The Clever Way Alex Guarnaschelli Makes Mashed Potatoes Without Peeling, Chopping, Or Boiling

Creamy and buttery mashed potatoes is a crowd-pleasing side dish for holiday meals and weekday family dinners alike. While it's not hard to whip up, the traditional way of making it involves peeling the spuds, cutting them up, and boiling them after hauling out a big pot and filling it with water. Celebrity chef Alex Guarnaschelli uses a different cooking method instead that not only streamlines the process, it makes the dish pop with more flavor: baking them.

She explains on Instagram that boiling the potatoes makes them taste watery, while baking preserves their flavor as they don't take on a bunch of water. You just cook them in the oven as usual — she advises one per person — or use one of the other best ways to cook a baked potato. Once they're done, wait until you're just able to handle them to start breaking them down; if they cool too long, they can become gummy.

Guarnaschelli cuts the baked spuds in half length-wise and pushes them through a ricer up to the skin. Ricing, which cuts the flesh into little pieces by pressing it through a small grid, is the best technique because it compresses it the least. Mashing too much or too vigorously releases excess starch, which can make them gluey. That's why you should never use a blender or food processor, and need to be sparing with a hand mixer. If you don't have a ricer, a food mill or hand masher are good options. For the same reason, mix the potatoes gently with the other ingredients only as much as necessary, which Guarnaschelli says will keep them tender.

Russet potatoes and Yukon Golds, either alone or used together, are the top choice for making a creamy mash. Warming the dairy and butter (or melting it) also helps create the best flavor and texture, since they'll mix in more smoothly and easily. Just as with traditional mashes, you can incorporate many other ingredients, too. However, with the cooking method change, the taste of the baked potatoes will combine with those elements, instead of potentially being overshadowed by them, as watery boiled spuds could be.

Alex Guarnaschelli uses both cream and buttermilk for her dairy, but you could include milk, half-and-half, tangy sour cream or cream cheese, and lightly sweet mascarpone cheese. Her only other additions are classic butter, salt, and pepper, but you can elevate yours any way you like.

You could vary the fat by browning the butter, using homemade smoked butter, or adding a little olive oil. Try simmering herbs like rosemary, thyme, or sage in a liquid dairy like milk to infuse their flavor, and then strain it and blend it with the potatoes. Mix in your favorite cheese, crumbled bacon, roasted garlic, chili crisp, chopped dill, chives or scallions, smoked paprika, or even French Onion dip mix or sweet maple syrup for a flavor boost. You could even play off Guarnaschelli's baked spud swap by making a mashed version of loaded baked potatoes with sour cream, bacon, cheddar cheese, and chives.