Hello favorite food season and favorite food item of said food season I SEE YOU INSTANT POT MASHED POTATOES!
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The best mashed potatoes I have ever made. This is going to be the recipe I use every thanksgiving. Rave reviews from all my guests.
Bree
If you love mashed potatoes, you are going to LOVE love love these in the Instant Pot. One pot, 30 minutes and done. Fluffy, creamy, perfect, and honestly just so low maintenance. They are infused with an herby butter, so they’re rich and interesting, but also: E-A-S-Y. You get both. Your mashed potato life will never be the same.
In This Post: Everything You Need To Know
- Ingredients For This Recipe
- How to make mashed potatoes in the Instant Pot
- Frequently asked questions about Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes
- The best potato for mashed potatotes in the Instant Pot
- Ways to use leftover mashed potatoes
- WATCH how to make Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients For This Recipe
Potatoes
This recipe works best with russet potatoes for the best mashed potato texture.
Garlic Herb Butter
This is not necessary, but I highly recommend. Sauté butter, garlic, and fresh herbs like sage, thyme, and/or rosemary to make a garlic herb butter.
Something Creamy
I like to use either cream cheese or sour cream to make things really creamy.
Cheese
Cheese is optional in this, but seriously… why not? Parmesan is a favorite for a little something extra!
Liquids
You can use broth or milk, just something for the potatoes to cook in!
Prefer To Watch Instead Of Read?
Reasons To Love These Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes
There are so many! Here are the ones that make me jump up and down:
- You can use russet potatoes or yukon potatoes (some commenters have used red potatoes as well).
- You can peel your potatoes, or leave the peels.
- It’s ready to go in 30 minutes with very little fuss.
- It has amazing garlic herb flavor.
- But also, you can pick the herbs you like, and you can decide how much garlic, and basically it’s a choose your own adventure.
How To Make Mashed Potatoes In The Instant Pot
I am not kidding when I say that these will cut significant time out of your Thanksgiving prep time. While these cook away, you could be making the cranberry sauce, assembling the stuffing, chatting with your Aunt Nancy, whatever.
Here’s how easy it is:
- Add your potatoes to the Instant Pot with water and salt (that’s it!).
- Make a quick garlic herb butter if you wish (you do). Regular butter will work just fine too.
- Mash your potatoes right in the pot and add your butter, something creamy (like sour cream, Greek ogurt, or cream cheese), and salt and pepper.
And you’re done!
Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes: Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, and there’s a recipe for you! Check out these Easiest Garlic Mashed Potatoes.
Totally! While I prefer a smooth, creamy texture, you can leave the skins on to make it even easier. One caveat: if you’re using russet potatoes, I’d opt to always peel to skin off since the texture isn’t as texturally appetizing as a red potato, golden potato, or Yukon potato.
You can use a potato masher or wooden spoon for mashing. If you want really fluffy and smooth potatoes, you could use an electric hand mixer.
The Instant Pot has a u0022Keep Warmu0022 setting that you can use. However, to avoid any potatoes sticking or burning at the bottom, I’d recommend giving them a stir and maybe adding a splash of milk every once in a while.
What Is The Best Potato For Mashed Potatoes In The Instant Pot?
I’ve had success with many types of potatoes:
- Russet potatoes
- Yukon potatoes
- Red potatoes
Besides some variations in taste and texture, the timing will be adjusted slightly for each type. Russet potatoes need a bit more time because they are larger, and red and yukon potatoes don’t need quite as long because they’re smaller.
Russet potatoes are the standard potatoes used for mashed potatoes but I love Yukon potatoes as well.
Ways To Use Leftover Mashed Potatoes
If you haven’t completely conquered this batch of mashed potatoes when all is said and done, thankfully there’s no shortage of ways to use them. Here are a few ideas:
- Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie (easy, yummy, cozy, SO GOOD)
- Leftover Mashed Potatoes Gnocchi from Life as a Strawberry
- Everything Cheesy Potato and Egg Casserole from Half Baked Harvest
- Loaded Mashed Potato Cakes from Spend with Pennies
- Mashed Potato Doughnuts from Dinner with Julie
- Potato Rolls from Spicy Southern Kitchen
Mashed potatoes forever. ❤️
The Best Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 8 1-cup servings 1x
Description
These Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes are so, so good! They are so creamy, so fluffy, and laced with garlic herb flavor. From start to finish in 30 minutes, all in one pot!
Ingredients
- 5 pounds of potatoes, peeled and halved (see notes)
- 4 teaspoons salt, divided
- 2 sticks butter (1 cup)
- 2–4 cloves garlic
- a few sprigs of herbs (sage, thyme, etc.)
- 1 cup cream cheese or sour cream
- 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
- 1/2 cup broth or milk (optional, for texture)
Instructions
- Potatoes: Put your potatoes in the Instant Pot and cover with about 6 cups of water – enough to be completely covered. Add 2 teaspoons of salt. Cook on the steam setting for 12 minutes. Release steam right away. Drain the potatoes. They should be fork tender.
- Garlic Herb Butter: Melt your butter in a large skillet. Add the garlic and herbs and let it just gently cook and infuse the butter with flavor for 10-15 minutes. Pull the herbs and garlic out, and reserve your flavored butter. YUM.
