These vegan mashed potatoes with roasted garlic are the best ever! Creamy, buttery, garlicky and divine. The perfect side dish and everything you want mashed potatoes to be.
Ooooh deliciously buttery, fluffy, comforting vegan mashed potatoes!
Add roasted garlic and you go straight to food heaven. Seriously.
We use a lot of roasted garlic in this recipe, a whole head, but the flavor is still subtle. When you roast garlic you take all the bite out of it, while leaving all that richness of flavor. It adds something so delectable to a classic mashed potatoes so I highly recommend it.
And if you love everything mashed potatoes then also check out our vegan mashed sweet potatoes recipe and for a lighter version of the classic recipe check out our vegan cauliflower mashed potatoes.
How To Make Roasted Garlic
You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.
- This recipe uses an entire head of roasted garlic and it tastes fabulous!
- To roast a head of garlic all you have to do is peel off the outer flaky layers from the head of garlic and then use a knife to chop off the tips of the garlic.
- Wrap in tinfoil and pour over a teaspoon of olive oil. Use your fingers to rub the oil into the garlic.
- Close up the tinfoil and bake in the oven for 35 minutes until perfectly roasted!
- Let it cool a little before you pop the garlic out of the cloves with your fingers and then you can mash them up with a fork.
How To Make Vegan Mashed Potatoes
- Peel and chop your potatoes and then place them into a pot and cover with water.
- Bring to the boil and cook covered for around 20-25 minutes until soft.
- Then drain the water from the pot leaving the potatoes behind in the pot. Let the potatoes sit in the pot for 5 minutes so that any remaining water on the potatoes will dry off.
- Then you just add in some vegan butter and mash it in with a potato masher.
- Then you add soy milk (or other non-dairy milk) and mash that in.
- Add in the roasted garlic and mash it in.
- Finally add in some sea salt and black pepper to taste and then you’re ready to serve.
Why Add Roasted Garlic?
Roasted garlic adds a wonderful richness of flavor to these mashed potatoes.
Sure, you can make yourself some pretty awesome vegan mashed potatoes without it, but once you’ve had it with roasted garlic you’re not ever going to want to go without it again.
And it doesn’t add much time to the recipe since you have to cook the potatoes anyway, you might as well have some roasted garlic on the go in the oven at the same time.
How To Serve Mashed Potatoes
They are totally divine served as is with some chopped chives on top. They are also absolutely fantastic with some vegan gravy or vegan mushroom gravy poured over the top.
They are also perfect served alongside a vegan meatloaf or a slice of vegan pot pie, vegan wellington or vegan nut roast.
Ingredient Notes & Substitutions
Non-Dairy Milk – I like unsweetened soy milk best for this recipe. You definitely don’t want to use a sweetened non-dairy milk as that will introduce a contradictory competing flavor, so any plant milk you use should be unsweetened. Other good options are almond milk or cashew milk. You can even use a richer milk such as full fat canned unsweetened coconut milk. This also works well but there can be a faint coconut flavor that may not work for some people.
Switch for water. If you don’t want to use non-dairy milk at all, then you can actually just use water. The best water to use is the water that you cook the potatoes in. This water contains some of the starch from the potatoes and also the flavor. So you don’t lose flavor by adding some of it back in to mash with your potatoes.
Vegan butter – You can really use any brand of vegan butter, but of course it’s ideal if you like the taste of it. You can make your own homemade vegan butter which is really delicious in this recipe. If you want to skip the butter altogether then you can use a mix of olive oil and coconut oil. Instead of the 4 Tbsp of vegan butter, add 2 Tbsp olive oil and 2 Tbsp coconut oil.
Recipe Q&A
The best kind of potatoes to use are Russet potatoes. They are nice and starchy and work great in mashed potatoes. The next best option is Yukon gold potatoes. They are a little less starchy than Russets and won’t be quite as creamy. Another option that works GREAT is to use a mix of Russet potatoes and Yukon gold in a 50/50 split. If you happen to have both types of potatoes on hand then this is a great option as you get the starchiness of the Russets with the buttery flavor of the Yukon golds.
It is best for the texture of your mashed potatoes to peel them first as this will have the smoothest creamiest result. But if you prefer to leave the peels on you can also do that!
Storing and Freezing
Keep leftovers stored in the fridge where they will stay good for 3-4 days.
They are also suitable for freezing if you want to freeze them. You can let them thaw overnight in the fridge and then reheat and serve or you can reheat them directly from frozen.
To reheat add them to a pot and heat them on the stovetop until heated through. Add extra vegan butter and/or soy milk, salt and pepper as needed. The Kitchn have some more ideas for how to reheat your mashed potatoes after freezing.
