Leave it to the French to dial up a favorite side dish: Boursin Mashed Potatoes

Boursin, a garlicky, herby French soft cheese, livens up the flavor of mashed potatoes. Recipe below.

WE LOVE MASHED POTATOES. Our weeknight go-to batch is garlicky mashed potatoes made with peeled yellow potatoes, butter, buttermilk and plenty of garlic. When we came across a recipe for Boursin mashed potatoes, we thought it might dial our favorite side dish up a notch or two. It did exactly that, making them still garlicky, but adding a rich, creamy, cheesy, herby flavor along with the nice texture of bits of red potato skins.

These potatoes are named for their key ingredient: Boursin Garlic & Fine Herbs, a Gournay cheese—soft cow’s cheese flavored with herbs. François Boursin introduced his garlic-enhanced version in 1963. This particular blend has an intriguing origin story. The young French cheesemaker had opened a cheese factory in Croisie-sur-Eure in Normandy, in 1957. Then in 1961, according to the Boursin website, “a French newspaper mistakenly reported the launch of Boursin infused with garlic, and the public loved the idea. The problem was that François had no such recipe in the works.” So he got to work and, two years later, introduced it.

It is based on fromage frais, a soft French cheese that is bland on its own, but when blended with herbs and savory spices, it becomes a spreadable appetizer that can be served with crackers or bread. Mixed with honey or jam or fruit, it can be served as a dessert. The Boursin line of soft/crumbly cheeses focuses mainly on the savory end, with several varieties; the most readily available is Boursin Garlic & Fine Herbs, sold in 5-ounce packages. That’s what we used.

Boursin mashed potato recipes vary a good deal, including on what kind of potatoes to use (Boursin’s own surprisingly basic recipe doesn’t even specify). But the ones that caught our eye used red potatoes and left the skins on—not only great for nutrients, but because the skin on red potatoes is often thin, they were perfect for mashing.

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Boursin Mashed Potatoes

Boursin, a garlicky, herby French soft cheese, dials up the flavor of mashed potatoes.

Course Side Dish

Cuisine French-inspired

Servings 4

Ingredients

• 2 pounds medium-sized or small red potatoes, skins left on, scrubbed and cubed
• salt
• 1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick), sliced
• 1/4 cup hot milk
• 1 5.2-ounce package Garlic and Fine Herbs Boursin Cheese
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh chives, plus more for garnish (see Kitchen Notes)
• freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

• Put potatoes in a saucepan and cover with cold water by an inch or two. Season lightly with salt, bring to a boil and cook until easily pierced with a fork, 15 to 20 minutes.
• Drain potatoes and return to pan. Add butter slices and mash until mostly smooth. Add milk and mash to incorporate. If the potato skins are clumping together, you can remove a little, but do so sparingly—they add to the texture and visual appeal.
• Add the Boursin to the pan, along with 2 tablespoons of chopped chives. Mash until well combined. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt, if needed, and pepper. (You can make them ahead to this point and gently warm in a pan or microwave when ready to serve.) If you’re serving them now and they’re warm enough, transfer to a serving dish and top with additional chopped chives. Otherwise, gently rewarm in the pan first.

Kitchen Notes

Yes, you need the chives. They add a green, oniony liveliness to the dish. We didn’t have them on hand and many recipes don’t call for them, so we tried skipping the chives. When we tasted the finished dish, though, it was only okay to us. So we actually made a quick trip to the market and got some. They brought the potatoes to life.

Liz's Crockery Corner. The bowl above is Blue Willow. The Willow Pattern design dates back to the late 1700s (but this piece is much more recent). It was created by an English porcelain maker using a new technique called transfer printing that allowed the china to be mass produced instead of each piece being painted by hand, and English potteries mass produced it with a vengeance to feed an ever-growing demand. The Willow pattern has been in continuous production ever since, in potteries around the world. You can read more about Willow Pattern, including its key design elements, in this post here.