Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes

I have made several batches of potatoes in the Instant Pot now, and last night's were by far my favorite. So here are the things I have learned and how I made last night's batch. Unless I figure out a better way, this is my new go-to for Instant Pot Mashed potatoes.

Marsha's Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes

5 lb bag russets, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces.
1 can chicken broth 14-15 oz.
1 stick butter, room temperature
salt and pepper
garlic salt
milk
sour cream 

Wash, peel and cut potatoes and place them in the pot. Add the chicken broth and cook on high for 9 minutes. Do a quick release for pressure. Drain off most of the chicken stock (I drained everything I could out of the pot by tilting the liner pot over the sink and holding the potatoes back with a wooden spoon up to the point that potatoes were going to fall into the sink. Hard to say how much was left in there, but not much. 

Sprinkle with some salt and pepper and add butter (or the equivalent of garlic butter). Then take a hand-mixer and start smashing the potatoes with the beaters. Then turn on the mixer and mix to the desired consistency. If they are not already creamy enough, you can add milk a little at a time, or sour cream. Taste test and if they need more flavor, add a sprinkling of garlic salt until they are perfect!

I tried to use small yellow potatoes a couple times and they can be too hard to peel if they are too small. I tried putting them in with some peel but we didn't like that in our mashed potatoes. The yellows also didn't seem to hold up to the pressure as well, so you might have to cook them a little less amount of time.

Russets are bigger and easier to peel and gave us a better overall result.

You can also adjust the flavor by using less chicken stock and more water, and some recipes say to put milk right in the pot before cooking... other sites say that milk goes wacky in a pressure cooker and to add it afterwards. It's up to you. I've done it both ways and never noticed a problem. Depending on the flavor you like, adjust the milk/broth/water/sour cream/butter/garlic butter ratios.

If you don't want to scratch you liner, don't beat the potatoes in the liner. Transfer them to another safe dish. I have already done this so my pot is scratched, but it doesn't seem to be getting worse or impacting anything, so I just keep doing it for convenience. I'll report back later if that was a bad idea. Ha, ha!