Vegan Mashed Potatoes

The best vegan mashed potatoes made in the Instant Pot pressure cooker or the stovetop! These mashed potatoes are decadently flavored with garlic, olive oil, and truffles, so you won’t miss the dairy. 

No holiday meal is complete without good old mashed potatoes! My girls both love mashed potatoes and this is our very favorite way to make them! 

These easy, creamy vegan olive oil mashed potatoes have a secret ingredient that makes them extra flavorful. Just a 4 ingredients is all you need for garlic olive oil mashed potatoes with a hint of truffle flavor. These mashed potatoes are dairy-free, but decadent enough to serve with Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. 

What Type of Potatoes to Use for Mashed Potatoes 

You can use any yellow potato for this recipe, but I recommend Yukon Gold. I generally peel most of the skin off, but leave  just a little because I personally love the extra texture. 

How to Make Mashed Potatoes in the Instant Pot

I haven’t made mashed potatoes any other way since I got my Instant Pot a couple of years ago. Making mashed potatoes in the Instant Pot pressure cooker is so easy and requires no draining if you use the right amount of water! I love using the Instant Pot website as a resource for cooking times to create my own recipes. 

If you don’t have an Instant Pot, I am sharing the traditional stovetop method as well. 

Instant Pot: Pressure cook potatoes and garlic for 8 minutes.  Don’t drain! There should be the perfect amount of starchy water left in the pot (watch the video). 

Stovetop: Boil the potatoes and garlic until tender and then drain, but reserve a bit of that starchy water to thin later. 

How to Make the BEST Vegan Mashed Potatoes 

There are a few different ways to make vegan mashed potatoes. Some people add soy milk and dairy-free butter. I do that sometimes too. 

While mashed potatoes are all-American, this version has a little Italian flair. Instead of butter, I use good extra virgin olive oil. The olive oil adds flavor and moisture, so these vegan mashed potatoes are never dry, and never gluey. On to my secret ingredient – truffles! Truffle adds such irresistible flavor that even my kids now ask for truffle salt with their mashed potatoes. I also use it in my vegan ricotta! 

To add truffle flavor to mashed potatoes, you could use shaved whole truffles, but unless you’re in Tuscany, they are hard to find and quite expensive. Using truffle salt or truffle oil is much less expensive but is packed with flavor. I have a little jar of truffle salt that lasts forever. 

It’s as simple as that! I like my mashed potatoes on the chunky side, so I use a potato masher. 

What to Serve with Vegan Mashed Potatoes 

• Mushroom Wellington
• Vegan Lentil Loaf
• Mushroom Quinoa Stuffed Acorn Squash
• Lentil Shepherd’s Pie
• Cranberry Chutney
• Vegan Pumpkin Pie
• Vegan Apple Crumble Pie