When a potato cooks, the starches contained in each cell are released as the cell walls break down. These starches absorb the potato’s internal moisture and swell and soften. These two processes are what transform a raw, hard potato into a cooked, softer potato fit for mashing.
If you cut your potatoes up before boiling them, the starches absorb the internal potato moisture as well as the water in which they’re being boiled. If they boil for too long, they absorb too much water and your mashed potatoes will become gummy. The difference between perfectly cooked potato pieces and soggy pieces can sometimes be as little as a minute or two.
An easy workaround is to boil potatoes whole. They’ll take a bit longer to cook but you can leave them in the hot water after boiling without undesirable effects, keeping them warm until it’s time to mash them. I start my potatoes boiling as soon as I begin cooking and mash them immediately before dinner.
If they need more moisture, you can add a bit of hot potato boiling water or another liquid. This way, you have more control of their moisture content.
Huh? I admit I’m not really much of a cook but I’ve always chopped soaked in cold water then boiled in a fresh pot of water. They’ve never been gummy.
You are doing it correctly.
I bake the potatoes a long time, like an hour, then mash them up and add milk, butter and sour cream. Seems pretty good to me.
Where did we go wrong as a people when there’s this much discussion about the most basic cooking concept and execution?
Boil in chunks with the skin still on. Drain and mash immediately while still way too hot with a hand masher, butter and raw egg. Stir in grated cheese and bake for 20 minutes at like 325-350.
That’s madness. I want to try it.
I hate potato skins, I know that’s weird, but I do.
Can’t even tell they’re in there by the time they’re done. Plus, the skin has more protein and nutrients than the rest of the potato. All the stuff that’s good for you is in the skin. Whole point of this recipe is you can eat them without knowing they’re even there.
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Whole lot of overthinking potatoes in this thread
An easy workaround is to boil potatoes whole. They’ll take a bit longer to cook but you can leave them in the hot water after boiling without undesirable effects, keeping them warm until it’s time to mash them.
This is your problem. It isn’t that the potatoes absorbed too much water while cooking them, you left them to continue cooking in the hot water which is why they are getting overdone. You are trying to compensate with larger mass to make up for letting them soak after cooking, which is why they absorb too much water.
If you just pulled them out and made them when they were done they wouldn’t turn into soggy messes and you would have a lot more control over when they are done. If they are done early, they will retain their heat just fine in a covered dish.
The fact that you can overcook them in a couple of minutes when the total cook time cut is around 10-15 minutes depending on size is right in line with cooking pretty much anything. Cooking pasta for a couple minutes longer will change their consistency too!
I’ve never had gummy mashed potatoes, and I’ve been giving them a 1" chop for years. Takes 10 minutes to cook then drain them right away. They come out fine every time. Plus the butter melts right away when you throw everything together.
To be totally transparent, I never had gummy mash until my wife and I got together. She used to boil her potatoes, let them sit in the hot water until closer to dinner, then whip them with beaters. She’s from Ireland, I joke that the potato blight was a failed preemptive strike to prevent her from ever touching a potato.
Adjusting an early process to compensate for faulty processes further into cooking isn’t the right answer. I always cut potatoes before boiling. They never turned out gummy and lots of paying customers agreed.
Adam Ragusea has great videos on mashed potatoes, even talking about exactly your point:
Adam, my beloved
That channel is amazing.
Mostly it’s about using room temp water in the pot.
If you use hot water, thinking they will cook faster, that’s the step that will make them gluey for sure.
So start them off in room temp water.
I prefer unpeeled Red Bliss 🥔 myself.
I simmer some milk or cream and butter with some roasted garlic for the real goodness.
Bigger potatoes, chunk em into quarter size.
Definitely peel starchy potatoes.
Waxy ones like Red Bliss or Golden/New Potatoes, I leave the skin on for nutrients/nutrition.
And don’t let them sit in the water after for too long, at least drain them first if you aren’t gonna mash right away before serving.
Sous vide your potatoes if you’re a fancy bitch 👑
Gummy? What? I cut my potatoes into quarters before boiling and never have my mashed potatoes been “gummy”. What in the world are you putting in your potatoes?
They’re over-mixing, I bet.
Also: beating the potatoes with an electric mixer because you’re too lazy to mash them will produce a glue-like consistency. Don’t do that.
(Michael if you ever read this, please know that your cooking fucking sucks.)
If you don’t know how to eyeball milk right, sure. If you know what you’re doing you’ll actually introduce a lot more air and make them fluffy. I’m kind of flabbergasted by how these folks are screwing up mashed potatoes, because you are literally standing there and adding ingredients until they feel right to you.
I usually use a masher, but a mixer will produce objectively better texture.
I wouldn’t saw it is objectively better with a mixer, but both chunky mashed and properly whipped potatoes are awesome for different reasons.
This is totally wrong? It has nothing to do with milk, you’re just overworking the starch. Use a ricer to do 99% of the mashing if you need extremely smooth mashed potatoes, then you can try to whip in a tiny bit of air at the end if you want, but just butter + milk + folding is enough
You gotta seriously fuck up to make gummy mashed potatoes. Under cooked potatoes are much more common.
