses on the person who could use a helping hand—even from some unconventional sources. Some might call it “cheating” (like that’s a bad thing), but there’s nothing wrong with using modern technology and supermarket know-how to help you make a bangin’ traditional feast—with much less of the traditional work.

Mashed potatoes don’t have a reputation for being threateningly complex. The ingredient list is rather light—potatoes, milk, salt, and butter. The mashing itself is actually quite therapeutic, especially when you’ve been cooking all day (and dealing with your extended family). But when it comes to peeling, chopping, and boiling five pounds of spuds, it can become a real time and space problem. Well, if you’d like to cheat your potatoes a bit, you’re in the right place. You can actually make a whopping pile of delicious, fluffy mashed potatoes without even touching the stove. You just have to sell your soul a little bit—to a box. 

What are boxed mashed potatoes made of?

Boxed mashed potato flakes are made from actual potatoes—it’s not some witchcraft like McCormick Bac’n Pieces (those are surprisingly vegan)—so they actually taste like potatoes. The processing facility peels, cooks, mashes the potatoes, and smears the potato paste onto a large heated drum, where the water evaporates. Then the dry pieces come off in flakes, which you bring home in a box to rehydrate at home. 

Of course, boxed mashed potatoes are noticeably missing that homemade touch. They turn out completely smooth, with a bit of a boxed flavor. In order to remedy these two problems, I wanted some fresh potato chunks and flavor. Why even use boxed then, Allie? Because boxed mash is already cooked, and accessing some potato peels and chunks can be done with almost no work, and definitely no boiling. 

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

The air fryer cooks baby potatoes in a flash

I made a stellar bowl of chunky-smooth mashed potatoes, and all I needed to get that homemade flavor and experience was an added handful of tiny baby potatoes. These teeny ones, about the size of green grapes, cook up in the air fryer in the time it takes you to stir the instant mash. It’s almost too easy. I’d feel bad, but after all, this is the Cheater’s Guide to Thanksgiving.

You don’t have to do anything to these baby potatoes, except maybe pick out any damaged ones. I bought a Shoprite brand bag which had red, yellow, and purple creamer potatoes inside. I picked out the purple ones, because that’s not the vibe today. I put a heaping cup, about 15 potatoes, into the air fryer. No oil, no poking them with a fork, nothing. I cooked them on the “air fry” setting for 10 minutes at 375°F. Check on them after eight minutes—a paring knife should easily skewer through to the center when they’re ready. If you don’t have an air fryer, you can of course cook them in a different manner, but this way is the fastest and least messy.

Everything goes directly in the serving bowl

Meanwhile, make the boxed mashed potatoes according to the box’s directions. This usually involves the stove or the microwave, but I do the kettle method. To do this, I added salt and fat to a serving bowl first. (It’s I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter in the photo. Keep your judgments to yourself; that stuff rocks.) Then I poured just-boiled water from my electric kettle into the bowl, stirred everything to melt the fat and added milk. I poured the potato flakes into the bowl—I used the Idahoan brand of potato flakes—and mixed it all together unceremoniously. Just use the measurements on the box and tweak it if you like creamier or thicker potatoes.

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

Once your potatoes are well hydrated—it takes a few minutes for the flakes to really fluff—pour your air-fried baby potatoes right into the bowl. Add any seasonings or delicious accessories you normally go for, like roasted garlic, chopped chives, grated parmesan, parsley, or black pepper. Take a masher to it. (See? You still get the therapy out of this version.)

The goal is to stir in your flavorings and crush all the baby potatoes, releasing small hunks of potato and attractive bits of peel into the mix. A few mashes will do. Taste the mashed potatoes and add more seasonings or milk if needed to get the flavor and consistency you’d like. Your side dish is complete. No need to take up stove space or boil for close to an hour. This side takes about 15 minutes to complete and you assemble it all directly in the serving bowl. Thanksgiving mashed potatoes have never been so easy and satisfying.