Potato Mash is a delicate dish. Not all potatoes are good enough to make it. Also, not every appliance used for blending, mixing, or grinding is best for making mashed potatoes.

Before we decide whether you can blend mashed potatoes with an immersion blender. It is necessary to know what the recipe is and how it should be made. Only then can we find out if we can use a hand blender for that purpose.

What are mashed potatoes?

 It is a dish purely made from one ingredient, boiled/steamed potatoes.

The recipe is to mash these boiled potatoes into a smooth creamy paste with or without added milk.

Other ingredients such as butter, salt, pepper, or chive, etc. can also be used to enhance the taste.

Mash is used as a side dish with meat or vegetables.

You can make finely textured mashed potatoes or chunky mashed potatoes depending on your own preference. For each type of consistency, you will need different equipment.

What do you need mashed potatoes for?

Mashed potatoes are typically used as a side dish. You can make English or American cakes/pies and Indian dishes by using Mash.

Can you blend potatoes for babies?

Mashed potatoes are also great for weaning babies. Immersion blenders should be particularly used in this case when blending for toddlers. The resulting mash will be liquidy paste which is good for kids at an early age.

How to make mashed potatoes?

There are a number of ways to make it. Depending on the consistency of the mash you want, you can use either of the following tools and methods related to these tools. The resulting product will be different in each case.

What are the top appliances used for mashed potatoes?

You can use these kitchen staples for mashing steamed potatoes.

Many experts believe that electrical machinery that could blend or mix ingredients too fast may not go well with this recipe because it needs to be thick and dry.

The fast electric gadgets would make the mash gluey and liquefy the resulting product.

Mashed potato ricer

This manual kitchen implement produces uniform, smooth, lump-free potato mash. Those who want a creamy recipe should use a ricer to make the dish. For smaller amounts at home, this tool is better than any other for consistent results.

Potato masher

Widely used for mashing, a potato masher makes a slightly chunky recipe. Manually pressing the masher over the bowl of steamed potatoes will always leave some pieces untouched.

What to use to mash potatoes without a masher?

A fork or spoon is also an alternative to a potato masher. They both work the same way but using a fork will take ages doing it. This method should is great if you are outdoors or on travel where you cannot find proper appliances to work with.

Immersion blender

An immersion blender is the best, most efficient and quick option for making mash. Here is why:

  1. You can blend potatoes directly inside the pot in which they are boiled.
  2. You can have desired consistency and texture. It is easy to control how much you want to smash the product.
  3. The only benefit that only an immersion blender can offer over other handheld devices is that you can directly make the dish by adding everything and blending it into the final product.
  4. You can also use a commercial immersion blender to blend large amounts of mash instantly.

Most people think a blender would make the dish gluier, but I believe the smoothness and level of chunkiness are in your own control.

Regular blender

Controlling the final texture of the mashed product will be hard in the case of a regular blender so it is not recommended.

Pros and Cons of using different tools for mashing potatoes?

Kitchen gadgetPros: Using to make Mashed PotatoesCons
Immersion blenderCan make the whole dish all at once
Quick, Efficient
Desired consistency
Less cleanup
Gummy/Chances of Overblending
Electric MixerQuick
Fluffy
Lumpy
Potato MasherSimple Tool
Easy to use and clean
Very inexpensive
Need Physical Labour
Chunky Product
Potato RicerSmooth product
Faster than any other manual tool
Takes ages to mash

Can you make mashed potatoes with an immersion blender?

Yes, you can make the perfect mashed potatoes recipe with desired smoothness and fluff in a very short time.

Despite what other people say, a hand blender is far better to use compared to manually pressing small amounts of boiled potatoes.

Here is a video to make a lump-free mash using a stick blender.

Credit: Kambrook

Can you use an immersion blender instead of a mixer?

Yes, you can and you should use a hand blender instead of a mixer (either handheld or stand mixer).

The fact that no matter what you do, a mixer will always leave some lumpy pieces in the end product because the steamed potatoes are not too soft for a mixer to mix well. They need some blending to become smoother and chunk-less.

A mixer is great for mixing already smooth pastes but cannot smash whole products well compared to an immersion blender.

So for a better product, thick mash with fine texture, a hand blender is a far better option than a mixer.