Potatoes are basically the perfect food
Whether they're baked, fried, boiled, diced, sliced, mashed, hashed, or smashed, potatoes are indisputably one of the most delicious and flexible comfort foods. Their superpower lies in their ability to soak up the flavor of anything they come in contact with, making them the perfect vessel for all things delicious.
Let's get real for a second: There is an endless trove of smashed potato recipes out there. In fact, there was more than 6.5M results when I typed "smashed potatoes" into the ol' Google to check. What makes these smashed potatoes different is the spectacularly creamy, perfectly balanced lemon dill cream sauce that I've slathered on top.
The basics of making perfect smashed potatoes
Smashed potatoes are cooked twice: First they're boiled then they're roasted. Boiling the potatoes first allows the potato to become fully cooked, while retaining their fluffy insides. Then, after a generous drizzle of avocado oil + sprinkle of good quality sea salt, the potatoes are gently smashed with a fork (or potato masher), drizzled with melted butter, and roasted in the oven until their skins and edges are nice and crispy. The 2-step cooking method produces a fluffy + crispy combination that is really the best of both worlds.
I used a baby potato mix that included red, gold, and purple varieties all perfect for boiling and roasting, but feel free to use whatever baby potatoes are easily accessible to you. This recipe also works lovely with fingerling potatoes as an alternative.
The magic is in the lemon dill cream sauce
After a salt and butter coated turn in the oven, these potato beauties get dressed in an ample drizzle of Lemon Dill Cream Sauce (citrus + dill + sour cream + mayo + Dijon + salt) to become over-the-top delicious. Every time I make these the fella and I end up eating nearly half of them directly off the baking tray before they ever even make it to our dinner plates, mopping up any remnants of sauce that happened to make it onto the tray rather than the potato.
I think this sauce is best flavored with a bit of lemon zest rather than juice. This allows the pure lemon flavor found in the natural oils of the peel to balance the flavor of the sauce rather than the sharp acidity of lemon juice, which can sometimes overpower a creamy sauce like this. Although most traditional graters come with a fine grating side, I find that a quality microplane/zester makes a world of difference when zesting citrus. This is the one I use.
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Perfect Pairings
These Smashed Potatoes with Lemon Dill Cream Sauce pair perfectly with chicken, beef, or fish (I love serving this with salmon) and a green veggie like asparagus or broccoli. If there happens to be any leftover sauce, I love to drizzle the other things on my plate with a bit of this scrumptious sauce too.
A note for special diets
These Smashed Potatoes with Lemon Dill Cream Sauce are grain-free, gluten-free, and vegetarian. If you opt to use lactose-free sour cream, they are also friendly for Low FODMAP diets.
Smashed Potatoes with Lemon Dill Cream Sauce
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hours
- Total Time: 1 hours 10 minutes
- Yield: 2 lbs 1x
- Category: Sides
- Method: Oven / Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Gluten Free
Description
These smashed potatoes include crispy potato skins with fluffy, buttery centers topped with a creamy sour cream and mayo sauce imbued with lemon zest, fresh dill, and a little Dijon mustard.
Ingredients
For the smashed potatoes:
- 2lbs baby potatoes (I used a tri-color potato mix but use whatever is accessible to you)
- 1 tbsp avocado oil
- 1 ½ tsp sea salt
- 3 tbsp butter or ghee, melted (I use unsalted so I can control the amount of salt)
For the lemon dill cream sauce:
- 6 tbsp sour cream (I prefer this lactose free one, but you may use regular)
- 4 tbsp mayo
- 1 tbsp fresh dill, chopped (plus more to garnish, if desired)
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- ½ tsp Dijon mustard
- ¼ tsp sea salt
Instructions
For the smashed potatoes:
- Wash the potatoes and then set them to boil over high heat in a large pot. Cook the potatoes until they are fork tender. I find in most cases that this takes around 25 minutes total from when you first set the pot to heat.
- While the potatoes boil, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (218 C). Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat and set to the side.
