The Restaurant-Quality Smashed Potato Side Dish You Can Grab At Walmart For Under $5

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With so many amazing ways to prepare potatoes, the tubers sometimes seem too good to be real. Rather than dine out at a restaurant, making your own mashed, smashed, scalloped, or baked potatoes at home is an excellent choice. To streamline this process even more, picking up a store-bought version of smashed potatoes really can't be beat. One underrated Walmart food product that's a hidden gem of potato perfection is Kinder's Garlic Parmesan Frozen Smashed Potatoes.

Instead of spending the time and effort to prepare your own crispy-edged smashed potatoes, firing up this easy-to-prepare side leaves you more time to work on entrees, desserts, and more. The minimal list of ingredients includes potatoes, olive oil, sea salt, and "Liquid Gold," a garlic Parmesan seasoning that contains real butter, buttermilk, garlic, bell red peppers, Parmesan cheese, and a mix of savory spices.

The preparation options on the back of the bag recommend warming up the potatoes in an air fryer, convection, or conventional oven. To use the seasoning sauce, you'll need to first thaw the packet in warm water before tossing with your cooked potatoes. No matter how you choose to use this side dish, it will rival just about any you'd find at a restaurant. Numerous positive customer reviews certainly echo this sentiment.

While Kinder's is well known for its many different seasonings and sauces, this frozen side dish exemplifies Kinder's commitment to big flavor. And while it may seem like an unnecessary step, keeping the potatoes and seasoning sauce separate allows you to properly warm up your smashed potatoes first before tossing them in a delicious cheesy and garlicky sauce.

If the convenience of this frozen side dish isn't enough, the chorus of product reviews singing its praises ought to be. One customer raved, "they tasted almost homemade and paired perfectly with dinner." Another mentioned, "I needed a quick side that was not boring and these were a hit!" One even noted, "they tasted like I had just got them from a restaurant!"

Though some criticize the bagged potatoes for being too small, others state that it's a "good side for having a dinner date at home." You can skip the typical restaurant fare and make your own smashing smashed potato side dish with a little help from your air fryer or oven. Keep it light by using less than a full packet of sauce to dress your potatoes or repurpose it for an entirely different dish. Use your plain smashed potatoes as dippers for your favorite creamy spreads without having to do all the prep and cooking work. Simply heat, eat, and enjoy.