The 1 free cooking hack that will make your mashed potatoes ‘super fluffy’

When it comes to making mashed potatoes, there are so many ingredients that people are often told to add to make them smooth and free of lumps. However, when it comes down to it, making the ideal mashed potatoes couldn’t be any easier.

Chef and food writer Molly Adams shared the cooking hack on the website Simply Recipes. She wrote: “I used to attribute the success of making mashed potatoes to the type of potato I used, how long they were cooked, and how they were mashed. While all of these things are important, a few years ago I learned a ground-breaking trick from cookbook author J. Kenji López-Alt that trumps all other factors.”

She revealed that to come out with the “fluffiest mashed potatoes,” the secret ingredient is ice-cold water. She explains that soaking the potatoes in the water removes the excess starch, a trick people also often use when making french fries to achieve a “crisp and golden” exterior whilst “light and fluffy” inside.

“The same trick applies to mashed potatoes – it’s so obvious I wish I would have thought of it myself! You soak the potatoes in iced water before they are cooked. This eliminates much of the starches in the potatoes, resulting in a super light and fluffy mash,” she continues.

Lumpy mashed potatoes are usually a result of the potatoes not being cooked evenly. When potatoes start in warm water, the outsides cook quicker than the inside, which leads to the lumps. Starting them off in cold water eliminates the risk of lumps.

To achieve the same results as the expert, she says to fill a large bowl with cold water and a “handful” of ice before adding the peeled potatoes to the water and letting them sit for at least half an hour. However, she advises that “one hour is ideal.”

Once the time is up, remove the potatoes with your hands or a spider strainer. Molly highlights that this must be done “carefully” to ensure “that the starches pooled in the bottom of the bowl aren’t disturbed.

Another tip she shared is to rinse the cooked potatoes under cold running water to “knock off the starches on the surface,” which will also cool the potatoes and add some moisture. Molly also steams them for a couple of minutes over low heat to bring the temperature back up and cook off any added water.

Now that the potatoes are ready, you can use your favourite mashed potato recipe and continue with the preparation. She warns readers to “be very wary of any potato recipe that has you use a blender or food processor”. Instead, the chef swears by a potato ricer for “fluffy, smooth” mashed potatoes.

However, it all comes down to the ice-water hack, which she says after following will make you notice that your mashed potatoes are “way fluffier” than any time you’ve made them without soaking.