Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes with Crème Fraîche

By Kate Riley November 14, 2012

I’ve had a long time love affair with potatoes, in fact when I was a young girl my grandmother nicknamed me “Spuds”.   I’m serious.  Just ask my Memah, it’s true!

I love potatoes fried, scalloped, roasted, baked, and mashed!  And have I expressed my love for crème fraîche here yet?   Well please allow me to.  Crème fraîche is like non-sour sour cream or unsweetened whipped cream or the combination of non-sour sour cream and unsweetened whipped cream or something like that and it’s a totally divine invention by the French that you can use in both savory and sweet dishes.  I love it!

This week we’ve all got Thanksgiving on our minds so I thought it timely to share my mashed potatoes recipe because it combines butter, roasted garlic, half & half and crème fraîche and truly you can’t go wrong with that combination!   Whenever I make this my yoga pants say “bring it” but my jeans beg to differ.  Beware, this ain’t low calorie!  But hey, who cares about things like waistlines when it’s Thanksgiving!

roasted garlic mashed potatoes with creme fraiche

 

Ingredients for 8 servings:

7 large russet potatoes

8-10 cloves of roasted garlic*

3-4 tbsp olive oil

1 cup half & half

1 tsp salt (or ½ tsp if you’re sensitive)

1 stick (or ½ cup butter) at room temperature

7 oz. crème fraîche

 

ingredients

 

First things first, you need to roast yerself some garlic!  Open up your windows because in a few minutes your kitchen will smell grrrrrreat!  But stinky.  *To roast garlic, cut the tops off of two heads of garlic (I roast extra and store them in the fridge for the future).

cut garlic heads

 

Tuck them into aluminum foil cases and drizzle olive oil over each one.  Roast in the oven on a cookie sheet at 400° for 35 to 40 minutes.

drizzle with olive oil

 

Once the garlic is roasted, remove 8-10 cloves (I like about 1 ½ cloves per tater) from the head and squeeze the cloves into a small food processer.

roasted garlic

 

Spoon in 7 oz. of crème fraîche.  (You can find this ingredient next to the specialty cheeses and not the sour cream or whipped cream – go figure.  Just ask your grocer to point it out to you, in my state it’s stored next to the fancy cheeses).

creme fraiche

 

Blend the two together until they form a divine concoction!

garlic and creme fraiche

 

Now peel and quarter 7 large russet potatoes. chopped potatoes

 

Bring them to a boil in water and cook them for 15 minutes or until soft.  Drain them and add that full stick of butter and 1 cup of half & half.   Oh yeah!   Mash ‘em up together with the salt and a potato masher and then the best part!  Add the roasted garlic + crème fraîche mixture and bam!  You get amazing mashed taters!

creme fraiche mixture

 

If ya like yours extra creamy, use a handheld mixer to make them extra smooth!

blend with mixer

 

Serve ‘em hot and enjoy!   Feel free to add extra pats of butter.

roasted garlic mashed potoatoes add creme fraiche

 

Tell me you serve mashed potatoes with your Thanksgiving turkey!  I promise you’ll love these – that is, if you dedicate your taste buds to the pursuit of divinity.  :)

Handy printable recipe here.

 

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17 comments

  1. Thanks for the hand mixer tip with the immersion blender. Never thought to use it for that! Sounds like the most divine mashed potatoes! I am going to try this instead of my usual cream cheese and sour cream. Happy Thanksgiving!

  2. Thank you for the recipe, Spuds! I’m pinning this, for sure, and will share it with my 19-year-old garlic-loving son. He likes his mashed potatoes with garlic, but we’ve never been able to figure out quite how to include the garlic flavor without having it too strong. But ROASTED garlic? That’s great! Rich flavor but mild. Thank you!

  3. One more thing, Kate: I have very few uni-taskers in my kitchen, but the one I really love is my potato ricer. Ever use one? It’s kind of a pain, but oh my word what smooth mashed potatoes! Never a single lump!

  4. Oh my goodness!!! Why have you done this to me? Those beautiful pictures, that glorious recipe, I NEED SOME NOW! God help me if I have mashed potatoes for lunch today. Those look amazing!

  5. We are hosting a mini Thanksgiving dinner for some friends on Sunday and have asked everyone to bring a recipe they have been excited to try but never have… it’ll be a taste testing Thanksgiving. I am going to do this for my mashed potato recipe! Thank you! :) Gorgeous photos as always.

  6. Any recipe that combines butter, potatoes, and roasted garlic is a keeper in my book! Looks delish

    • Hi Marie! I’ve never made potatoes in a crock pot, wish I could be more specific, so sorry!
      Kate

  7. Think it would be ok to make day ahead and reheat? Trying to save time in the AM as we are doing the annual Turkey Trot 5k on thanksgiving. :)

    • Yes Carrie, absolutely. You might wait on mixing the half and half till the end to keep them creamy!
      Kate

  8. I just made a batch of these in preparation for Thanksgiving. Oh. Em. Gee. No words. I want to marry these potatoes. Really.

  9. Thanks! I just pulsed the garlic and creme, but think I mixed it too long! I think it started to turn into butter! Think it’ll be ok or should I start over? Ah jeez…

  10. Hello Kate. I am going to make this recipe tomorrow but I forgot to buy the half and half. Can I use milk instead? Will it alter the flavor of the mashed potato?

    • Hi Joy, I’m sure you’ll be fine – the half and half makes them creamier but milk should work!
      Kate

  11. We tried your recipe for Thanksgiving today and it was WONDERFUL! I loved the layers of flavor! My husband (who loves to cook and is pretty hard to impress) really loved them as well. After he labored over turkey gravy for what seemed like forever, he told me he liked the potatoes so much he thought they were better without his delish gravy.

    As a side note, I boiled the potatoes with their skins on. I heard somewhere (America’s Test Kitchen???) that it keeps the potatoes from getting water logged. After peeling them, I riced them the added all the fats and it was divine. We did end up whipping them and it only made the consistency better.

    Thanks for the yummy recipe!

  12. I don’t have half and half, but I do have heavy whipping cream. What do you think I should swap around to make this right??

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