Mashed potatoes - how to make airy and lump-free with the addition of milk, butter or water

Mashed potatoes – a popular and tasty side dish that both adults and children enjoy eating. The method of preparing it is quite simple, and it goes well with almost all products: fish, meat, vegetables, mushrooms, herbs.

Despite the simplicity of the dish, there are some rules and secrets for preparing tasty and healthy mashed potatoes with an airy and tender consistency.

With the help of spices, seasonings, herbs, you can diversify a dish, make it spicier, piquant, more refined and change its usual taste. How to make mashed potatoes tasty and tender?

How to make mashed potatoes

Any housewife, having seen beautiful, yellow, fluffy crumpled potatoes in a photo on the Internet, wonders how to prepare mashed potatoes so that it looks like in a restaurant. First you need to master the basic secrets of preparing ingredients, as well as the standards for preparing this dish. First you need to rinse the potatoes under running water. Then remove the peel and cut into 3-4 pieces, then cook the root vegetables until tender. Then mash the potatoes, add a little salt and serve.

How to make delicious puree

An important issue is how to prepare puree in such a way as to satisfy the most demanding taste. To do this, many chefs use additional ingredients that give the finished dish a special delicacy. For flavor during cooking, add a clove of garlic or carrots to the pan; some use onions. To achieve a beautiful color, add only hot milk. To achieve the smooth, creamy texture of the main ingredients, you need to heat the milk and then pour it into the potatoes while mashing using a blender or wooden pestle.

No lumps

To properly prepare delicious potatoes, it is best to use yellow varieties of tubers; they boil better. Russets are often used to make mashed potatoes, which are high-starch potatoes, redskins, or Yukon Golds. To achieve a homogeneous mass without lumps, the product should not be overcooked. Many chefs, instead of standard devices for chopping potatoes, use a sieve through which the product is rubbed with a wooden spoon, thereby eliminating the occurrence of lumps.

Air

To ensure that the crushed potatoes turn out loose and fluffy, there are several nuances. To begin with, you should pay attention to the fact that finely chopped potatoes cook faster and crush better. This will allow the housewife to pound the potatoes more thoroughly, which will make them airy. It is worth noting that dry-crushed potatoes are better saturated with oxygen, which also affects the fluffiness and friability of the finished product.

Classic recipe

Cooking time: 25-35 minutes.
Number of servings: 4 persons.
Calorie content of the dish: 106 kcal per 100 grams.
Purpose: side dish for lunch.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

The recipe for Classic mashed potatoes is one of the most common in Russian cuisine. This soft and delicate dish is suitable as a side dish for any holiday table or just for breakfast, lunch or dinner. The classic recipe for mashed potatoes is highly valued in all countries of the former USSR and beyond, and even a child can prepare it.

Ingredients:

Potatoes – 1 kg
Milk – 150-200 ml
Butter – 50 g
Salt - a couple of pinches
Ground black pepper - to taste

Cooking method:

Peel the potatoes, rinse with plenty of water, cut into small pieces.
Place the slices in a saucepan, add water, add salt, wait until it boils, skim off the foam if necessary, and cover with a lid. Cook the potatoes over low heat for 15-20 minutes until tender.
Drain the water from the potatoes and mash with a potato masher.
In another saucepan, heat a small amount of milk and melt the butter there, this will make the mashed potatoes lighter. Pour the mixture into the potatoes.
Season the finished dish with salt and pepper, then beat with a wooden spoon.

Cooking in a slow cooker

If you are more comfortable working with a slow cooker, you can cook the dish in it. Mashed potatoes in a multicooker are prepared without changes in the recipe components and the cooking procedure, but in this case the potatoes are boiled not in a saucepan, but in the multicooker bowl in the “Cooking” mode (can be replaced with the “Soup” mode).
The taste of the finished dish is no different from the traditional one! Potato casserole with minced meat in a multicooker will be another delicious potato dish that can be prepared with the help of this wonderful kitchen assistant; if you don’t have a multicooker, then cook potato casserole with minced meat in the oven.

