So it’s time to reheat that bowl of refrigerated mashed potatoes, yeah?
The good news is that you can do it on a stove: directly on a saucepan and inside a double boiler.
Let’s check out the procedures below.
How to reheat mashed potatoes on the stove
Reheating mashed potatoes on the stove is very quick and easy.
First, take out the cold mashed potatoes from the refrigerator and turn them inside a medium sized saucepan. If you don’t have a medium-size saucepan, you can use a Dutch Oven.
After turning the mashed potato inside the container, add room temperature milk, cream or butter to it, stir properly until incorporated, and set the stove to low heat. Cook the mashed potatoes until warm and steamy.
For reheating, it is always advised to use a liquid that has a bit of thickness to it such as cream or half and half (and not water) because these would help mask out (to some extent) the thinning problem encountered when reheating mashed potato.
The liquid should be flavorful as well to combat any loss of flavor that can occur along the way. Using water, will instead, take away flavor from the mashed potato which would require you to add more seasoning in order to balance things out.
Make sure to consistently turn the mashed potato as it warms to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pan as it cooks.
While turning also, avoid doing so vigorously as that can cause gelatinization of the starch content of the potato, making it gluey.
An even better option, the double boiler
If you’re fortunate to have a double boiler in your home, then use it to reheat your mashed potatoes instead of the stovetop. It’s much more forgiving and would not present the many possible problems of reheating mashed potatoes over a burner.
The double boiler method for mashed potatoes is similar to melting a chocolate in the boiler: add the mashed potatoes to the top pan of the boiler and bring water to a boil in the bottom. Stir the potatoes consistently until properly heated through.
A very neat way to improvise when you don’t have a double boiler is to use a regular pot and a heat proof container.
First, bring water to a boil in the pot and make sure the water is just enough to prevent contact between itself and the heat proof container. Add the cold mashed potatoes to the heat proof container, then place it, hanging, over the pot of simmering water. The steam coming out from the water would help heat up the mashed potatoes.
Stir constantly, but avoid stirring for long which would turn the mashed potato gluey. Also, don’t heat for long, just when the mashed potato is warm and steaming is perfect.
Other methods to reheat mashed potatoes
Microwave
If you’re looking for a quick way to reheat mashed potatoes, then the microwave is the option to go for.
The microwave would make you reheated mashed potatoes in less than 2 minutes..
With the microwave method, you simply transfer the cold mashed potatoes from the refrigerator into a microwave safe bowl, then microwave at bursts of 15 seconds (making sure to stir the mashed potatoes between bursts) in order to evenly distribute heat.
Because the microwave can easily render a mashed potato that is dry due to the fact that its radiation targets water molecules in food and causes them to vibrate and generate heat, it is always beneficial to add extra moisture in the form of butter.
The oven too
Using the oven is the slowest of all the methods for reheating mashed potatoes, but it almost always produces mashed potatoes that are of the better quality.
To reheat mashed potatoes in the oven, first get a casserole dish and transfer the cold, mashed potatoes into it, then stir in your room temperature milk, cream, butter or whatever liquid you’re using, even broth, and make sure it is incorporated well.
Afterwards, cover the surface of the casserole dish with an aluminum foil, then pop it into an oven preheated to 350°F.
You’re going to allow the casserole dish to sit in the oven for about 20 to 30 minutes, but that doesn’t mean you’re not going to check the casserole dish from time to time, to make sure things are going smoothly.
Because of the fact that you added liquids to the mashed potato prior to baking in the oven, you might find the need to season after it comes out from the oven. Do so using your favorite seasoning and serve.
