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Buttery Mashed Potatoes
These buttery mashed potatoes prove that sometimes the simplest recipes are the best. Made with nothing more than Sebago potatoes, salted butter, and sea salt flakes, they’re creamy, rich, and exactly the sort of comfort food that never goes out of style. Whether served alongside steak, a hearty meat pie, or a traditional roast dinner, this is the mashed potato recipe I return to again and again.
Buttery Mashed Potato
These Buttery Mashed Potatoes are everything I want from a bowl of mash: creamy, fluffy, and loaded with rich buttery flavour. Made with simple ingredients and a few easy techniques, they come out silky smooth every time. Whether I’m serving them alongside sausages, roast meats, casseroles, or a hearty gravy, they always disappear quickly. This is the kind of comforting side dish that never goes out of style and deserves a place on every dinner table.
Ingredients
- 1kg sebago potatoes, diced into evenly sized pieces
- 125g salted butter, diced, at room temperature
- Large pinch of sea salt flakes
Instructions
- Place the diced potatoes in a large pot and cover with well-salted cold water. The smaller the dice, the faster they'll cook.
- Bring to the boil and cook for 10-15 minutes, or until the potatoes can be easily pierced with a fork.
- Drain into a colander and leave to sit for about 5 minutes to release steam. This step is important as it prevents watery mash.
- Return the potatoes to the pot, add the butter and salt, and mash until smooth and creamy. Add more butter if needed.
- Taste and adjust the seasoning, then serve immediately.
Notes
- No cream or milk needed here. Butter is made from cream and milk, so you're getting all the richness you need from one ingredient. Two birds, one stone.
- Sebago potatoes are a floury, starchy variety that breaks down beautifully when mashed. They give you a light, fluffy result without any gluey texture. Desiree or King Edward potatoes work just as well if you can't find sebago.
- Dicing the potatoes into evenly sized pieces is important. Uneven pieces will cook at different rates, leaving you with some pieces overcooked and mushy while others are still firm.
- Starting in cold salted water rather than boiling water helps the potatoes cook evenly all the way through.
- The steaming step is the secret to non-watery mash. Letting the potatoes sit in the colander for a few minutes allows the excess moisture to evaporate before you add the butter.
- Room temperature butter incorporates much more easily than cold butter straight from the fridge. Take it out before you start cooking.
- Mash to your preferred texture. For silky smooth mash, use a potato ricer. For a more rustic result, a regular masher is perfect.
- Don't over-mash. Working the potatoes too much activates the starch and gives you gluey, gummy mash rather than light and fluffy.
- Season generously. Potatoes need more salt than you think. Taste as you go and don't be shy.
- I use this potato masher for everyday mash. It's sturdy, easy to clean, and gives you a consistently smooth result.
- Mash is best served immediately while it's still hot and fluffy. Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. Reheat gently in a pot over low heat with an extra knob of butter and a splash of water, stirring frequently.
- Not suitable for freezing as the texture becomes grainy and watery after defrosting.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
8Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 225Total Fat: 13gSaturated Fat: 8gUnsaturated Fat: 5gCholesterol: 34mgSodium: 113mgCarbohydrates: 26gFiber: 3gSugar: 1gProtein: 3g
Please note, this nutrition information is to be used as a guide only. Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.
Comfort Food in a Scottish Winter
Living in Scotland means learning to appreciate food that warms you from the inside out. Sometimes that’s a big pot of soup bubbling away on the stove. Sometimes it’s a hearty stew after a long walk in the cold. And sometimes it’s simply a bowl of creamy, buttery mashed potatoes sitting alongside whatever dinner happens to be on the table that night.
My husband absolutely loves this mash. To be fair, I’ve never actually told him that it’s only made from three ingredients. Not that he’s ever asked. As always, he’s far too busy playing Xbox to pay much attention to anything I cook or create. As long as food appears in front of him at roughly the expected meal time, everybody seems happy enough.
Rather than dwell on the many mysteries of married life, I’d much rather focus on the potatoes themselves. Good mashed potatoes don’t need much. They don’t need cream, milk, garlic, cheese, or any of the other things people insist on adding. Just potatoes, butter, and salt. That’s it. Three humble ingredients coming together to create something far greater than the sum of their parts.
The Croatian Mum Who Changed Everything
The inspiration for this recipe actually comes from the mum of an ex-boyfriend when I was a teenager. She was Croatian, an incredible cook, and made the best mashed potatoes I’d ever eaten in my life. Growing up, we ate mash regularly at home, but Mum always made hers with soy milk. The result was usually grey, dry, and about as exciting as wet cardboard.
