Mashed potatoes might seem like such a simple dish. But this family favorite is actually customizable to quite a lot of degrees. With the addition of many favorite ingredients, you can create a variety of dishes.
Required Ingredients – Serves 8
- 5 lbs potatoes, peeled and cut into 1.5″ chunks
- 1 cup chicken broth or stock
- 4 Garlic cloves, crushed
- 1/3 cup butter, diced
- Pinch of salt
Optional Additional Ingredients, to taste
- 1/3-1/2 cup milk, warmed
- 2/3 cup Sour Cream
- 1/2 cup cheese – parmesan, cheddar, feta, blue
- 3 Tbsp Prepared horseradish
- Onion or Green onion to taste
- Bacon to taste, and should be chopped to desired consistency
- Pepper to taste
The optional additional ingredients can be added to your preference based on personal choice and/or dietary needs.
Directions
- Set the slow cooker temperature. Use High for 4 hours or Low for 7-8 hours or until cooked through and fork-tender.
- Put the first 5 required ingredients into your slow cooker. We recommend a 6-Quart size like our Crockpot, especially if you are using a larger amount of potatoes for a big batch.
- Mash the potatoes with either an electric beater or potato masher. Then stir in the milk and/or sour cream (if used). Finally add any of the other optional ingredients to add pizzazz.
- Once mashed, the potatoes can be left in the slow cooker covered with its lid, on its lowest setting until ready to serve.
For potatoes, we use either Russets or Yukon Gold, most often Yukon Golds for our batches.
This recipe can be scaled up or down depending on the number of servings desired. This recipe serves 8 people with the listed ingredients.
Potatoes can have their skins left on, if that is your preference. We normally peel ours because we don’t really like skin-on mashed potatoes. When the potatoes are mashed they can be left as chunky or as smooth as you prefer.
The reason the sour cream and milk are optional is that either one can be left out according to your preferences. However, one of the two should be used in your recipe, if not both. Its amount is dictated by the desired consistency (e.g. how thick or thin) of the final result. For example, if you leave the sour cream out then the milk should be at least 1/2 cup and maybe a little more, depending on the desired consistency.
Special Note: If the potatoes are left in the slow cooker too long in step 3, just add a little additional milk.
We based our personal recipe on this one.