Side dishes · Potato sides

Mashed potatoes

Name: Mashed potatoes
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: 2 1/4 lb russet potatoes, peeled, cut in even chunks; 6 tbsp butter; 3/4 cup whole milk, warmed; 1 1/2 tsp salt; 1/2 tsp black pepper

The side dish America searches for more than almost any main: russets, butter, warm milk, and the restraint to stop mashing before they turn to glue.

Time: 35 min (15 prep + 20 cook)
Servings: 6
Per serving: 259 kcal
Protein: 5 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

2 1/4 lb russet potatoes, peeled, cut in even chunks1000 g
6 tbsp butter85 g
3/4 cup whole milk, warmed180 g
1 1/2 tsp salt8 g
1/2 tsp black pepper1 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Start the potatoes in cold, well-salted water and simmer until a knife slides through with no resistance, 15–18 minutes.
Drain thoroughly and let them steam dry in the colander a minute — water left in the pot is water in your mash.
Mash with the butter first, then the warm milk. Warm milk absorbs; cold milk sits.
Season and stop. Mashing past smooth ruptures the starch and turns fluffy into gluey — the electric mixer is how it goes wrong.

How do I make them lighter without losing the texture?

A ricer or masher, never a blender. If you want them lighter, the More filling build swaps most of the butter for more warm milk — the texture holds up better than you'd guess.

Alternative

Cauliflower mashthe cauliflower rebuild61

Why this score

easy to overeat

No single route carries this one — a moderate amount of protein, volume and fiber.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

8% of kcal

74% water

9 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 1554 kcal goes into the pot, 1274 g of ingredients comes out as ~1150 g of food → 135 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 135
Protein: (8%); 3 g
Fat: (45%); 7 g
Carbohydrates: (48%); 16 g
of which sugar: 1 g
Fiber: 1 g
Sodium: 326 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More side dishes

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.