More Delicious Vegan Potato Recipes
- Vegan Scalloped Potatoes
- Vegan Potato Salad
- Baked Potato Fries
- Vegan Potato Curry
- Vegan Potato Soup
- Vegan Potato Leek Soup
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients
For the Roasted Garlic:
- 1 Head Garlic
- 1 tsp Olive Oil
For the Mashed Potatoes:
- 2 ½ pounds Potatoes (1100g) Peeled and Chopped
- 4 Tbsp Vegan Butter (60g)
- ½ cup Soy Milk (120ml) Unsweetened
- Sea Salt and Black Pepper to taste
- Fresh Chives
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 430°F (220°C). Make your roasted garlic by peeling the outer flaky layers off the head of garlic, then using a knife chop off just the tips of the garlic. Wrap in tinfoil, pour over 1 tsp olive oil and rub it into the garlic. Close the tinfoil and bake for 35 mins until perfectly roasted. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. Then using your fingers, pop the cloves of garlic out into a bowl, and then use a fork to mash the garlic.
- Place the potatoes into a pot and cover with water. Bring to the boil and cook covered for around 20-25 minutes until soft.
- When the potatoes are cooked, drain the water from the pot and leave the potatoes behind in the pot and allow them to sit for a few minutes as any remaining water on the potatoes will dry off.
- Add in the vegan butter and mash it in with a potato masher and then add the soy milk and mash it in.
- Add in the roasted garlic and mash it in with the potatoes.
- Lastly add sea salt and black pepper to taste. Garnish with fresh chives and serve.
Video
Notes
- Potatoes. This is about 4 large potatoes or 6-7 medium sized potatoes. Starchy potatoes like Russet’s work great for making mashed potatoes.
- Soy milk. You can use a different non-dairy milk other than soy if you like but make sure it’s unsweetened.
- Cook time. To save time it’s ideal if you prepare and start cooking the potatoes while the garlic is roasting, then by the time the garlic is ready to use, the potatoes are also cooked and ready to go. The 35 minutes of ‘cook’ time allocated is roasting the garlic and assumes that the potatoes will be cooking while the garlic is roasting.
- Leftovers. Store leftovers in a covered container in the fridge where they will stay good for 3-4 days. Reheat on the stove and add more vegan butter, soy milk and salt and pepper as needed. They are also freezer friendly and can either thaw overnight in the fridge before reheating on the stove or reheat them directly from frozen on the stovetop.
- This recipe was first published in April 2016. It has been updated with new photos but the recipe itself remains unchanged.
Not understanding a lot of the oven temps? 430? Can I do 450? Or go down to 425? Etc. same for some of your desserts. Go up or down?
I’m not sure why you would want to go up or down? I don’t recommend changing it for baking. You can for roasted garlic, but of course it will change the amount of time needed in the oven.
Delicious! Thank you so much!
Mashed potato heaven indeed! The garlic just makes this so extra delicious!
Yes the garlic is a must! Thanks so much Anna!
What can I use to replace vegan butter in your recipes? Been excited to try this, but don’t have any!
Hi Leila, it depends on the recipe, but in this recipe, I don’t know that there is a good sub, however, you can make your own homemade vegan butter if you have the ingredients. 🙂
These were wonderful! In my 1st week of going vegan. Taking one day at time. Got to get back discovering more great recipes on this site. I love how you tell how long it’s good for.
Must comment on the chickpea flour omelet, one word…AWESOME.
Awesome Lynda! And congrats on going vegan! Thanks for the wonderful review. 🙂
Gerösteter Knoblauch ist immer gut, ich verwende immer frischen Knoblauch und bereite ihn ohne Öl im Öfen zu,noch etwas besser schmeckt wenn man ihn ihn in die Lagerfeuer Glut gibt und röstet.
Ein Löffel vom Knoblauch-Kartoffelpüree und man isst den ganzen Topf lehr!
Grüße,
Jesse-Gabriel
Absolutely! Thanks for the awesome rating! 🙂
Hi, could I use roasted garlic straight out of the jar? If so would I just add it like the recipe or would I need to saute it first, or what?
I’ve never used that before, but if it’s already roasted then I don’t see a need to sauté it, you could just add it into the hot cooked potatoes and mash it in with everything else. 🙂
Perfect! I mixed the chives in right at the end instead of using as garnish… It was nice to chop once and snack on the leftovers with fresh chives in there!
Sounds delicious! Thanks so much for sharing! 🙂
Can you make this in advance?
Leftovers keep for a couple of days in the fridge and are fine reheated so in theory you could make this in advance, but it may not be quite as delicious as it is on the first day they’re made. It’s not a super ideal dish to make ahead. Maybe add a little extra butter when reheating to make them extra fluffy again.
Divine! Just divine!
Tasted great!
What is olive spice?
We get a rosemary and olive mixed spice – it’s an Ina Paarman seasoning, you can get Ina Paarman on Amazon but I don’t see this particular one. So basically any dried spice mix would be fine to use instead.