The Cooling Rack Hack TikTok Is Using For Peel-Free Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes may seem like an easy enough side dish to prepare, given that the recipe begins with two ingredients — potatoes and hot water. However, there are a few mistakes people make when making mashed potatoes, such as irregular dicing or choosing the wrong variety of potatoes. There is also the matter of prepping your potatoes: To peel or not to peel, that is the question.

If you peel the potatoes first, you can just go straight into mashing them once they're cooked, right? That's how Gordon Ramsay does it, after all. However, the peeling process itself can take a while, which drags out the total amount of time you spend on what will likely just be a tasty side dish. That said, there is one TikTok hack that will cut down on your time exponentially. Trust us, we've got quite a few mashed potato secrets up our sleeves.

Leave the potato peels on and grab a cooling rack

The mashed potato cooling rack hack has been making rounds on TikTok for a while, but user @xxiamkristinxx's video tutorial perfectly lays out how to get the job done. First, wash your potatoes and leave the skin on. Then, after boiling your potatoes, cut them in half. Following that, as illustrated in the video, you should lay down a cooling rack over a large bowl, pan, or pot of your choosing, and mash the skinless portion of the potato directly into the rack. 

@xxiamkristinxx

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As @xxiamkristinxx points out in their video, doing this with a cooling rack removes the skin of the potato with ease and even partially mashes the potatoes for you. This method is a lot easier than peeling the potatoes pre-boil or trying to peel hot potatoes once they're done boiling, as they peel almost instantaneously once you start pressing down against the metal of a cooling rack. Save yourself the extra steps next time you need to make a giant bowl of mashed potatoes and give this genius hack a try.