Put Down The Peeler. There's A Better Way To Make Mashed Potatoes
It's hard not to love the humble peeler. It's essential for tough-skinned veggies like carrots. But it's also a great tool to use for citrus peels to throw in your summer mocktail, or my personal favorite: shaved ribbons of Parmesan Reggiano on a salad. But anyone who's ever spent time and energy prepping a killer mashed potato dish knows that the peeler's true nemesis is divot-riddled potato skin. One swipe is never enough, and let's not even get into the trying task of carving out the potato eyes. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.
Luckily, this hack from TikToker @xxiamkristinxx has ingeniously solved the problem of perfectly-peeled mashed potatoes using absolutely zero peelers. All you need to do it yourself is a bowl, a stainless steel cooling rack, a boiled potato, and a knife to split the potato in half.
@xxiamkristinxx Mashed Potato Hack #hack #tiktokhack #lifehack #foodhack #cookinghack #cookingtiktok #potatoes #mashedpotatoes
Effective, right? It's true, the wire rack hack only mashes the potato part of the way. But the point here is to work smarter, not harder. Once you've discarded the skin, all that's left is a little bit of light work with your potato masher.
Ease aside, this hack is also a great way to add functionality to an otherwise single-use kitchen item like a wire rack, transforming it into the occasional potato peeler/masher. This would also come in handy for making gnocchi or sweet potato dishes. And if you're the type of person who likes hard-boiled eggs in your potato salad (guilty), using your wire rack is a quick way to mince them.
The wire rack vs. another TikTok potato-peeling hack
Using a wire rack isn't the only way to give your peeler a rest, but it might be the hack that saves you the most energy. A viral TikTok by @itsnicolejaques demonstrates another method that many home cooks swear by: scoring the skin of a potato around its midpoint before boiling it. Once the potato's fully boiled, the skin magically peels off along the cut seam.
@itsnicolejaques Did you know this one? SAVE IT RIGHT NOW to use during holiday meal prep time. 🤯 #thanksgiving #potato #peelinghack #holidaymeal
Look. It's a neat parlor trick, especially for fans of #oddlysatisfying videos. But flashiness aside, the peel-away method still leaves one major problem very unsolved: mashing the potatoes themselves. This is why we endorse using a wire rack instead. Not only is the method resourceful, but it partially mashes the potatoes for you, leaving you more time to work flavorful ingredients like Boursin cheese into your mashed potatoes and more energy to enjoy the dish with the people you care about.