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There’s a mountain of mouthwatering ways to cook a simple potato: fried, scalloped, baked, boiled, roasted—I could probably go on just as long as the beloved Forrest Gump sidekick Bubba went on about shrimp. One of the most mouthwatering and universally loved dishes you can make with those starchy tubers, however, has got to be mashed potatoes.
Some of these brands offer a mind-boggling range of different mashed potato flavors, but I opted for the plain versions to rate them as accurately as possible. I prepared all of them on the stovetop according to the package directions and judged each product on its flavor and consistency. The look: Chef's Cupboard mashed potatoes started out as a plethora of small potato granules, almost like finely ground parmesan cheese. Once combined with boiling water, however, they became quite smooth and lump-free.
The look: Like the Chef's Cupboard potatoes, these instant potatoes also came in very fine granules that I rehydrated in boiling water. Once finished, they looked surprisingly thick and the closest to real homemade mashed potatoes out of all the options I tried. Time, however, was Idahoan's greatest enemy. The texture became progressively drier and lumpier the longer they cooled.
The taste: Acutely bland and gummy. I thought that the fresh butter, milk, and salt would make these extra flavorful, but they actually ended up being one of the most tasteless options from the entire taste test. I even tried adding a couple of extra pinches of salt to spruce up the flavor but it didn't do the trick. Despite all of my complaints, I felt compelled to rank these in the middle just because I prefer bland mashed potatoes over ones that taste unpleasantly buttery.
The taste: At first bite, these tasted almost identical to the Great Value potatoes. And, unfortunately, that means they were pretty bland when prepared according to the package directions. I ended up ranking them higher than the Great Value version simply for the fact that an extra pinch of salt vastly improved the flavor. So, even though they aren't very tasty as is, they were easier to doctor up than the Great Value version.
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