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boiling potatoes
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How To Boil Potatoes To Make Mashed Potatoes Or Potato Salads

Boiled potatoes make great side dishes for lunch or dinner and you can use them to make mashed potatoes, potato salads, potato soups, smashed potatoes and more!
Course Side Dish
Cuisine American
Keyword boiled potatoes, how to boil potatoes
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Servings 6
Calories 58kcal
Author PA

Ingredients

  • 1 lbs potatoes yukon gold, russet potatoes, red potatoes or any variety
  • water as needed for boiling potatoes
  • 1 teaspoon salt adjust as preferred

Instructions

  • Wash the potatoes very well, scrub if necessary (in this recipe we are using 1 lbs potatoes which is equivalent to about 5 to 6 number of yukon gold or russet potatoes, but the number of potatoes will be more if you are using small baby potatoes).
  • Peel the potatoes if you want to or you may peel later if you are boiling whole potatoes without dicing.
  • Place the whole potatoes in a large sized pot or pan.
  • If you want to dice the potatoes, peel and dice the potatoes in cubes and add to the pot or pan.
  • Also add enough water to cover the potatoes, it is a good idea if the water stays one inch above the level of potatoes.
  • Add salt, turn on heat and bring the water to a boil.
  • Once the water begins to boil, cover the pan with lid and boil the potatoes in medium heat until fork tender if you want to make potato salads or cook until very soft if you want to make mashed potatoes.

Boiling whole potatoes:

  • For large to medium sized potatoes like yukon gold potatoes, red potatoes or russet potatoes, you will need to boil the whole potatoes for about 35 to 40 minutes if you want them to be very soft so you can mash the potatoes.
  • If you want to make potato salads, boiling time is about 15 to 20 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked and fork tender.
  • For small sized baby potatoes, you can boil the whole potatoes for about 20 to 25 minutes to make very soft potatoes for mashed potatoes.
  • To make potato salads, you can boil the potatoes for about 15 minutes until fork tender.

Boiling diced potatoes:

  • To make boiled diced potatoes, first you need to peel and dice the potatoes in medium sized cubes.
  • If you are boiling the potatoes to make mashed potatoes, boil the diced potatoes for about 12 to 15 minutes time until the potatoes are very soft so they can be mashed easily using a potato masher.
  • If you want to make potato salads, you just need to boil them for about 8 minutes or until fork tender.
  • If you are not sure if the potatoes are cooked to your preference, pierce a fork through the cooked potatoes and see if it's soft enough. If they are not soft enough, you can cook for couple minutes more and see if they are done!
  • Once the potatoes are boiled to your preference, you may discard the hot water and use the potatoes for mashing or salads as you need.
    It is also very easy to peel the whole boiled potatoes since the skin will just slide off easily.
    You may save a little of the remaining water used to boil potatoes, if needed in the recipe to make mashed potatoes or potato soups.

Nutrition

Calories: 58kcal | Carbohydrates: 13g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 0.1g | Saturated Fat: 0.02g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.03g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0.002g | Sodium: 392mg | Potassium: 318mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 2IU | Vitamin C: 15mg | Calcium: 9mg | Iron: 1mg