Wondering what to do with potato flakes? This guide covers how to pick them, cook them, store them, and swap them, plus 18 recipes to put them to work.

What are potato flakes?

Potato flakes are cooked potatoes that have been mashed, dried, and broken into thin, pale flakes. Add hot liquid and they swell back into mashed potatoes in a minute or two. They are the form most instant mashed potatoes take.

Beyond the bowl of mash, flakes are a quietly useful pantry tool for thickening and binding that most cooks never think to keep on hand.

Reconstituting Into Mash

To make mash, stir flakes into hot liquid rather than the other way around, so they hydrate evenly without clumping.

A common starting ratio is about equal parts flakes and hot water or milk by volume, adjusted to the texture you want, plus butter and salt. Let them sit a minute to finish absorbing before you judge the thickness.

They make a fine quick mash, and recipes like KFC Mashed Potatoes are built on flakes plus seasoning. They will not match the flavor of potatoes you boil and mash yourself, but for speed and shelf life they earn their place.

A Thickener and Binder

This is where flakes really pull their weight. Stirred into a soup or stew, they thicken it fast without the raw taste of flour, and they are the trick behind thick, creamy bowls like Houlihan's Baked Potato Soup and Dalt's Baked Potato Soup.

In doughs they add potato's moisture-holding softness without cooking and mashing a real potato. Bakers fold them into bread for a tender crumb, as Whole Wheat Potato Bread and Hearty Potato Chive Bread do.

They also bind patties and meatloaf, and crushed finer they make a crisp coating for fish and croquettes.

Substitutes

In a pinch, fresh mashed potato or potato starch can stand in for the thickening and binding jobs, though neither behaves identically. For mash itself there is no real shortcut substitute; the flakes are the shortcut.

If a recipe calls for instant potato granules instead of flakes, they are interchangeable by weight, but granules are denser, so by volume you need a little less.

Buying and Storing

Sold in boxes and pouches, sometimes labeled instant mashed potatoes or dehydrated potato. Check that potato is the main ingredient if you want them plain, since many boxed versions add butter powder and seasonings.

Keep the box sealed in a cool, dry cupboard and dry flakes last a long time, often a year or more unopened.

Once opened, close the liner tightly and use within a few months; humidity is the enemy, since any moisture makes them clump and stale. Reconstituted mash keeps a few days refrigerated, like any cooked potato.

Quick facts

In Chinese

马铃薯片

British (UK) term

Potato flakes

en français

Flocons de pomme de terre

en español

copos de patata

Recipes using potato flakes

There are 18 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 18 recipes