With milk

Cooking time: 35 minutes.
Number of servings: 4 persons.
Calorie content of the dish: 80 kcal per 100 grams.
Purpose: for breakfast.
Cuisine: Ukrainian.
Difficulty: easy.

Housewives often wonder how to make mashed potatoes with milk tasty and healthy. The answer is simple: thanks to the addition of any dairy product to potatoes, they do not lose color, remain loose, airy for a long time and are saturated with a new, unique taste. This dish goes well with main meat or fish dishes or fried dishes, for example, with fried onions.

Ingredients:

Potatoes – 1 kilogram
Onions – 1 piece
Bay leaf – 2 pieces
Butter – 100 grams
Milk – 150 milliliters
Salt - to taste

Cooking method:

Peel large potatoes, rinse under running water, cut into large pieces. Pour water over the slices, bring to a boil and add a little salt.
Add the peeled onion and a few bay leaves and cook until soft.
After the potatoes are cooked, drain the water from the pan and remove the onion and bay.
Grind the potatoes first with a masher, then by beating with a mixer. Add cold milk and butter.
At the end of cooking, add salt to the dish again, then mix well.

On the water

Cooking time: 25 minutes.
Number of servings: 2 persons.
Calorie content of the dish: 74 kcal per 100 grams.
Purpose: for breakfast.
Cuisine: English.
Difficulty: easy.

Any person who cooks knows that puree can be prepared with both milk and water. If you strictly follow the technology, then the taste of potatoes mashed with water will be no worse than mashed potatoes with milk. Cooking with water has its own special name - according to Blumenthal. Thanks to this recipe, you can be sure that milk is not an essential ingredient in puree.

Ingredients:

Potatoes – 1 kg
Salt - to taste
Butter – 100-150 g

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Cooking method:

Peel and wash the potatoes.
Boil whole root vegetables in salted or plain water.
According to the recipe, the tubers should be kept in water at a temperature of 62 degrees for half an hour; chicken broth can be used instead of water. After complete cooking, drain the water.
Next add butter. Mash the potatoes using standard means.
To ensure uniformity, pour the potato mixture into a sieve, then grind.
Garnish the puree with green onions and serve.

No butter

Cooking time: 27 minutes.
Number of servings: 4 persons.
Calorie content of the dish: 74 kcal per 100 grams.
Purpose: for lunch.
Cuisine: European.
Difficulty: easy.

The absence of butter in the puree does not at all affect the appearance (you can verify this by looking at any photo where such potatoes are presented) and the taste of the dish. Therefore, the question of how to prepare puree without oil disappears by itself. This type of puree will be an excellent side dish for any main meat or fish dish or filling for pies or buns. This dish has a smooth consistency and goes well with fried mushrooms.

Ingredients:

Potatoes – 6 pcs.
Milk – 100 ml
Onions – 1 pc.
Sugar – 1 tbsp. spoon
Salt - to taste

Cooking method:

Peel the tubers, cut into small pieces, and place in lightly salted water. Cook for about 20 minutes.
Pour the water out of the pan, put it on low heat, then pour in the milk. Wait until it boils, add salt and simmer; if desired, you can add a few chicken eggs.
Peel the onion and chop finely. Pour 5 tablespoons of water into the frying pan, then add sugar. When the sugar has dissolved, add the onion to the frying pan and simmer until golden brown.
Place the onion in the pan with the potatoes and mix well.

Technology for cooking potatoes for mashed potatoes

In addition to choosing the right potato variety, you must follow the cooking technology:

Wash the potatoes, peel them and cut them into four pieces. Do not keep the chopped vegetable in cold water for a long time, but immediately put it in boiling water to cook. When kept in cold water for a long time, the starch is washed out.
In order for the potatoes to cook evenly, they should be cooked over low heat with the lid closed. Equally important is the amount of water for cooking. The water should only slightly cover the cut potatoes.
The cooking time is within 15-20 minutes; you should not overcook the vegetable, as it will disintegrate and the puree will no longer be as tasty, and when whipped, lumps may form in it. To check if the potatoes are done, pierce them with a fork or toothpick - they should easily pierce the piece.
As soon as the potatoes are ready, the water must be drained. To mash it, use a masher, preferably a wooden one, a blender or a mixer. Experienced chefs advise mashing boiled potatoes with a potato masher - the puree turns out unusually soft and airy.

