Could KFC’s mashed potatoes be one of the healthier items on the menu?
And what’s going on with this side in other countries? Keep watching to find out!
Very few fast-food menu items are ever made from scratch,
but since KFC famously hand-breads and fries its chicken fresh at each location,
you might expect them to boil and mash their potatoes too. Not so. Instead,
as Snopes reported, they receive bags of KFC One Step Mashed Potato Mix and just add hot water.
The mashed potato powder itself is made from dehydrated potato flakes,
powdered nonfat milk, and other ingredients — so, technically,
KFC does use real potatoes, but not in the way you probably think. The hydrate, heat,
and stir method of making KFC mashed potatoes was originally posted to TikTok but is now private.
Instant mashed potatoes are hardly new or even all that controversial in many circles. For fans
of super extra smooth mashed potatoes, they might even be preferred over mechanically mashed spuds.
A Quora user did say that instant potatoes tend to have more salt in them. They are also lower
in vitamin C, but you're not hitting up KFC to get your daily dose of vitamins anyway.
No one thinks of mashed potatoes as health food. However,
if you're brave enough to click on the KFC nutrition calculator,
the mashed potatoes and gravy are hardly the worst offenders as far as unhealthy side dishes.
A serving of KFC mashed potatoes and gravy contains 130 calories,
4.5 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, and 520 milligrams of sodium. Skip the gravy and
the plain mashed potatoes contain 110 calories, 3.5 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat,
and 330 milligrams of sodium. Either way, the sodium is clearly the biggest red flag;
you'll be getting around 14 to 22% of your daily recommended intake from this single side alone.
However, there are far bigger offenders on the KFC sides menu. For sodium content, the worst
choices are the barbecue baked beans and fries, with 650 and 1,100 grams of sodium, respectively.
If calories are your greatest concern, avoid the KFC potato salad, which contains 340 calories,
28 grams of fat, and 4.5 grams of saturated fat — though only 290 grams of sodium.
If you want to order KFC's famous mashed potatoes as a Famous Bowl, you'll be looking
at 740 calories, 35 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, and 2,350 grams of sodium.
Some of the official ingredients include, but are not limited to: dehydrated potatoes, whey solids,
nonfat milk, sodium caseinate, salt, sodium bisulfate, natural flavors, natural colors,
citric acid, and spices. In the gravy, you've got ingredients like: enriched wheat flour,
modified food starch, maltodextrin, chicken fat, palm and canola oils, salt, MSG, and dextrose.
You've also got hydrolyzed soy protein, caramel color with sulfites, hydrolyzed corn protein,
and onion powder. Lastly, there are also natural flavors, spices, butter,
and these are just some of the ingredients.
That's quite a mouthful, but should you be concerned about any of these common
additives and preservatives? Since they're present in such minor amounts, probably not,
unless you're chowing down KFC several times a week. That said,
those with soy allergies will want to avoid the gravy, as it contains soy.
Anyone predisposed to gout or kidney stones should take it easy on the gravy too,
as some of its ingredients could trigger those conditions, according to Healthline.
They say that maltodextrin, a thickening agent, is high on the GI scale,
which means it can cause blood sugar spikes. If you have a milk allergy or are vegan,
you should note that the potatoes and gravy both contain dairy.
"Po-tay-toes! Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew."
TikTok not only showed the world how KFC makes mashed potatoes, but also how they make their
gravy. As with their mashed potatoes, the chain begins with a powdered gravy mix.
But in addition to water, they enrich it with the flavor-packed drippings and bits
of chicken leftover in their fryers. You can see a vat of this golden-brown grease thick
with crunchy chicken skin cracklings in all its glory on TikTok. It is, admittedly, not the most
appetizing-looking gunk in the world. But when you take a moment to think about it, this is
actually a pleasant surprise, and not dissimilar to how you'd make gravy from scratch at home.
In 2011, long before TikTok even existed, KFC employees posting on Reddit explained that when
they ran out of cracklings, the gravy was simply made from the powder and water. One poster deemed
this gravy to be less delicious and definitely thinner in texture. So if you've noticed
inconsistencies in your KFC gravy on different visits, now you know one possible explanation.
A more recent thread on Quora has several posters claiming KFC gravy arrives at franchise locations
ready-made in tubs, so it may be that the process has changed, at least in the US.
But per the ingredients list on KFC's own site, chicken fat is still in the mix in some form.
American-born KFC has had overseas outposts for decades.
The first one in England opened in 1965. According to Metro,
UK KFC locations didn't have mashed potatoes on the menu until 2019. They did already have gravy,
which is available by the bucket for those who want to pour it on their Christmas dinner plates.
Other international KFC franchises have been way ahead of the game — and,
frankly, putting America to shame when it comes to mashed potato innovation.
KFC Australia, for instance, sold gravy-filled, breaded,
and fried mashed potato balls called Gravy Mashies in 2017. Per the company's Twitter,
that same year, they even offered mashed sweet potatoes for the winter season. In 2012,
Japanese KFC fans could order bacon mashed potato fritters enriched with sour cream and herbs.
Meanwhile, American KFC locations have never moved beyond using the mash as
a base for popcorn chicken, cheese, and corn in Famous Bowls. There is some variety there,
as the infamous quote "failure pile in a sadness bowl" has been available in a spicy Nashville
chicken version since 2018. But perhaps tweaking the formula any further is missing the point.
While Colonel Sanders was unhappy with what became of this classic side after selling his business,
it's clear that the plain pairing of mashed potatoes and gravy,
no matter what they're made from, will never fall out of favor with finger-lickin' KFC fans.
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