When it comes to cooking a great comfort food meal for your family, the main dish usually is the star of the show. However, that doesn't mean a side dish should automatically take a back seat and just help the meal along. Today's recipe, Ultimate Mashed Potatoes, takes a versatile, well-known staple side and elevates it to the next level pushing your taste buds to a world where they have yet to venture! Smooth, creamy, and delicious, these potatoes will take over as the star of the meal and are sure to satisfy everyone. They are great on their own and pair well with just about any main course protein, but remain simple and relatively quick to make! Take a few minutes to read through my recipe walkthrough and be sure to add these tasty taters to your next meal...Let's Get Cooking!
Making delicious, mashed potatoes doesn't have to be a difficult undertaking, but it does require a bit of peeling. Now I realize most potato nutrients are actually in the peel and many people enjoy them that way, but this particular recipe is better without the peels so spend a few minutes and peel those taters! Do you need to have them 100% peeled? Absolutely not, but try to get the majority of the peel off. A little peel never hurt anyone and makes this dish a bit more rustic, but for all the absolute creamy and smooth potato lovers out there be sure to get all the peel removed! Once you peel them, place them in a bowl of cold water to prevent them from turning brown while you work on the rest of the batch.
After you have completed your mandatory prison potato peeling duties, roughly dice them down into 1 to 2-inch size pieces to help speed up the cooking process. You don't have to be methodical or completely accurate, but try to make everything roughly the same size they it cooks evenly. Add the diced potatoes to a pot with some chicken stock and water. If you don't have chicken stock on hand it is perfectly okay to just boil the potatoes in salted water, but why not amp up that umami flavor profile with a little extra behind-the-scenes chicken stock flavoring? I went about half and half with the stock and water, being sure to have enough to completely cover the spuds. Bring the liquid up to boiling and cook the potatoes for about 30-35 minutes until soft and tender. The smaller you dice your potatoes the quicker they will cook, but half an hour is a good base starting point for timing.
After the potatoes have boiled for 35 minutes, drain them and return them to the same warm pot. I hate washing dishes and suppose you do as well so no point in dirtying up more pots and pans, eh? Anyway, hopefully they resemble something like the pic below at this point. They should be soft enough to stick a fork into and break apart easily, yet not complete mush from overcooking.
While the potatoes are still hot, add the butter and softened cream cheese. Yeah, I suppose I should have mentioned to pull that cream cheese out earlier to soften, but I would assume most of you all had already figured that out or checked the recipe card before trying this recipe on your own. Anyway, pull up those sleeves and grab that potato masher and get to mashing! Slowly add some heavy cream as you mash away to help loosen things up and start making a smooth creamy mixture. If you don't have a potato masher or want to be a bit lazy, use an immersion blender or food processor for this step. A little mechanical help goes a long way and will ultimately make a smoother mash in the end. If you prefer your potatoes a bit more rustic, stick with the hand mashing method but still try to get things as well mashed and mixed as possible.
Once you have worked out those forearms, or the blender, give the mash a taste. They should be pretty good at this point, but we are not about to stop here and call it a day! Sprinkle in some ranch seasoning for an additional bit of flavor and be sure to get it spread throughout the entire mixture. Now give those taters a taste and season accordingly with some salt and pepper. They shouldn't require much salt, if any thanks to the butter and ranch seasoning powder, but likely need a bit of fresh cracked black pepper to even things out and finish off the dish! If you don't have any ranch seasoning, granulated garlic or garlic salt also work quite well in these Ultimate Mashed Potatoes! While this side dish works perfectly as is, you still don't even have to stop at this point. Feel free to add some fresh herbs or minced garlic, depending on whether you used ranch or not earlier of course. Play around and see what you like best and let me know what you did to make your Ultimate Mashed Potatoes even better than mine. Tag me on Instagram under @grubbobgrub with your #UltimateMashedPotato photos so everyone can see how much of a home chef badass you have become.....Just Keep Cooking!
ULTIMATE MASHED POTATOES
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