The Best Tools for Mashed Potatoes, Whichever Way You Like Them (2024)

For such a simple dish, there are a lot of ways to make mashed potatoes. To rank them is to ignore a central truth about the luxurious holiday favorite: Like chocolate chip cookies, what qualifies as the “best” is entirely dependent on your personal taste. Is your ideal scoop of mashed potatoes fluffy with lots of body, super smooth and lump-free, or rustic and studded with bits of red skin? Do you have a lot of time to spend getting your mash on, or are you looking for a quick-and-dirty method for getting potatoes to the table? The right tool to create the spud side dish of your dreams depends on your personal potato strategy. Scroll down for seven of the best tools to make mashed potatoes your way.

Potato ricer

A potato ricer is widely regarded as the best tool for mashed potatoes that are smooth and fluffy. Built like a big garlic press, it works by pushing cooked potatoes (one or two at a time) through a perforated grate, creating stringy, broken-down potato bits without releasing a ton of starch. As noted in the intro to this super-creamy recipe, a potato ricer will also catch the skins of the spuds as it works, which means you don't have to peel anything before you start—a time-saver when cooking a whole holiday spread.

The fine print: A potato ricer is best for the home cook who plans to make mashed potatoes with some regularity, but never in too large a quantity. It’s a relatively small tool, but it has just the single use, so it would need to earn its keep to warrant taking up precious storage space.

Food mill

A food mill uses a crank with a blade attached to mash and strain potatoes into a very smooth consistency. It’s a slightly bigger tool than a ricer, so it can handle more than a potato or two at a time—a big benefit if you’re cooking for a crowd (try Our Favorite Mashed Potato Recipe this Thanksgiving). The perforated disk at the base is usually finer than the grate on a ricer, resulting in a smoother, more evenly mashed potato. However, that—plus the increased number of total pieces—does make the tool ultimately harder to clean.

On the plus side, a food mill is quite versatile, so if you prioritize buying multiuse products, it might be the one for you. You can use the tool to break down fresh tomatoes for sauce (straining out the skin and seeds in the process), to make jam or preserves (without seeds or stems), and to blend applesauce or creamy soups.

Potato masher

Associate editor Joe Sevier is partial to a potato masher—a tool made specifically for the task—because he likes “a rustic potato mash with the skin.” If you’re after a consistent and smooth end result, this is not the tool for you, but for a fast, by-hand mash that is the perfect base for a spoonful of gravy, it’s a great thing to keep around. Also, despite the name, a potato masher is not a single-application tool; the more you think about it, the more opportunities for mashing seem to present themselves. You’ll pull it out to griddle smashburgers, crush chickpeas for falafel, or mix a big batch of guacamole.

Immersion blender

An immersion blender is a handheld tool with some power behind it. It’s a particularly great option if you’re cutting your potatoes with another vegetable, like cauliflower, parsnips, or turnips. Blending an all-potato mash—even with the precision of a hand blender—runs the risk of releasing too much starch, creating a gluey, sticky mess. But with other produce incorporated into the mix, an immersion blender is a great way to get everything exactly as smooth as you’d want without overdoing it. The All-Clad model is an Epicurious favorite, and the winner of our annual product test.

Hand mixer

Does it shock you to find this tool on the list? It shocked me too. But Sevier says his mom breaks out the hand mixer every time she makes mashed potatoes, and they are, I’m quoting here, “the best mashed potatoes you will ever have.” Potatoes made this way are light and fluffy with a few lumps, and they come together very quickly. Because you can use your hand mixer with any size bowl, it’s an easy way to make a very big batch at once. If you’d like to cream butter and sugar for cookies and make the Thanksgiving potatoes with the same tool, try a hand mixer; according to our product review, this Krups model is the best overall.

Tamis

No, you cannot make mashed potatoes with a tamis alone. But if you want to get really chef-y this year and create a side dish that’s closer to French pommes purée than it is a hand-mashed bowl of spuds, you’ll need a tool like this. A tamis is a very fine-mesh sieve used for sifting, straining, and removing even the tiniest impurity or lump from a sauce or spread. After passing potatoes through a food mill or ricer and adding whatever dairy you want, you can push the resulting mixture through a tamis using a silicone spatula; it’s not quick and a bit of a workout, but you’ll end up with the silkiest potatoes you’ve ever made. (If you already have a fine-mesh strainer, you can definitely use that instead.)

A good old fork

Sorry to be this way, but I love a lump. I think totally smooth mashed potatoes are kind of alarming and contrary to nature—too much like baby food for my holiday table. Instead, I prefer the just-mashed variety that you can make with a fork and some elbow grease in a still-hot pot with a bunch of butter and salt. If you don’t have room for another tool in your kitchen and want to be done in a hurry, this trusty piece of cutlery is absolutely the best tool for mashed potatoes.