Did you know you can make ahead mashed potatoes? It’s a restaurant trick!
Whenever you order a dish with mashed potatoes at a restaurant, did you ever wonder whether they peeled, boiled and mashed the potatoes to order? No they don’t!
Restaurants prepare the potatoes ahead by boiling and mashing just the potato, then just before serving, it is mixed into boiling cream (or milk or even broth or a combination thereof) to reheat it and make it nice and creamy.
When it comes to ridiculously creamy restaurant style mashed potatoes, there’s not much to it. The secret is just loads of cream and butter. The creamier the mashed potato, the more cream and butter it has in it!
Here’s another little tip for you – if your pot is a bit small and there is risk of the bubble overflowing, just place a wooden spoon across the top. No more overflow!
Mashed potatoes are a “must have” for special occasion feasts like Thanksgiving and Christmas. So having this make-ahead trick on hand is very useful! – Nagi x
PS Use any leftovers to make mashed potato cakes!
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Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes (Restaurant Trick)
Ingredients
- 2 lb / 1 kg starchy potatoes (Note 1)
- 1 cup / 250 ml cream , half and half or milk (Note 2)
- 60g / 1/4 cup butter
- Salt and pepper
To Serve
- Olive oil
- Chives , finely chopped
- Pepper
Instructions
- Peel and cut the potatoes into large chunks.
- Bring a pot of water to the boil, then add the potatoes. Cook for 20 minutes until soft and starting to fall apart.
- Drain then tip back into the pot placed over the stove (turned off). Allow to steam dry for a few minutes.
- Mash to your taste. Do NOT use a hand held mixer, blender or food processor - it will activate the starches in the potatoes and make it gluey.
- To make ahead, transfer to a bowl and cover with cling wrap, pressing onto the potato to remove as much air as possible. Refrigerate up to 2 days until required.
- On the day of, place the cream and butter in a pot and bring to a boil. Turn the stove off but leave the pot on the stove. Add the potatoes and stir into the cream.
- If you want to make your potatoes creamier, push them to the side, add more cream/milk, turn the stove on, bring to a simmer then stir.
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Serve warm, garnished with chopped chives, a drizzle of olive oil and pepper.
Recipe Notes:
Amazing, perfect method. No impact on taste of the potatoes – saved me so much stress when I hosted Thanksgiving! Thanks Nagi.
My 3rd year using this hack at Thanksgiving. Game changer
Best mashed potatoes ever. Actually cooked and put thru ricer the day before.
Thanks Debbie! Glad you enjoyed them! N x
I have made the “Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes (Restaurant Trick)” twice now. Super easy! So great not trying to cook from scratch & time it to coincide with a bbq each time. Tastes marvelous! It’s been a real ‘load off’ finding your recipe – thank you so much for posting it.
I am so glad you enjoyed it Liz! N x
Haven’t cooked it yet – but I had a disasterous entertaining weekend & this trick will help enormously! Thank you for publishing. I look forward to seeing more – thank you!
Better luck next time!! These should help! N x
Super duper yummy!!
Hi Nagi, can you tell me how I should store unused boiled butter/cream (for mashed potatoes) mixture?
Hi Nagi. I’m thinking of trying this for Thanksgiving but need at least 5# of potatoes. Yet 2 1/2 times the cream and butter seem like a lot. Should I scale back on either or will it be okay.
I made double the recipe and used double the other ingredients, and it turned out perfectly. Making the potatoes like this and refrigerating them meant that they were really stiff and when I put them back on the stove they soaked up the large amount of milk, cream and butter to give it a perfect consistency.
Also, I didn’t have starchy potatoes, so once they were drained, I tossed them over low heat to get rid of more moisture—rather than just putting them back into the hot saucepan with the heat turned off.
The mashed potatoes were a home run in our house. I had always used the whipping method with success. But in recent years they turned into a gluey mess. My husband is so happy to have homemade mashed potatoes again.
That’s so great! Can’t beat great mashed potatoes!