- Once the potatoes are fork tender, drain them into a large colander. I like to take a paper towel or cean kitchen towel and give the potatoes a very quick and gentle dry. Don't worry about getting all the water or drying the potatoes individually, you just want to make sure that the potatoes aren't logging a bunch of water so that the oil distributes better.
- Pour the avocado oil on top of the potatoes and give them a quick toss by hand (or gently with a wooden spoon if they are too hot to the touch) to coat in oil. Repeat with the sea salt, until the potato skins have a nice oily/grainy texture.
- Transfer the potatoes to the prepared baking tray and mash each one gently in the center with a fork (or potato masher). You should be looking to break the skin until each potato looks smashed and contains a lovely crater (perfect for holding butter and sauce). Don't worry if the potatoes break in half, some of them likely will and they will still be perfectly delicious.
- Drizzle the melted butter over the potatoes, allowing it to fill the fluffy craters of each spud.
- Roast for 30-40 minutes (depending on size of your potatoes) or until the skins and edges have gone crisp and the lighter colored potatoes are starting to turn golden around the edges.
For the lemon dill cream sauce:
- Mix all of the sauce ingredients by hand in a small prep bowl.
- Drizzle, splatter, or drench those beautiful smashed potatoes in the sauce. If there's any leftover, it's beautiful on fish, chicken, veggies, etc.
- Garnish with additional chopped fresh dill if desired.
Notes
Nutritional information on Whip & Wander is provided as a courtesy and is approximate only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on this site.
Most traditional graters these days have a zesting or fine grating side to them, but I prefer to use a microplane/zester specifically for this use. Remember to only zest the yellow portion of the lemon as the white portion of the peel is bitter.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: ¼ recipe (½ lb serving)
- Calories: 394
- Sugar: 2 g
- Sodium: 851 mg
- Fat: 27 g
- Saturated Fat: 10 g
- Carbohydrates: 41 g
- Fiber: 3 g
- Protein: 5 g
- Cholesterol: 53 mg
Keywords: potatoes, dill
Drooling over here. Love your idea of serving it with salmon. Totally trying that!
★★★★★
wow, your smashed potatoes look amazing! I am definitely going to try it next time and make that magic lemon dill sauce!! Yum.
★★★★★
I love that "smashed" is in the title 🙂 I'll be sure to invite my children to join the fun!
★★★★★
Love the cream sauce to make these extra special, and love that you've reminded me to buy the heirloom purples! Great recipe, thanks!
★★★★★
Smashed potatoes are such a simple and delicious side dish! I love the idea of a dill sauce, yum!
★★★★★
Holy cow do these look delicious or what! I've been wanting to try smashed potatoes for the longest time and these look like the perfect place to start.
I love the different kinds of potatoes you used! That lemon dill cream sauce sounds delicious.
★★★★★
These look so amazing! I love smashe potatotiess. I love the use of the different kinds of potatoes and the flavor combo. Makes me want to grab that fork.
★★★★★
I'm also a lover of all things potatoes and these look amazing. The dill cream sauce really makes this recipe stand out.
★★★★★
When I think of smashed potatoes, I have an exactly same picture in my mind as the one you have here. And the amount of that sauce is just perfect!
★★★★★
No doubts this is one of the best potato recipes I have seen lately. So much attention to details, and all that flavor must be out of this world!
★★★★★
I always associate lemon, dill and cream with seafood, but they're definitely a win with potatoes, too! Bet this would be perfect on a bubble and squeak as well.
★★★★★
We are potato lovers at home and this is a great way to use them Would love to try these.
★★★★★
Absolutely adore that you used different colors of potatoes and wanna take the fork from the first pic and put in right in my mouth! Looks mouth watering delicious! Def inspired to get my smashed potato game on! Thanks so much for sharing :).
I know 100% that this lemon dill sauce will become my new obsession. I plan on making double the batch so that I can put it on more than just these potatoes’
★★★★★
I always like to make a little extra to drizzle on fish and asparagus!