Blue Cheese Mashed Potatoes

by Heidi Published: Nov 12, 2020 Updated: Sep 16, 2022

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The tang of buttermilk with crumbles of blue cheese amp up the flavor in these 5 ingredient blue cheese mashed potatoes.

In This Post

Buttermilk Blue Cheese Mashed Potatoes

The best part of dinner, especially when it’s a holiday dinner, is the side dishes. And when the side dishes are rocked with flavor, the main dish can just scooch on over to the sidelines.

When you’re operating in the multiple side dish zone (which seems to be the theme of this list of 50 favorite Thanksgiving side dishes) it’s a good idea to keep those side dish recipes simple. Complicated, overwrought 182 ingredient recipes just aren’t what the frazzled home-cooking-hostess needs when cooking the years favorite feast.

We all love the classic and creamy buttery mashed potatoes recipe, but when you’re craving a little something extra to serve alongside the best classic roasted turkey or this out of the box buffalo roasted turkey, adding just two ingredients takes basic mashers to SMASHERS!

What’s In Blue Cheese Mashed Potatoes

These decadent 5-ingredient mashed potatoes start off with Yukon gold potatoes for their creamy, buttery texture. Save the waxy white or red potatoes when your tater for my favorite potato salad or these easy buttery parsley red potatoes.

Here’s what’s in these blue cheese mashed potato recipe:

Yukon gold potatoes for the creamiest blend, cut into quarters for quicker cooking
Buttermilk, to give the potatoes a bright tang (you could use cream, half and half, or milk instead)
Real butter. Always real butter.
Freshly crumbled blue cheese. Please, please, please, avoid the pre-packaged crumbles and buy the whole blocks of blue cheese and crumble yourself instead. There’s a difference you most certainly will taste.
Chives or really thin sliced green onion

How to Get Smooth and Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Salt the water so the potatoes soak in flavor as they cook. My husband always reminds me to add the salt after the water has come to a boil so the salt doesn’t pit the bottoms of the pans. Cook the potatoes whole, or quarter the potatoes before cooking so they cook faster, usually in about 10-15 minutes or until fork-tender.

Put the taters back in the pot. A trick I’ve found to get an extra creamy potato is once the skins are quickly removed, I add the potatoes back to the same warm pot I cooked them in, then lightly smash them with the hand mixer tines, and add my butter to the still-hot potatoes. Cover the potatoes with a lid and let them sit for a couple of minutes, allowing the potatoes to dry out a little, keep warm, and absorb the melting butter for a barrier.

Add the butter before the buttermilk. Adding the butterfat to the potatoes before adding the buttermilk, coats the potato starches and acts as a barrier to ensure your mashed potatoes won’t turn out gummy, sticky, or over mixed.

Whip ‘em with a mixer. The real secret to great mashers is how you mash them. I’ve used a ricer, but it’s a bit of a pain and my muscles never seem strong enough. I’ve used a masher, and get a tasty mashed potato but always have a few potato chunks. That’s why I’ve returned to my potato roots and use an electric hand mixer just like my mom and grandma used to do. I still use my mom’s trick of setting the pot of potatoes in the sink to whip them, so the hand mixer doesn’t send potato particles across the kitchen.

Stir in the blue cheese chunks and chives. Fold in the flavor makers, but again, be careful not to over mix, and season with kosher salt and pepper to taste.

What to Serve With Mashed Potatoes

If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a rating on this recipe below and leave a comment, take a photo and tag me on Instagram with #foodiecrusheats.

4.42 from 31 votes