After making the Irish Beef and Guinness Stew, I had to make this. Unfortunately (or is it?), the battery of my scale was dead and I couldn’t measure the potatoes. I probably put in more cream than the recipe called for. Very creamy and yummy.
I cook like that some days anyway – I’m glad you enjoyed it though J-Mom!
I never knew why mashed potatoes would be so gluey and shiney! Now I know. I always used the blender and no amount of awesome flavor could make up for that texture. I thought I was saving time. Thank you. Recipe was great!! I will never use a blender again.
Hi Nagi,
I love your mash potato tips and I wondered whether you know if this would work on a large scale, for 50 people for example?
I’m concerned about the mash heating up enough and wondered if you have an advice for this or would it to just be to follow the method in your blog?
It’s quite a special occasion so I need to get it right and I’m not sure whether it’s something I can practice without having to waste a whole load of mash!
Look forward to hearing from you.
Many thanks
Kaori
Hi Kaori! I’m sorry I haven’t tried it but in all honesty, for that much, I would just microwave it and mix in milk to loosen it up 🙂 N x
Hi Nagi,
Could you please tell me the gram or ml measurements where it says cups? Thanks in advance!
Done! 🙂
Hi Nagi
For mashing the potatoes first, you said never use a food processor, but I’m wondering if it is still ok to use a potato ricer to get them perfectly smooth?
YES definitely Dan! Food processor is just too powerful, agitates the starch and makes it really horribly gluey 🙂
Hi nagi what do you mean by half and half or milk? Im sorry non native english speaker here.
Hi Melli! I should have added a note 🙂 It’s half cream half milk and sold that way in the US. Here in Australia I mix my own (if cooking for company) or just use milk (for every day purposes). N x
I realize this is an old post, but thought I’d ask and see if I got a response! 🙂 These potatoes sounds great and I love that I can largely make the day or 2 before. But, when you heat the cream/butter, turn off burner, add potatoes and mix… do the potatoes get truly warm? I just want to be sure I will be serving my guests delicious warm potatoes (and not having to place individual plates into the microwave to warm up).
Thanks! Hope I get a response!
Hi Carolyn! It truly does 🙂 You need to use a decent size pot, not a tiny saucepan. The mash gets heat from the cream and pot. And if need be, just turn the stove on for a bit – minimum time necessary. And the mash gets hot/warm, not piping hot like it was freshly made. N x
Hi Nagi. Can you freeze the boiled mashed potatoes then defrost and add butter etc?
Hi Julia! To freeze mashed potato, add the butter and cream THEN freeze it 🙂 It freezes much better that way! Then freeze in bags to save space, and reheat in the microwave 🙂
Your recipe for mashed is very good. I however, enjoy adding cheese, cheddar or American preferably. It adds a unique flavor profile and opens a wide choice of palate flavors.
I hear you Mark. Adding cheese into mash is the BEST!!!!
I can’t wait to try this! Make ahead is great, it eliminates the need for mother-in-law to supervise?
BA HA HA!!! That’s RIGHT!!!
Sadly for our wastelines that is the trick 🙂 But nothing is as good as perfectly creamy mashers!!!!
I know, right? Cream cream more cream, butter butter more butter….so GOOD!!
If you mash the taters with sour cream and cream cheese instead of most or all of the milk(and, of course, butter), you can refrigerate them for a couple of days and reheat them in the oven. Yummy.
Oooh…..I have heard about the cream cheese trick too 🙂 I haven’t tried that myself yet but I think I will!
Nagi it’s true!!! My creamy dreamy mashers have cream cheese and sour cream in it… I think it’s THE BEST combo.
Can’t believe I haven’t tried it yet….
It’s yummy….a bit of tang. Don’t forget the sour cream and butter….lots of all three!
I would like to try cream cheese & sour cream not sure how much to add in & is this in place of the half n half ?
I just mix globs in and sample as I go. Obviously I could never write a cookbook!!