Air Fryer Mashed Russet Potatoes Recipe

Learn how to use your air fryer to cook potatoes to make mashed potatoes. This is a great recipe to make for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

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I am of the idea that you should have more than 1 mashed potato recipe. And that starts with how you prepare and cook the potatoes for the mashers. Having multiple ways to cook them at your disposable allows you to be able to cook the rest of your meal the way you need to.

For example if you already have a lot of your meal you want to cook on your stovetop, then making your mashed potatoes elsewhere will give you more space.

That elsewhere can be your air fryer. Let me show you how it's done and why you want to do it.

Jump to:

• ⚙️ Why this Works
• 🛒 Ingredients
• 📋 Instructions
• 🥔 More Mashed Potato Recipes
• Air Fryer Russet Mashed Potatoes

⚙️ Why this Works

The first step to making any mashed potatoes is cooking your potatoes. Most people will boil the potatoes first. But you have to be careful not to overcook or waterlog the potatoes. When you cook them in the air fryer you won't have that problem. And you end up with a stronger potato flavor as no water was introduced during the cooking process.

It's also a lot easier to remove the skin of the potato than peeling them raw.

🦃 Why it will help on Thanksgiving? You will save space on the stovetop for other things you want to cook. If you get distracted you don't have to worry about overcooking your potatoes in the air fryer that will turn off when the time is up unlike your burner. If you have a lot of people in your kitchen on Thanksgiving, it's nice to not have to worry about a boiling pot of water going.

🛒 Ingredients

For this recipe I like to keep things pretty simple. We are trying to highlight the flavor of the potato and let it shine here.

• Russet potatoes
• Milk, cream or half and half
• Butter (try using Kerrygold Butter!)
• Salt

If you want to add some chopped green onions on top or stir in some garlic (which you could also air fry first), those would be nice additions. And if it's Thanksgiving you will of course have to have some gravy.

Can you use other types of potatoes? I haven't tested making them with yellow or red potatoes yet but you definitely could try it out. The air frying time may vary.

📋 Instructions

Start by cleaning any excess dirt off your potatoes. Then poke some holes in them with a fork to vent steam. Add to your air fryer basket. Fit as many as you can without stacking them.

I have a dual basket air fryer from Ninja. I was able to fit 8 potatoes (4 in each basket). I weighed the potatoes I used with my kitchen sale and they weighed around 3 pounds 11 ounces. This is why I put a range for the potatoes for this recipe. If depends on what you can fit in your air fryer. If you have a small air fryer, you either have to match just a small batch or you have to work your potatoes in batches. In that case, the amount of time it takes will be longer than if you did this in the oven.

⏲️ Cook the potatoes for about 45 minutes at 400 degrees until you can stick a fork easily through them or they reach an internal temperature over 200 degrees.

Now you can just pop the potatoes out of the skin and mash them up, but if you want them to be more fluffy then you can either use a potato ricer if you got one. Or you can push them through a sieve. I do that when the potatoes are still warm. I put my sieve over bowl and push them through the sieve with a wooden spatula.

This breaks the potatoes into smaller pieces. You will need to scrap the bottom of the sieve to get all the potatoes that get stuck.

Then I add the butter and dairy and whip them with a hand mixer. I add some of the dairy at first and if I think it needs more than I add the rest.

Whip them until smooth. It shouldn't take more than a mintue.

💡 Tip - If you warm the milk or cream up before adding it will not only help mix it in faster but it will keep your potatoes warmer. Cold milk will make your potatoes cold.

🥔 More Mashed Potato Recipes

Want to try some of my other mashed potatoes recipes, like the mixed color mashed potatoes you see in the photo above? Here are some other recipes to check out:

• Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes
• Mashed Potatoes from Baked Potatoes
• Make Ahead Sous Vide Mashed Potatoes
• Alton's Whipped Gold Potatoes