Tyler Florence's Mashed Potato Hack Is Simple But Brilliant

If there’s a way to improve on mashed potatoes, the ultimate comfort food, I’m all ears. We’ve tried (and loved!) Ina Garten’s cheesy mashed potatoes and melting potatoes. Plus, we’ve even figured out what to do with those pesky potato skins. Now, Tyler Florence–chef, and host of numerous Food Network shows–has given us the ultimate hack. It’s bound to make your mashed potatoes even more creamy, rich, and decadent.

It should come as no surprise that Florence, a self-proclaimed “connoisseur of potatoes,” has come up with a delicious way to improve this dish. He recently revealed this hack in his Grainy Mustard Mashed Potato recipe.

Florence’s hack to up the flavor profile of already delicious mashed potatoes is simple. Instead of just adding a little butter and cream to the potatoes while mashing, you’re going to actually cook the potatoes in milk and cream.

As Florence told Popsugar, “Potatoes have a really delicate, beautiful minerality to their flavor profile, and when you cook potatoes in water and you pour that water down the drain, you’ve extracted all the flavor of the potato,” he explained. “So what I do with mashed potatoes—because you finish them with cream and butter anyway, right?—is I’ll take that same cream and butter and add that to the potatoes and cook the potatoes in cream and butter.”

How To Make Tyler Florence’s Mustard Mashed Potatoes

To “maximize the flavor of the potato with minimal effort” you’ll boil the potatoes with half whole milk and half heavy cream. Next, you’ll infuse even more flavor into the potatoes. Add whole cloves of garlic, fresh thyme, and bay leaves right into the milk and cream. After about 15 to 20 minutes, test the potatoes to see if they’re cooked thoroughly.

After the potatoes are cooked, discard the bay leaves, rosemary, and garlic, but save the milk. Mash your potatoes with a potato masher then add the milk back into the pot. Add salt, pepper, olive oil, butter, and a tablespoon of grainy mustard to elevate your mashed potatoes to make them even more savory.