With cream cheese

Cooking time: 40 minutes.
Number of servings: 10 persons.
Calorie content of the dish: 133 kcal per 100 grams.
Purpose: afternoon snack.
Cuisine: English.
Difficulty: medium.

Mashed potatoes are a great side dish for any meal. The classic recipe has long gained popularity among people all over the world, but it can also be improved by making the taste a little piquant. Expanding on the standard recipe, many cooks beat in egg whites or yolks, some use the whole egg to achieve the ideal consistency, but others enjoy unusual combinations of potatoes with cheese or heavy cream.

Ingredients:

Potatoes – 1 kg
Heavy cream – 100 ml
Butter – 50 g
Cream cheese – 100 g
Table salt - to taste

Cooking method:

The tubers need to be cleaned and washed with plenty of running water. Next, cut them into large pieces. Throw the workpiece into water and cook until tender. During cooking, you need to salt the vegetables.
Boiled potatoes need to be crushed with a special press (you can see the design of this device in the photo on the Internet) or use a masher. At this stage, you need to add cream, cheese and butter, mix everything until smooth. The puree becomes dense, but at the same time retains airiness.
When serving, sprinkle with fresh herbs.

With vegetable oil

Cooking time: 35 minutes.
Number of servings: 5 persons.
Calorie content of the dish: 1101 kcal.
Purpose: breakfast.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

Puree with vegetable oil is a dietary dish that can be consumed even by patients. The dish is very easy to prepare, therefore it is in demand in many countries around the world. Some chefs use a secret ingredient to add piquancy and flavor - olive oil, which gives the dish a special charm.

Ingredients:

Potatoes – 1 kg
Vegetable oil – 50 g
Milk 3.2% – 250 ml
Salt – 10 g

Cooking method:

Peel the tubers, rinse, cut into pieces and boil until tender.
Drain the water. Hot potatoes are passed through a blender, at which time milk must be gradually poured in (it should be hot). Beat well until an airy, homogeneous mass is obtained.
Serve hot, sprinkled with vegetable oil.

Delicious mashed potatoes and peas

Required:

Potatoes - 8-10 pcs.
Boiled peas - 400 g
Milk - 300 g
Butter - 3 tbsp. l.

Preparation

1. Boil peeled potatoes.

2. Mix boiled peas with boiled potatoes and pass through a meat grinder.

3. Dilute the prepared mass with hot milk.

4. Then add salt, season with oil and stir.

Pleasant to eat!

With mayonnaise

Cooking time: 60 minutes.
Number of servings: 5 persons.
Calorie content of the dish: 269 kcal per 100 grams.
Purpose: dinner.
Cuisine: European.
Difficulty: easy.

Mashed potatoes prepared with the addition of mayonnaise result in an almost ideal consistency and look very beautiful on the plate when served. Potatoes made according to this recipe are in no way inferior to classic mashed potatoes with the addition of milk. Mayonnaise gives the dish more softness, airiness and helps avoid the appearance of a gray color in the finished product.

Ingredients:

Potato tubers – 1.2 kilograms
Onions – 1 piece
Bay leaf – 2 jokes
Salt - to taste
Mayonnaise – 4 tbsp. spoons

Cooking method:

Peel the potatoes, rinse, place in a cooking container, add water and place on high heat.
Throw the peeled onion into the same pan.
Cover the pan with a lid. Cook until it boils, then reduce heat and add 1.5 tsp. salt. After 10 minutes, add 2 bay leaves and cook until tender.
Drain, leaving 1 cup of liquid in the pan. Throw away the laurel and onions.
Thoroughly crush all the potatoes with a masher and add mayonnaise.
Stir until smooth. Serve to the table.