Mashed Potatoes with Sour Cream
These easy mashed potatoes with sour cream are the perfect, low-maintenance, budget-friendly side for any time of year. Made with thin-skinned gold potatoes, butter, milk, sour cream, and fresh chives, these mashed potatoes are a super simple and comforting dish.
Why These Are the Best Mashed Potatoes with Sour Cream
- Super easy and low-maintenance. There’s nothing complicated about these mashed potatoes. No peeling or ricing the potatoes, no tricky instructions, and no requiring a gravy for flavor (unless you want to make gravy). Just simple ingredients and steps.
- Budget friendly. This side dish feeds a lot of people at a low price per person (about $2 to $3 per serving), so even if you’re watching your budget, this dish fits the bill.
- Easy to scale down or up. If you want to feed a smaller group of people, you can reduce the ingredients in half. Making this for a group? Boil more potatoes and mix in a little more butter, milk, sour cream, and chives.
- Customizable to your tastes. If you like your mashed potatoes creamier or wetter, you can add an extra tablespoon or 2 of sour cream or milk. And if you want them thicker or stiffer, feel free to cut back on some of the milk.
Ingredients in These Mashed Potatoes with Sour Cream
- Potatoes – we prefer using Yukon gold or baby Dutch potatoes in this recipe. They’re buttery, creamy, and have a very thin skin that doesn’t need to be peeled before cooking.
- Butter – we suggest using salted butter for flavor.
- Milk – we like using 2% milk with this, but you could use whole milk, 1%, skim, or even heavy cream. Depending on the fat content of the milk you add, your potatoes may be creamier or less creamy.
- Sour cream – this adds creamy texture and a touch of tanginess to the potatoes.
- Chives – these are optional, but we love adding them because we’re forever chasing that sour cream and onion potato chip flavor combo.
How to Make These Easy Mashed Potatoes
- Add cubed potatoes to a pot filled with cold, salted water.
- Cook on high heat for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until the water begins to boil.
- Boil the potatoes for 15 minutes until they’re fork-tender (tender enough to be easily pierced or cut with a fork).
- Drain the potatoes and place them back in the pot.
- Mash the potatoes with a potato masher.
- Mix in the butter, sour cream, milk, salt, pepper, and chives, if using. You can also leave the chives out if you’re looking for a mashed potato dish that would pair better with gravy. Note: if you’re making these potatoes to pair with gravy, you may also want to go low on the salt level since gravy is usually salty.
- For extra creamy mashed potatoes, you can use an electric hand mixer to mix them up. Just make sure not to mix them too much or they’ll become gummy.
Tips for Making Mashed Potatoes with Sour Cream
Budget Breakdown
These mashed potatoes with sour cream taste super luxurious and fancy, but they’re actually really budget-friendly. Depending on the potatoes you use, 3 pounds will usually range from $4.00 to $9.00 total. A quart of 2% milk is usually between 2 and 3 bucks, a stick of butter is just a little over a dollar a piece (and usually about 5 bucks for a pound), a bunch of chives will cost about the same as the milk, and an 8 ounce container of sour cream will set you back about $2. This means that it’ll cost around $20 bucks to buy groceries for this recipe, which evens out to be about $2.50 a serving.
Not a bad deal, overall. Making a half batch of this recipe would cut those costs down even further.
Want Fewer Potatoes? Make a Half Batch!
We understand that not everyone wants to make 8 servings of mashed potatoes (but…are you sure? These are really good!), so here’s what you’ll need for a half batch, or just 4 servings of mashed potatoes.
- 1 ½ pounds baby Dutch yellow potatoes (or Yukon gold)
- 4 tbsp salted butter
- 6 tbsp sour cream
- ½ cup milk
- ½ tsp (or more) salt
- ¼ tsp (or more) cracked black pepper
- 1 tbsp chives, diced (optional)
Serving and Storage Suggestions
We like to serve these mashed potatoes alongside simple proteins, like our Sweet and Smoky Salmon or our Moroccan Inspired Spiced Chicken, and maybe a side salad, like our Simple Fall Salad with Apples and Bacon.
Leftovers can be reheated in a pot over medium heat with an extra splash of milk to loosen up the starchy potatoes (they tighten up in the fridge). You can also microwave them instead.
FAQs: Mashed Potatoes with Sour Cream
Use Yukon gold or baby Dutch potatoes for the creamiest texture. Cut the potatoes into equal-sized cubes that are about an inch in size (bigger and they’ll take too long to cook; smaller and they’ll get water-logged), and cook them until they’re fork-tender. Mash them with a potato masher, then mix in the butter first, then sour cream, milk, salt and pepper, and chives. Season with salt and pepper, starting small, then increasing as needed, and taste often. Finish with a couple turns of an electric hand mixer for extra creaminess (but don’t overmix or potatoes will get gummy).
Any kind of milk is fine! We’ve made these with whole milk, 2%, or even nonfat. You can also use half and half or cream for extra richness.
To make these healthier, you can use light sour cream or plain yogurt and nonfat milk. We wouldn’t recommend skimping on the butter, though. Sorry!
Sure! Just substitute the regular butter for vegan butter (we love cashew butter in mashed potatoes), plant-based sour cream or yogurt for regular sour cream, and soy milk or other plant-based variety for dairy milk.
Add the butter first so that the fat can coat the potato starch and create a protective layer between the potatoes and the water in milk. Adding milk first can make the potatoes gluey and less appealing.
Absolutely! If you don’t like chives, feel free to leave them out. The mashed potatoes will still be excellent without them, just a little more subtle in flavor.
Yes, but you may want to skip the chives and be careful of the salt level in the potatoes. This recipe is good for standalone mashed potatoes, but if you want to top them with gravy, you may want go lighter on the salt because gravy is usually salty.
Mashed Potatoes with Sour Cream
Ingredients
- 3 pounds yellow potatoes (Yukon gold or baby Dutch) cubed in equal sizes
- Cold water to fill pot
- 1 tbsp sea salt
- 8 tbsp salted butter
- ¾ cup sour cream
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tsp salt plus more, if needed
- ½ tsp cracked black pepper
- 2 tbsp diced chives (optional)
Instructions
- Add cubed potatoes to a pot filled with cold water seasoned with 1 tbsp of sea salt.3 pounds yellow potatoes (Yukon gold or baby Dutch), Cold water to fill pot, 1 tbsp sea salt
- Cook on high heat for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until the water begins to boil.
- Boil the potatoes for 15 minutes until they’re fork-tender (tender enough to be easily pierced or cut with a fork), then remove from the heat.
- Drain the potatoes and place them back in the pot.
- Mash the potatoes with a potato masher.
- Mix in the butter, sour cream, milk, salt, pepper, and chives, if using. You can also leave the chives out if you're looking for a mashed potato dish that would pair better with gravy.8 tbsp salted butter, ¾ cup sour cream, 1 cup milk, 1 tsp salt, ½ tsp cracked black pepper, 2 tbsp diced chives (optional)
- For extra creamy mashed potatoes, you can use an electric hand mixer to mix them up. Just make sure not to mix them too much or they’ll become gummy.
Notes
Final Thoughts on These Mashed Potatoes with Sour Cream
These mashed potatoes with sour cream are easy, low-maintenance, and won’t break your budget. We love how customizable they are and how simple it is to make larger or smaller batches. If you’re looking for a great, hearty side dish for any time of year, you should make these delicious mashed spuds. If you like this recipe, we’d love it if you’d rate it and leave a comment, or tag us on Instagram!
These mashed potatoes are so rich and creamy. A great addition to any meal
Thank you! We’re happy you like them!