Then I tasted this Croatian family’s version and everything changed. It was rich, silky, buttery, and somehow managed to feel luxurious despite being made from ingredients most people already had sitting in their kitchen. It was one of those simple recipes that quietly changes your expectations forever.
Many years later, those potatoes came to my rescue again. I’d had my tongue pierced and discovered very quickly that eating solid food was no longer an option. For a couple of weeks I survived on a steady diet of soft foods, and buttery mashed potatoes became one of my greatest comforts. Looking back, it was probably one of the few times in my life where eating bowls of mashed potato multiple times a day felt entirely justified.
Potatoes, Wine, and Better Days Ahead
Nowadays I find myself making these mashed potatoes for my husband, who insists he’s Scottish despite technically being born in England and only moving here when he was six. He dislikes almost everything stereotypically Scottish. Kilts. Haggis. Bagpipes. Scottish culture in general. The sole exception appears to be Celtic Football Club, which he follows with a level of devotion I struggle to comprehend.
As I write this, a bowl of mashed potatoes is waiting for me in the kitchen. Outside the window, snow covers the woods behind our flat. It’s one of those cold Scottish evenings where darkness settles in early and the whole world feels unusually quiet. Well, apart from the sound of my husband enthusiastically pretending to be a rock star while playing Rock Band in the next room.
I’m planning to pour another glass of wine, eat my potatoes, and spend the evening staring out at the snow. Life isn’t particularly straightforward right now, and my marriage certainly isn’t the fairy tale I’d hoped it would be. Still, comfort comes in many forms. Tonight it arrives in the shape of buttery mashed potatoes. Rich, creamy, uncomplicated potatoes that ask absolutely nothing of me in return.
FAQ
Do I need to add cream or milk?
No. Butter is made from cream and milk, so good quality salted butter gives you all the richness and creaminess you need without any additional dairy. The key is using enough of it and making sure it’s at room temperature before it goes in.
Why is my mash gluey and dense?
Almost always over-mashing. Working the potatoes too much activates the starch and turns the mash from light and fluffy to gummy and heavy. Mash until just smooth and stop as soon as it comes together. A potato ricer rather than a masher also helps if you want an especially silky result without the risk of overworking.
Why do I need to let the potatoes steam in the colander before mashing?
Draining the potatoes and letting them sit for a few minutes allows the excess moisture to evaporate before the butter goes in. Skip this step and that water gets mashed straight into the potato, which gives you a watery, loose mash that no amount of butter will fix.Ingredient breakdown
Ingredients Breakdown
Sebago potatoes
Sebago is the right potato for mash because it’s a floury, starchy variety that breaks down beautifully when cooked and gives you that light, fluffy result rather than the gluey, dense texture you get from a waxy potato. Dice them into evenly sized pieces before they go into the pot because uneven pieces cook at different rates and you’ll end up with some pieces overcooked and falling apart while others are still firm in the middle. Starting them in cold salted water rather than dropping them into boiling water helps them cook evenly all the way through. Desiree or King Edward potatoes work just as well if sebago isn’t available.
Salted butter
125g is not a typo and it’s not excessive. This is a three-ingredient recipe and the butter is the whole point. Salted specifically, because it seasons the mash as it melts through rather than requiring a separate seasoning step, and it adds a depth that unsalted butter simply doesn’t have. Room temperature rather than straight from the fridge because cold butter doesn’t incorporate as easily and you end up working the potato more than you should to get it smooth, which activates the starch and gives you gluey mash. Take it out before you start cooking and cut it into small pieces so it melts evenly through the hot potato. Use the best quality butter you can find because with only three ingredients, every single one of them matters.
Sea salt flakes
A large pinch, and then taste and adjust because potatoes need more salt than you’d expect to taste properly seasoned rather than bland. The salted butter is already doing some of the work but sea salt flakes added separately give you control over the final seasoning. Add them after the butter has been incorporated so you can taste accurately and adjust from there.
Serve this with
- Slow-cooked beef or lamb with rich gravy, where the mash does the job of soaking up every bit of sauce in the bowl.
- Sausages and caramelised onions for a classic bangers and mash that needs absolutely nothing else.
- Steak pie or beef goulash for the kind of comfort food combination that makes a miserable evening considerably better.
