Roasted Garlic, Parmesan, Brown Butter Mashed Potatoes are rich, creamy, cheesy, and loaded with garlic flavor. They are a perfect Thanksgiving side dish - plus they are easy to make. They can even be made a day or two in advance!
I wish that technology had advanced to the point where you could smell these potatoes because their scent is delightful. The secret is that brown butter is better than normal butter. The act of browning butter takes just a couple of minutes, and it results in a richer more flavorful butter.
Whether you use this mashed potato recipe or not, brown the butter before you add it to your mashed potatoes, it's a game changer. I have been using the same mashed potato recipe for years, but I decided to mix things up and I think I came up with something even better.
The rich browned butter combines perfectly with roasted garlic and parmesan cheese. Reduced fat sour cream adds moisture and creaminess. It's a combination of ingredients that is big on flavor, but a little lighter on calories than some other mashed potato recipes since there is no cream and not too much butter.
I invited a group of friends over for a Thanksgiving meal on Labor Day so that I could prepare Thanksgiving content for this site, and these mashed potatoes were a crowd favorite. Give this recipe a try now and give it a pre-Thanksgiving test run. I think it will end up on your menu on Thanksgiving.
When figuring out how many potatoes to prepare for Thanksgiving, I suggest buying 1 large potato for every 2 people.
If you want to make these mashed potatoes in advance, I do recommend adding some extra sour cream since the potatoes will dry out when you reheat them.
Roasted Garlic, Parmesan, Brown Butter Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients
- 6 Yukon Gold Potatoes
- 1 head of Garlic
- ½ tablespoon Olive Oil
- 4 tablespoons Butter
- ½ cup grated Parmesan
- 2 cups Light Sour Cream
- Salt
- Pepper
Instructions
- Meanwhile, peel the potatoes and loosely chop them into even pieces. Boil the potatoes in salted water until very soft. This will take about 20 minutes. Then drain the potatoes.
- Once the garlic has been roasted, let it cool and remove the cloves from the head of garlic.
- Melt the butter on medium low heat in a sauce pan. Stir the butter frequently, letting it bubble until it begins to brown. Then remove from the heat immediately. Butter goes from brown to burnt quickly, and it will continue to brown once you remove it from the heat.
- Combine the potatoes, butter, Parmesan, and 5-6 cloves of garlic in a stand mixer. I recommend using a mixer instead of mashing by hand so that the cloves of garlic get broken up and evenly mixed into the potatoes. Mix on medium high. Then add the sour cream. Mix on medium, stopped to scrape down the sides of the bowl if necessary. Add salt and pepper to taste, and add more garlic if you desire. I added an entire head of garlic to my potatoes.
- Either serve immediately, or pour into a casserole and keep the potatoes warm in the oven. This recipe can be made a couple of days ahead of time.
If you want even more Thanksgiving recipes, check out this guide featuring all of my favorite Thanksgiving recipes!
