Homemade Mashed Potatoes With Evaporated Milk
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
If you’re searching for a homemade mashed potatoes recipe with a difference, you must try these mashed potatoes with evaporated milk. A Southern specialty, they’re richer in flavor, creamy, and the perfect side dish.
Classic mashed potatoes are the perfect comfort food, aren’t they? My family always insists my grandma make a big batch whenever we visit for dinner. That’s because she makes her mashed potatoes with evaporated milk, which makes them that much more fluffy, creamy, and delicious.
Evaporated milk made its first debut in Illinois, but it took off like wildfire as soon as Southerners discovered it. Due to our overwhelmingly hot climate, milk spoilage was a particular problem in this area of the country, and having shelf-stable milk that would keep even in the summertime was almost too good to be true.
This old-fashioned mashed potatoes recipe is simple to follow with minimal ingredients. Serve your creamy mashed potatoes alongside popular Southern main dishes, like fried chicken, crispy breaded pork chops, slow cooker pulled pork, and meatloaf. It’s also a great holiday recipe served alongside some crockpot turkey breast.
You should also keep reading as I share how to perfectly boil and mash your potatoes for the best homemade mashed potatoes you’ve ever eaten. Enjoy!
Recipe Ingredients
- Salt
- Potatoes
- Evaporated milk
- 1/2 cup of butter
- A pinch of pepper
Wash, peel, and slice potatoes.
Put a pot of water on the stove and turn it on medium so it can be getting good and hot.
Add about a teaspoon of salt to the water.
Add potatoes and bring water to a boil.
How long do you boil potatoes?
You want your water to be gently boiling the entire time the potatoes are cooking. How long you cook them here is key. My grandmother uses a pressure cooker to make her deliciously creamy homemade mashed potatoes. In absence of a pressure cooker, I use the old-fashioned method of cooking them until they cry uncle or about an hour or so.
Yes, I seriously did say an hour. I’m just shocking y’all left and right today, aren’t I?
After they are done cooking and fork tender, drain potatoes and put in your entire can of evaporated milk.
Add your 1/2 cup of butter.
I know it may seem like a lot of butter but honestly, can we ever have too much?
You can use real butter if you’re not as cheap as me.
Add another teaspoon or so of salt.
This is to taste. I prefer to under season my food if I am going to be serving it to company because this allows them to season it to their taste rather than have to eat it according to how I prefer it. I know many people who prefer very little to no salt and many more who prefer twice as much salt as I do!
Finally, add about 1/2 a teaspoon of pepper.
There is such a thing as white pepper which will not leave dark specks in your mashed potatoes if those bother you.
Now just use your hand mixer and beat the living mess out of everything until it is smooth and creamy.
How to mash potatoes
For the dish, I like to do this with my stand mixer and let it run for a few minutes. If you are feeling lazy or just want mashed potatoes with a more “country” feel, you can just use a potato masher and do it by hand. A potato masher is this neat little device that I have two of and use for pretty much everything except mashing potatoes.
This is one of my potato mashers
, but I tend to use it for meatloaf mixing more often than not. I also have this waffle head potato masher
.
Serve your straight away alongside other side dishes like butter beans, hush puppies, green beans, and fried okra. Enjoy!
Storage
Store leftover mashed potatoes in an airtight container in the fridge for up to four days. Reheat leftovers in the microwave. If you want to freeze your mashed potatoes, check out this recipe.
Recipe Notes
- Before you mash your potatoes, add chopped green onion, chopped parsley, or crumbled bacon for additional flavor.
- You can use regular milk to make these homemade mashed potatoes, but the evaporated milk makes a difference and gives the dish a richer flavor.
- Most old recipes which call for evaporated milk will have it simply listed as “pet milk,” which was (and is) a very popular brand of evaporated milk. I have never found a generic that didn’t taste exactly the same to me as the name brand when it comes to evaporated milk.
- Don’t confuse evaporated milk with sweetened condensed milk.