- Mash and Mix: Using a potato masher or the back of a wooden spoon, mash the potatoes right in the Instant Pot. Add the garlic herb butter, sour cream, Parmesan cheese, and the rest of the salt. Stir to combine. Season with more salt to taste – be generous! Voila. Delicious mashed potatoes are yours!
Equipment
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Buy Now → Notes
If you want the potatoes to be a little thinner, add 1/4-1/2 cup milk or broth.
A few comments have noted that 12 minutes was not enough time to cook their potatoes. This is most likely because of the size variation of potatoes. I like to try to get evenly sized potato pieces without spending a lot of time cutting them up all (you’re just going to mash them anyway!) so I usually cut the big ones in half and leave the rest alone. But if you’re working with very large potatoes, you may want to cut them into quarters, or cook them for closer to 15 minutes.
To prevent lumpy potatoes, mash them right after they’re done cooking. Don’t let them sit around for too long. They’ll develop a skin and it will be harder to get them to mash smoothly and evenly.
This is the Instant Pot that we use. (affiliate link)
A previous version of this recipe was written for half of this amount.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Category: Side
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: mashed potatoes, instant pot mashed potatoes, potato side dish, thanksgiving side dish, creamy mashed potatoes
Other Delicious Thanksgiving Recipes
- Sweet Potato Casserole (a Thanksgiving staple!)
- Bacon and Brussels Sprout Salad (the salad I bring to EVERY Thanksgiving)
- Baked Mac and Cheese (perfectly cheesy with a buttery crispy top)
- Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie (perfect use of leftover potatoes too!)
- Pumpkin Dessert Bars (let’s just say these include yellow cake mix – thank me later!)
One More Thing!
This recipe is part of our coziest comfort food recipes page. Check it out!
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12 minutes was definitely not enough time. Even when I halved the russet potatoes, many of them were not cooked through once the pressure was released which left us with lumpy mashed potatoes.
I have made this a couple times and it is phenomenal. I used the leftovers for shepherds pie and they enhanced the flavor very nicely. Will be a go to as long as I have an instant pot.
Thanks for the recipe! fam loved these at christmas.
Hah, I didn’t realize you had a recipe for this! I make my mashed potatoes in the instant pot all the time but always chop into smaller pieces. That’s just now I learned I guess. Next time I will try this method of leaving them bigger !
harika
First attempt wasn’t great – second attempt was awesome! Thanks for sharing this recipe!
The WATCH version is gone!?
Just wanted to note for anyone else who makes the same mistake – the quantities in this recipe are for the 6 qt instant pot. I have a 3qt duo and had to take out a bunch of the water and potatoes because it went way over the max line.
These are the best mashed potatoes! Our family has made them many times for Thanksgiving 🙂
Easy to follow recipe! Turned out great and enjoyed by the whole family. Thanks!
I have an instant pot mashed potato recipe that I printed off your web site back in 2018. It is a little different than this one? Just curious, why did you change it? I use the original one all the time! It is the best!
This is my go to mashed potatoes recipe. The flavor and texture are perfect every time. Sometimes I leave the garlic out if I feel like having plain mashed potatoes. Perfect either way.
Modifications:
1/2 cup of sour cream instead of 1
1 tsp salt afterwards instead of 2
3/4 cup milk instead of 1/2
Personal preference
I am commenting on this blog after trying this recipe and trust me it was soo soo soo good 🙂 Thank you for sharing such amazing recipes <3
I wish I’d stumbled upon this recipe before the holidays! I made mashed potatoes on the stovetop again, which took up so much time. I’m definitely giving the Instant Pot version a go the next time I make them. I don’t know why I haven’t done it before! Thanks so much for sharing!
This is my go to recipe every year for mashed potatoes. My family always requests this!
This is an excellent recipe. I love you do most of it in the Instant Pot,
I will make it again.
2 teaspoons of salt in step 1, yet says ‘remainder of salt’ in step 3.
Ingredients need to be revised.
Loved this recipe! However, the steam function did not work, it didn’t cook them at all. When I did 12 minutes with the pressure cook function, it cooked them perfectly and made the creamiest mashed potatoes.
why do you cover with water if you are steaming the potatoes?
thank you
Just finished mashing up this recipe ahead of time for Thanksgiving dinner tonight and it smelled SO GOOD I couldn’t resist having a little bowl to myself while everyone else is asleep! ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!! I have tried over 15 instant pot recipes looking for the perfect one for mashed potatoes, and I don’t need to look anymore, this is IT! Thank you for sharing your recipe and for having the courage to just be yourself and be REAL with your viewers. Wouldn’t want your video any other way. =)
Yummy! These were super simple to make and had delicious flavor. I added minced garlic to the butter and just left it in to add extra flavor to the mashed potatoes.
Has anyone tried to make this recipe dairy free and if so, what did they use as substitutions? Thanks in advance and wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving!
This recipe is incredibly simple and delicious. One word of caution though. Do not “chat with aunt Nancy”. There is no such thing as a casual chat with that lady. Steer clear of Nancy at all costs. She’s a liar and a traitor who will ultimately destroy your family from within. Happy thanksgiving!