10 Restaurant Chains Serving The Best Mashed Potatoes

What makes mashed potatoes the ultimate side dish? Is it the fluffy, dense, buttery soft texture? What about the salty, mellow flavor? Perhaps it's the fact that taters can vary so greatly in both appearance and mouthfeel. Or maybe it's all those other surprise ingredients like herbs and garlic. How about all of the above?

Mashed potatoes are often a perfect side dish for hearty, savory meals because they introduce balance and contrast. Even when loaded with flavor, mashed potatoes are by design understated, making space for the entree to shine. If a trickle of sauce from your steak, grilled mushrooms, or stew seeps into those potatoes, they are just further improved. And luckily, a good mashed potato isn't tough to make. In fact, many chain restaurants are serving up some incredible mashed potatoes that are certainly worth a try.

In some cases, chain restaurants serve mashed potatoes that are decked out with endless ingredients, while others are blessed with simplicity and methodology. We've compiled the top 10 restaurant chains serving the best mashed potatoes, based on preference, popularity, and consistency. The spuds couldn't taste more different, and yet each one is pleasing in its own way. Read the descriptions, narrow them down based on your personal preferences, and treat yourself to a nice spuddy meal this weekend. You deserve it.

Boston Market consistently comes up when discussing fast-casual restaurant chains that serve up incredible mashed potatoes. In fact, Tasting Table has featured the side dish on several occasions, noting that they are, in fact, the best fast food mashed potatoes currently on the market. As it turns out, when you do something right, you don't need all the extra frills and ingredients.

Top ingredients include potatoes, milk, butter, and a bit of cracked black pepper. They have a uniform, smooth, and creamy texture, with an almost whipped mouthfeel. You can order these mashed potatoes with or without gravy, but we recommend adding it for a silky, savory finish and added flavor. Unfortunately for us, Boston Market offers its mashed potatoes as a menu item in only half the country. However, you can buy frozen Boston Market mashed potatoes in the freezer aisle of select grocery stores.

While many chain restaurants greet you with bread and butter, Texas Roadhouse has done things a little differently in the past. If you'd been to the establishment back in the day, as we have, then you may remember that the floor was littered with peanut shells. Patrons used to be greeted with complimentary peanuts and were encouraged to dump the shells on the floor. That famous policy changed, but what remains untouched is Texas Roadhouse's unforgettable mashed potatoes. They are made with ingredients such as potatoes, butter, milk or cream, salt, pepper, and more.

The potatoes are mashed until smooth, with no lumps or flakes found here, per Texas Roadhouse employees on Reddit. In addition to being consistent and reliable, there is plenty of room for creativity. Topping choices vary from a simple gravy to more elaborate additions like cheddar cheese, bacon bits, butter, or sour cream. We think that these exceptional mashed potatoes taste home-cooked, which is precisely why they made this list. So even though you might not be able to throw your peanut shells on the floor, you won't be disappointed in your mashed potato experience.

If you're looking for a more upscale chain restaurant dining experience, look no further than Morton's The Steakhouse. The restaurant serves up premium-quality foods with a classic upscale feel. If you're looking for buttery, decadent, rich, and memorable mashed potatoes, then head on down to Morton's. These unique potatoes are made with sour cream mixed right in, which gives them a refreshing, tangy density, alongside the fatty richness of the heavy cream and butter.

The buttery richness of the potatoes is apparent from just looking at them. It's not often that we see sour cream mixed right into our taters, which allows it to stand out from many of the other chains' recipes. When you walk into a Morton's The Steakhouse, the expectation is that you'll receive quality food, and the mashed potatoes don't disappoint. Morton's really knows potatoes, as its baked potatoes received a top-quality award among chain restaurants from one of our seasoned Tasting Table writers. When you're paying a little more in a chain restaurant setting, you can expect consistency and quality. These mashed potatoes check both of those boxes, and the steak selection isn't bad either.

Known for its sides, Ruth's Chris Steak House serves up a whopping 1-pound baked potato, loaded to the brim. It's no wonder that the menu contains other potato-related gems. If you're looking for a garlicky, ultra-whipped, smooth mashed potato to enjoy as a side dish, then you're in the right place. The side dish looks like it was made with whipped clouds, so light and fluffy without even a detection of lumps or skins. Instead, these creamy potatoes are loaded with roasted garlic.

Copycat recipes suggest ingredients like milk or cream, salt and pepper, roasted garlic, lots of butter, and even parmesan cheese are mixed into real whipped potatoes. The heavy use of butter and the addition of roasted garlic are likely responsible for Ruth's Chris Steak House's mashed potatoes standing out from other chain restaurants' sides. "These may have been the softest, fluffiest mashed potatoes I've ever tasted," our writer, Emily Hunt, said about the texture of the mashed potatoes in her ranking of the best side dishes at Ruth's Chris Steak House. She went on to describe the presentation: "It folds upon itself almost like ribbons in the bowl, housing sporadic pools of butter and boasting a visually pleasing parsley garnish." Furthermore, she notes that the garlic and parsley offered a pleasant, subtle addition that enhanced the overall dining experience.