- Sweetened condensed milk has had water removed and sugar added, yielding a very thick and rich product. If my blood sugar would allow it, I’d happily live on sweetened condensed milk, that stuff is AWESOME.
- Evaporated milk has had water removed but no sugar added. However, the natural sugars which occur in milk are more concentrated and this produces has a richer flavor (which is one reason why I really like it in my coffee). You can actually reconstitute evaporated milk with equal parts of water to have the equivalent of fresh milk.
However, both evaporated milk and sweetened condensed milk are browner in color than regular milk due to the heat in the pasteurization process causing a slight caramelizing to the natural sugars. Evaporated milk is also great in macaroni and cheese. Just substitute regular milk for evaporated milk when you want that richer flavor.
Recipe FAQs
What are the best potatoes to use in mashed potatoes?
The best potato variety to use in this is , , or .
Check out these other marvelous mashed potato recipes:
Thomas BBQ Mashed Potato Salad
Mozzarella Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Fancy Mashed Potatoes With Cheese
Ingredients
- 5 lbs mashed potatoes or 7-8 medium-sized potatoes
- 1 small can of evaporated milk 5 ounces
- 1 stick butter 1/2 cup
- 1 tsp salt for water
- 1 tsp salt for potatoes
- 1/2 tsp pepper
Instructions
- Peel and cut the potatoes into slices or large cubes.5 lbs mashed potatoes
- Fill a large pot with enough water to cover potatoes. Add 1 tsp of salt. Add the potatoes, bring to a boil, and boil gently for about an hour or until extremely tender.5 lbs mashed potatoes, 1 tsp salt for water
- Drain potatoes and add all other ingredients. Mix with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy.1 small can of evaporated milk, 1 stick butter, 1 tsp salt for potatoes, 1/2 tsp pepper
PS…
One the antibacterial soap issue.. as a nurse I firmly believe that the overuse of antibacterial soaps and antibiotics in general have contributed significantly to the development of the “super-bugs” like MRSA and VRE. These commonly live in hospitals but are slowly making there way into the outside environment. Unfortunately, we are more vulnerable to these bugs too because our immune systems aren’t what they used to be.
So in light of that—kids need to get dirty and their parents do too. The family that plays in dirt together stays healthy together…(shaking you head yet?) : )
No way am I shaking my head…ALL kids need to get dirty. My grandkids come out for that specific reason 🙂
Awesome recipe!! Gotta love those taters…all kinds and all ways!!
I have added milk in the past but will try evaporated milk the next time I make mashed potatoes. I also like to use red potatoes.
Donna
Hi Christy,
Made another version of these potatoes last night (the ones with cheese on top) had about half left over (everyone was saving room for the cinnamon love knots!). Any recommendations on what to do with them other recipes, etc?
Didn’t know there was another way to make mashed potatoes! I use evaporated milk for white potatoes and sweetened condensed for making mashed sweet potatoes.
I wanted to comment about the antibacterial soap though. My youngest is 18 now but when she was a baby my pediatrician said not to use antibacterial soaps because they cause our bodies not to develop their own immunities to things.
I also know that eating a little dirt never hurt anyone. You can ask the boys who lived next door when I was growing up. They LOVED the mudcakes we made them! hahaha
Christy you are so funny! Girl, you know we lived in the dirt down here when I was growin’ up too – the dirt and the sand (at the beach). I still can’t believe that we ran around barefoot everywhere!! I mean everywhere!!! I’m with ya on the anti-bacterial stuff too – I think we’re overdoing it with all that too.
I like to whip my potatoes in the KitchenAid because it really does help with keeping ’em smooth but I do use real butter (you know me I’m the butter queen!) and even though my big recipe for holidays is the standard with cream cheese, real cream, and whole milk, sometimes I mix those in my everyday ones too! Oh my gosh … so good. Nothin’ like some good ole mashed potatoes!!
Christy,
I have seen the spelling “MeMe” used over the years from different friends grandchildren so I think both spellings are used.
No time to waste….
Gotta go make mashed potatoes NOW! OHHHhhh Yummm!
This is the best way to make mashed potatoes.