Creamy Mashed Potatoes with Mayonnaise

If you add mayonnaise to your mashed potatoes, not only will they have a deeper, rich flavor, they’ll also be creamier, and more delicious.

When you grow up in the midwest, you grow up on meat and potatoes. I remember having mashed potatoes fairly often with some sort of protein – pot roast, meatloaf, or pork chops.

Once my wife and I got our first apartment before we got married, her mother would drop off 9×13 pans of mashed potatoes almost every week – or so it seemed at the time. I felt like we had some sort of potatoes every day and after a while, I was looking like one.

Once she moved down to Tennessee, we went years without any real mashed potatoes for dinner (unless we went down to visit her). I was so sick of mashed potatoes that I tended to either roast or bake them. Hasselback potatoes? So good. If you’re interested I can share that recipe sometime.

However, it’s like a rite of passage that you must have a mashed potatoes recipe in your arsenal – especially in the midwest. My mother has her special recipe as does my mother-in-law, but I’m sure that if you compared the two that they would be pretty much the same. If I asked my mom how she makes them, she’d blow it off and say it’s nothing special.

 

She’s famous for her “secret” recipes.

 

In 1998, I was working as a producer of a weekend request show on WOMC radio in Detroit. The DJ, Don Phillips, and I were broadcasting live on location at the Woodward Dream Cruise in Pontiac, and my parents showed up to see all of the festivities and me in action (though they probably just wanted to see Don in person which was rare). At holiday get-togethers or on that offbeat occasion when my mom would make a batch of Swedish meatballs (and mashed potatoes), she always sent me with a big plate to give to Don. And he loved it.

While Don was on-air talking, and my mom in striking distance, he publicly thanked her for all of the meatballs she had me bring and asked her for the recipe. Well, put on the spot she went silent. He laughed and said that that secret recipe will have to remain a secret, and we went on with the show.

Her recipes have remained a secret to this day.

In my years of making mashed potatoes, I have uncovered one secret to making the potatoes extra creamy. I found that the secret is to use mayonnaise.

I can honestly tell you that these Creamy Mashed Potatoes with Mayonnaise have been so good and rich in flavor that I can’t stop eating them. Honestly, you can use any brand if mayo – whatever brand you’re loyal to – but I’ve been trying to use as many New Orleans based businesses as possible and recently came across Blue Plate Mayonnaise. They have been around since 1927. The quality is unbelievable. Like with most New Orleans/Louisiana based products, they are not easily found in any store where I’m located – much like Camellia brand red beans. But they can be ordered online and shipped. I use Cajun Grocer and order everything I need, and usually a bunch more. If you’re between mayo containers and want to try something new or different, try Blue Plate. Maybe they sell them near you. To see if there’s a store near you that sells Blue Plate, you can find a store here.

Besides the mayo, Blue Plate has a set of ‘Go Bold‘ sauces, a sandwich spread, a light version, and one made with olive oil. They are all amazing in their own way and I highly recommend their products. My son, Nolan, loves the mayonnaise on his Turkey Sandwiches. “Spread it on both sides,” he started to demand once I switched to Blue Plate. Lately, I’ve been making a mean breakfast sandwich using one of the ‘Go Bold‘ sauces – I spread it across English muffins while making a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich. 

One of the biggest differences you’ll see with mayonnaise-based mashed potatoes is that they stay creamier after being refrigerated. When you use a recipe with more butter, it gets harder because the butter solidifies. The next few days, while I was eating this and photographing the Hamburger Steak recipe I previously made, these potatoes didn’t need any extra milk or butter to soften up. I just reheated them and they were just as perfect as the first day.

Now, is this how my mother or mother-in-law made mashed potatoes? Probably not. Are they just as good? Of course. And if I’m asked for the secret to my mashed potatoes, this is it. Blue Plate Mayonnaise.

 

These are the mashed potatoes I made with the Hamburger Steaks with Smothered Onions. In that recipe, I talked about the Mid-City neighborhood in New Orleans along with Liuzza’s Restaurant and Bar. Since it’s hard to get down to NOLA, I thought that it would be easier to pick a restaurant there, find a dish off of the menu, and try to recreate it at home. Liuzza’s offers a ‘Blue Plate‘ special on the full menu, which is the hamburger steak with smothered onions. They offer either French fries or mashed potatoes with the meal. Sticking with the ‘Blue Plate‘ theme, I thought that it would be perfect to share these Creamy Mashed Potatoes with Mayonnaise recipe with it.

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