Ree Drummond's Secret To Perfectly Smooth Mashed Potatoes Every Time

Ree Drummond has long been considered a culinary master when it comes to preparing rich and comforting family-friendly meals, side dishes, and desserts. Next to her most popular recipes, including oven-baked macaroni and cheese and chicken fried steak, Drummond is also known for her ultra-flavorful, creamy mashed potatoes.

Fortunately, whether you want to serve mashed potatoes as a reliable weeknight side dish or as an buttery accompaniment to basic roasted turkey on Thanksgiving, Drummond's mashed potato recipe only requires a handful of essential ingredients. Sure enough, all you need to make her perfectly smooth spuds is butter, cream cheese, and heavy cream or half-and-half.

Among the many secrets to make your mashed potatoes taste even better, next to adding enough butter, using both cream cheese and heavy cream is what transforms any standard mash into an extra creamy, delectable side dish. While heavy cream loosens the overall structure of your spuds, it also imparts a rich taste. On the other hand, cream cheese has a mild bite, which, when combined with savory salted butter, creates an ideal balance of flavor.

Beyond using a few crucial ingredients, preparing Drummond's signature mashed potatoes couldn't be easier. Upon boiling and mashing a pot of fork-tender potatoes, add in the extras plus salt and pepper. Then, simply use a potato masher to smash everything together until perfectly smooth. While Drummond's recipe may be easy to follow, there are a few tips to guarantee delicious results each and every time.

For starters, when making Ree Drummond's creamy mashed potatoes, make sure you're using enough butter, cream cheese, and heavy cream. In her recipe, for every 5 pounds of potatoes, she uses almost 1 full cup of butter; while most of the butter is incorporated into the potatoes upon mixing, she melts some for an ultra-satisfying topping.

On that note, for better mashed potatoes, add the butter at just the right time. Especially if you want your potatoes to have a butter-rich taste, incorporate this golden fat directly upon mashing. This gives the starch in your potatoes extra time to soak in butter's savory goodness.

Drummond's recipe also includes a full 8-ounce package of cream cheese and at least a ½ cup of heavy cream or half-and-half. Depending on the desired consistency of your mashed potatoes, feel free to add more or less liquid once all the ingredients have been mixed together. On that note, make sure to bring your cream cheese to room temperature first. This ensures your mashed potatoes mix up nice and smooth.

Once you've made this delicious recipe more than once, feel free to upgrade the ingredients for added texture and flavor. For example, if you plan to warm and serve your mashed potatoes in a baking dish, fry a bunch of sliced shallots in olive oil beforehand and add a layer to the bottom and top of your potatoes before serving. Or, take inspiration from loaded baked potatoes and top your creamy spuds with chopped bacon, cheese, and green onion.