How to keep mashed potatoes warm for hours

How to keep mashed potatoes warm, compared

Use the slow cooker if you have one. It holds them longest with the least watching, and on Thanksgiving it's the one heat source the turkey and the sides aren't already fighting over.

Whichever you use, the line is 140°F (60°C). Hot food kept below it sits in what the USDA calls the danger zone, between 40°F and 140°F, where bacteria multiply fastest. To know where you are, push an instant-read thermometer into the middle of the potatoes.

Keeping mashed potatoes warm in a slow cooker

Up to 2 hours, on warm or low. That's the limit in America's Test Kitchen's slow-cooker mashed potatoes, and its guide to getting everything to the table hot says mashed potatoes stay hot for an hour or more in a slow cooker set to low. The 2 hours is about texture. Clemson Cooperative Extension says food stays safe as long as the cooker is operating, and for holding it wants the cooker at 140°F or above. Past 2 hours the potatoes dry out at the edges and stiffen.

1. Turn the slow cooker on while the potatoes boil, so the crock is hot when they go in.
2. Move the mashed potatoes in as soon as they're done. If they were made ahead and chilled, reheat them on the stove or in the microwave until they're steaming, at 165°F (74°C), first.
3. Set it to low or warm, and put the lid on. Settings differ between models, so check after half an hour that the middle reads 140°F or more, and turn it up if it doesn't.
4. Stir now and then, scraping down the sides, where they dry out first.

Double boiler: an hour on the stove

About an hour. For holding, America's Test Kitchen puts the potatoes in a heatproof bowl, covers it tightly with plastic wrap and sets it over a pot of simmering water. It says they stay hot and soft-textured for 1 hour, as long as you check the water level now and then.

A bowl over water can't scorch the way a pot sitting on a burner can, because the water underneath never gets hotter than boiling. The cover keeps in the steam, so the top doesn't form a skin. Pick a metal or glass bowl that sits snugly in the mouth of the pot, and keep the heat at a gentle simmer.

Low oven: 20 minutes, unless you check

15 to 20 minutes, in an oven preheated to 200 to 250°F. That's Nebraska Extension's figure for most hot foods. It suggests mashing the potatoes in an oven-safe saucepan, so the whole pan can go in while you finish everything else. Cover it with foil, as Illinois Extension advises, or the top dries out.

For longer than 20 minutes, Nebraska says to check often with a thermometer that the food is staying at 140°F or above, and to turn the oven up if it isn't. On Thanksgiving the oven is busy anyway: once the turkey is out, it's usually at 375°F for the stuffing and casseroles. If the potatoes have to share it, slide them onto the bottom rack, covered, for the last 15 minutes.

How long can mashed potatoes sit out?

2 hours at room temperature, and 1 hour if it's above 90°F (32°C). That's the USDA's limit for any cooked food in the danger zone, and mashed potatoes, made with milk and butter, get no exception. Count from when they came off the heat or out of the slow cooker. Our post on how long food can sit out covers how that time adds up across the day.

The easiest way to stay inside it is to put a small bowl on the table and refill it from the slow cooker. A warmed bowl helps: ATK warms serving dishes in a 150 to 200°F oven or with very hot tap water, and says a warm bowl keeps food hot for 5 or 10 minutes.

Leftovers go into the fridge in shallow containers within the 2 hours, and keep 3 to 4 days according to Illinois Extension. To freeze them instead, can you freeze mashed potatoes covers which recipes freeze well and how to reheat them.

Loosening stiff mashed potatoes before serving

Stir in hot liquid, a few tablespoons at a time. ATK's lighter mashed potatoes recipe says mashed potatoes stiffen and become gluey as they cool, and its note on holding them warm explains why they also dry out when they're kept hot. The potato starch goes on absorbing water at holding temperatures, including the water in the dairy you mashed in, so less is left to keep the mash loose.

To fix it, ATK's guide to getting everything to the table hot says to adjust the consistency with a little warm milk, cream, broth, juice or water. Its slow-cooker recipe uses extra hot water. Heat the liquid first, since cold milk drops the temperature of the whole batch, and fold it in with a spatula until the potatoes fall off the spoon again. Taste for salt afterwards, since plain water dilutes it.

When to make mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving

Make them the day before, or finish them before the turkey comes out. The Thanksgiving cooking timeline makes them on Wednesday and reheats them on the stove on Thursday while the turkey rests. That rest, covered in how long to rest a turkey, is 20 to 45 minutes when the stove and oven are busiest, which is when a slow cooker full of hot potatoes pays for itself.

In Hedgehog Chef's meal planner, put the potatoes on Wednesday and set yourself a reminder for Thursday afternoon: “potatoes on the stove, slow cooker on”. On the day, Cook a meal takes the turkey, the potatoes and the other sides plus the time you want to eat, and schedules every step backwards from it. For a crowd, the free recipe scaler takes a 4-person recipe to 14 without the arithmetic.