If your friends or family are all having different cravings and can't narrow down their selection of places to eat, then drive yourself over to Roy Rogers. This chain does it all: fried chicken, burgers, and roast beef. However, the true gem of the restaurant is the homestyle mashed potatoes with gravy, served in a little paper cup, hot and ready to eat. The old school chain has made a comeback, so this may just be your opportunity to give those mashed potatoes a try.

Instead of being highly seasoned, Roy Rogers' mashed potatoes are a vehicle for the gravy, making them the perfect side, allowing your main dish to sparkle. Reviewers mention that these potatoes and gravy have a good flavor, so we'd say that Roy Rogers' mashed potatoes are a solid choice if you're looking for classic mashed potatoes, no frills. And because of the restaurant's fast food status, you can enjoy them on the go.

Known for its down-to-earth, home-cooked, classic Southern dishes, it's no wonder we are ranking Cracker Barrel's mashed potatoes as a top pick in the chain restaurant world. Mashed potatoes can go alongside just about any Southern entree, and if you visit the chain, we suggest that you give them a try. The secret to this famous side dish is that it's made from scratch, fresh daily, in-house. 

Top your taters with Sawmill or brown gravy. Brown is a more classic broth base, while Sawmill is a creamy pork dressing. Both are wonderful options to enhance the fluffy spuds, but they are also just as delicious on their own, sans sauce. We could expect that Cracker Barrel would hold the key to a fantastic, comfort food mashed potatoes recipe, and the restaurant has delivered generously. This makes the perfect side dish for just about any of its classic entrees, especially those soupy with sauce.

There are a few names in the culinary world that just about everyone knows, and Wolfgang Puck is certainly one of them. Lucky for us, Wolfgang isn't gatekeeping his delicious creations. Puck has chain restaurants all over the United States, including Wolfgang's Steakhouse, so we can all enjoy his wonderful, mouthwatering creations. Perhaps one of the simplest recipes on this list of restaurant chains serving the best mashed potatoes, the steakhouse serves up something classic, pure, and clean.

They are to the point, whipped uniformly to perfection, silky, airy, and mouthwatering, which is apparent just by looking at them. Reviewers consider them to be creamy and tasty. When you are working with quality produce and cuts of meat, the ingredients do the talking for you, and that's what Puck has done here. This is why sourcing ingredients is such an important part of the cooking process for pro chefs.

Although folks head down to Longhorn Steakhouse for the steak, we all know that the true masterpiece is what it can do to a simple potato. Each potato-related side dish is phenomenal, including the baked sweet potato, loaded baked potato, and, of course, the classic mashed potatoes. These taters are the ultimate comfort food and are no newcomers to the steakhouse scene. We like that the potatoes have a varied texture made with real butter. 

Enjoy this dish with the Outlaw Ribeye, Flo's Filet, and Baby Back Ribs. Mashed potatoes are a great way to soak up some of that juicy steak sauce. Don't forget that if your entree comes with two sides, you can certainly double up on your mashed potatoes and enjoy double the flavor and double the satisfaction. The mashed potatoes truly are one of the best menu items from Longhorn Steakhouse.

Although it seems like russet potatoes are the default spud for most of these restaurant chains serving the best mashed potatoes, STK Steakhouse takes a different approach. Instead, STK uses Yukon Gold potatoes, the absolute best type of potatoes for mashing, in our opinion. The dish has a parmesan crust, which only adds to the excitement of the side, but the real draw is the unique texture created by the STK chefs. 

We find these spuds airy and light, melting in your mouth, while also incredibly dense. This is likely due to the nature of Yukon Gold potatoes, which are starchy, creamy, and dense, as well as a unique whipping technique. The parmesan crust gives the potatoes a golden brown casing, which contrasts with the buttery mouthfeel from the center of the pile. This crusting is what makes STK Steakhouse's mashed potatoes stand out from the others. It's worth the higher price point to enjoy mashed potatoes of this quality that's prepared in a way you might not be able to replicate at home.

Known for its chicken, Nando's serves up an Afro-Portuguese style cuisine with flavorful and unique menu items, along with some down-to-earth classics. One of those classics is mashed potatoes, but Nando's decided not to take the simple approach that many others went with. This side dish is made with red-skinned potatoes, and it's apparent because those skins are left on and mashed right into the recipe. Real butter and some garlic do the bulk of the flavoring, and this side dish can be ordered in a regular size, large, or extra-large.

Because Nando's serves up a flavorful menu filled with sauced and spiced items, it's nice to couple all that flavor with a mellow side like mashed potatoes to create balance. These taters have a smooth and creamy mouthfeel, interrupted only by the tender red skins. Potato skins are best left on from a nutritional standpoint, so a case could be made that leaving the skins on actually creates a healthier side.

Because taste is subjective, I used several methods to select the top 10 restaurant chains serving the best mashed potatoes. I drew on my personal experiences and preferences as a chef, descriptions and rankings created by informed and trusted Tasting Table team members, and the popular consensus established by our online community, through Yelp, Reddit, and TripAdvisor.