These are the best tasting Instant Pot mashed potatoes with the best texture and a hint of garlic. Soft and fluffy garlic mashed potatoes cooked easily in an Instant Pot. This comforting side dish is ready in about 30 minutes.
Making a side of homemade mashed potatoes just got so much easier. Just let the pressure cooker do all of the work for you! Also, when you make mashed potatoes in the Instant Pot instead of on your stove-top, it reduces your time in the kitchen by about 10 to 15 minutes.
When the potatoes are pressure cooked to perfection in the Instant Pot, the consistency is oh so soft and smooth. Mashing them doesn’t require sore arms afterwards because they’re incredibly tender.
Table of contents
How To Make Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes
Prepare the potatoes: Peel and quarter the potatoes. You can also choose to leave the skins on if you prefer, just note that your final product will have an added texture to it.
If you choose to leave the skin on, be sure to rinse and scrub the potatoes well and make sure there’s no residue on them.
Add the ingredients to the pressure cooker: Place the prepared potatoes, pressed garlic, salt, and pepper in the Instant Pot. Pour in enough broth to cover the potatoes.
Pressure cook the potatoes: Close the lid and make sure it’s latched. Turn the valve to “seal” and set the Instant Pot to cook on high pressure cook mode for 15 minutes.
Carefully do a quick release. Make sure to press cancel first, then open the lid after all of the pressure has been released. Drain off the water, but be sure to save some for the mashed potatoes.
Add the final ingredients and mash: add the butter, about 1/4 cup of cooking broth, and about 1/4 cup of milk to the potatoes. Mash the potatoes well and taste to see if you need more salt or black pepper. Add more milk if necessary until the desired consistency is achieved. Mash potatoes using a potato masher until smooth and fluffy.
Tips For Making Mashed Potatoes In Instant Pot
- Do NOT replace the broth with water! Both chicken and vegetable broth lend so much flavor to the potatoes.
- Plan on serving these mashed potatoes with a beef entrée or gravy? Feel free to use Beef Stock instead of vegetable or chicken.
- Be very careful when you’re draining the water and mashing the potatoes as they will be quite hot.
- Want to save a little time? You can use quick release on the pressure cooker instead of natural release. Natural release normally takes an additional 10-15 minutes. As always, be careful because the steam is hot.
Ingredient Tips and Substitutions
Potatoes – Russet potatoes are always the best choice for mashed potatoes because they are soft and fluffy and fall apart easy. Gold potatoes would be our second choice because they are medium starch. They are soft but still stay together a little more.
Whole milk – whole milk will give you creamier, richer sauce than low far options. If you need a lactose free options, you can use lactose free whole milk. For dairy free (vegan) options, use almond milk or soy milk. (Note that oat milk is an option but it does tend to be sweeter.)
Butter – to control the amount of salt, it’s best to use unsalted butter. If you need to make mashed potatoes vegan or lactose free, feel free to use plant based butter.
Should I Peel the Potatoes?
No, you don’t have to peel them but you DO have to wash them well! If you want to keep your side dish rustic, you can keep the potato skin on and simply cut the potatoes and add them to the pot.
Make sure to wash and scrub the potatoes first though since they are usually covered in dirt.
Leaving potato skin on also preserves the nutrients that are in the potato skin.
Some More Comforting Side Dish Recipes
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Instant Pot Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients
- 3 lbs Russet (Idaho) potatoes
- 1 oz garlic cloves
- 2.5 cups chicken or vegetable broth
- salt
- fresh cracked black pepper
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup leftover broth from cooking potatoes
- 1/4 cup whole milk (more or less if needed)
Instructions
- Peel and quarter potatoes. (If you want to leave skin on, make sure to wash potatoes well. Potato skin does contain a lot of nutrients.)
- Place quartered potatoes into the instant pot.
- Press garlic cloves and add it to the potatoes. Season with some salt and pepper.
- Add enough broth to just cover the potatoes.
- Close the lid and make sure it’s latched. Turn the valve to “seal” and set the Instant Pot to cook on high pressure cook mode for 15 minutes.
- You can do a quick release, carefully. Make sure to press cancel first just to double check that the pressure cooker is done cooking. Open the lid after all pressure has been released.
- Drain off all the water but save some for the mashed potatoes.
- Add butter, about 1/4 cup of cooking broth, and about 1/4 cup of milk to potatoes. Mash potatoes well. Taste to see if you need more salt. If texture demands it, add some more milk.
- Note: if using a metal potato masher, transfer potatoes into a separate mixing bowl so that you don't scratch the Instant Pot bowl.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Originally published on Will Cook For Smiles on November 7, 2018.
Natosha Jacobs says
Looks cool
Simone says
Hello, I’m planning on making this for Christmas Eve Dinner but I need to make a larger batch. Could you advise on how to triple the recipe? Thanks!
Lyuba Brooke says
Hi Simone! I’m so sorry for missing your question. So the amount here highly depends on the size of the Instant Pot (pressure cooker) you have. You cannot fill the pot passed the “max fill” line. So you can see if you have space to increase the recipe. If not, you may have to do two or three batches. Good news is that it cooks pretty fast but if you’re making a large amount, you may want to consider doing it on stove-top instead.