Potatoes are basically two personality types: the waxy, tight-lipped introverts and the starchy, flaky extroverts. You want the extroverts for mashing. Those are the ones that fall apart like a politician’s promise when boiled, releasing their inner starch to soak up butter and cream like a sponge at a spa.
The waxy potatoes—think Red Bliss or new potatoes—are the ones you use for potato salad or roasting. They hold their shape like a stubborn toddler in a grocery cart. Try mashing those, and you’ll get a glue-like paste that belongs in a elementary school art project, not on your dinner plate.
The Gold Standard: Yukon Golds
If mashed potatoes had a Nobel Prize, Yukon Golds would win it every year. They are the Goldilocks of tubers: high enough starch to mash beautifully, but with a natural buttery flavor and a golden color that screams “I’m fancy but I’m also easy.”
They also have a medium moisture content. That means they don’t drink up all the heavy cream like a desert, nor do they get waterlogged. In my opinion, they are the honest, hardworking friend who always brings a good bottle of wine to the party.
The King of Fluff: Russets
Russet potatoes—the big, brown, dusty-looking ones you associate with baked potatoes—are the starch bombs of the potato world. They contain more starch than any other common spud. When you mash them, they puff up like a cloud that has just seen a ghost.
The caveat is that Russets are dry. They will absorb a shocking amount of butter, milk, and sour cream. If you aren’t generous with the fat, your mash will taste like a cardboard box that once held a potato. But if you go all in? You get the lightest, fluffiest mash of your life. Some people swear by a fifty-fifty blend of Yukon Golds and Russets for the perfect texture—a hybrid potato Voltron.
The Traps: Red, Blue, and Fingerlings
Let’s get serious for a moment: do not use red potatoes for mash. They have a waxy texture that turns into a sticky, gnarly paste that will make your gravy weep. The same goes for purple or blue potatoes—they look cool on Instagram but taste like a science experiment gone wrong when mashed.
Fingerlings? Cute, tiny, and delicious roasted whole. But mashed? They have a thin skin and low starch. You’d be better off mashing a banana. I’m half-serious. Stick to the big boys.
