Butter Stewed Potatoes
I was a tickled that so many people wanted to know how I made the potatoes that were pictured with last week’s meatloaf. Stewed potatoes are something I make fairly often for my family because they are so stinking easy to whip up and make a filling side dish to go with just about everything. I can also honestly say that there have never been any left, no matter how much I make. That’s right y’all, this one is a plate-licker.
The thing is, they are so easy that I found myself trying to come up with a more complicated recipe to bring you instead of mine because I was a little embarrassed at how simple these are. Don’t worry, I came to my senses. After all, the whole premise of Southern Plate is to bring you the recipes that folks in my family use every day. That’s the great thing about traditional Southern food, in its natural form it is simple as can be and very inexpensive.
So here we go, my last minute no fuss side dish that everyone loves. If you don’t already make stewed potatoes in your house I hope you’ll give these a try because until you taste them, you wont’ believe something so easy could be so good.
You’ll need: Potatoes, margarine or butter, salt, and water.
Thats it.
How many potatoes do you use? I usually do one to two for each person, depending on the size of my potatoes. If they are small, I might do two or three per person. If you end up with leftovers (which I never do) these refrigerate and reheat well so if you’re in doubt, just make a few more.
I promise they won’t go to waste!
Fill a pot about 1/2 to 3/4 full. You basically just want enough to cover your potatoes.
I salt my water a little bit and then put it on to boil while I get my potatoes ready.
Peel dem taters.
Some folks like to use vegetable peelers, but now I use my old trusty paring knife.
Back in college, I didn’t know how to peel things with a paring knife and so I had to use a vegetable peeler if I wanted to keep all of my fingers. I had an internship at a restaurant for one of my classes and the lead chef gave me a whole bucket of potatoes to peel – and no vegetable peeler! I looked at that paring knife as if it were about to bring about the end of my life, but considering how ineffective I was with it and how many potatoes I had to peel – that wasn’t really a stretch.
I struggled through a few of them, hacking away, until he came over laughing and said “You’re acting like you’re holding a vegetable peeler, not a knife”. Of course, I immediately fessed up about my woeful lack of peeling experience and left that day with newly acquired paring skills. I haven’t peeled a potato any other way since.
I slice mine kinda thick and chunky.
Put them in the water and cover them.
Bring to a boil.
You want to continue boiling them until they are fork tender, 10-15 minutes (or so)
Usually, I just stick a fork down into my water and see if it splits in half like this, then I know they are done.
I took one out for the picture on accounta I jes love y’all s’much.
Once they’re done, pour them into a colander and drain well.
Now I just put them back into the pot and toss in a stick of margarine.
Add a little more salt.
A good rule of thumb is to start with about half a teaspoon.
Let the butter melt and stir them up good. Spoon them out to serve!
Ingredients
- Enough potatoes for those you want to feed (For four people, I use 6-8 med sized)
- 1 stick butter or margarine
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Fill a pot 1/2 - 3/4 full with water and add a teaspoon of salt. Put on to boil. Peel potatoes and cut into thick slices. Add to water. Bring to a boil and cook until fork tender. Drain potatoes in a colander. Place back into pot and add butter and salt. Stir and allow butter to melt. Serve warm.
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Ingredients
- Enough potatoes for those you want to feed (For four people, I use 6-8 med sized)
- 1 stick butter or margarine
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Fill a pot 1/2 - 3/4 full with water and add a teaspoon of salt. Put on to boil. Peel potatoes and cut into thick slices. Add to water. Bring to a boil and cook until fork tender. Drain potatoes in a colander. Place back into pot and add butter and salt. Stir and allow butter to melt. Serve warm.
Another Way
*Grandmama cooks her stewed potatoes a little differently but they taste the same to me so I just stuck with showing you my method. She covers her slices with just enough water for them to cook in and puts a lid on them until they are fork tender. Then, she adds a stick of butter, salt, pepper, and a little flour to thicken up the water a bit and lets them cook with the lid off until thick. This is probably how you saw your Granny make them so I just wanted to let ya know in case you think I missed something here 
.
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Submitted by Sue Bankston, who heard it from her dear mother growing up.
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Posted by Christy Jordan
on Mar 7 2010. Filed under Side Dishes.
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I’ve never been able to peel w/ a paring knife either; i always use a peeler. I wish i knew how! Regardless, I am trying this recipe next week.
Been making these all my life, learned from my mom and grandmother. I do them both ways, except I don’t cover the pot. I will try that because I’ll bet they will cook faster and evenly. In the recipe that you drain and put them back in the pot with the butter I add some dried parsley. I always call them parsleyed potatoes, and I have a feeling “parsleyed” is not a real word, just a Southern one!
I think that makes it a real word myself!
I have stewed potatoes like this before and love them. My mom use to break an egg in the water with the cooked potatoes also – instead of draining them. This is good also. It kind of looks like egg drop soup when you finish except for the potatoes.
This recipe makes me remember my confusion growing up. My mom and dad were both born Yankees (but got to the South just as quick as they could). We would have boiled potatoes, creamed potatoes and mashed potatoes. However, when I would eat with friends whose parents were born in the South, I always got confused when they would say we were having creamed potatoes and I would get mashed potatoes. Creamed ones for us were ones in a white sauce….Still makes me smile to think about it.
~giggles~ That is too funny Mary!! But I sure am glad y’all got here as soon as you could!!
we add a dash of garlic powder and a pinch of parsley!
my boys goble them up!
That sounds Yummy Peggy!!!!
Can you post a video on how to peel with a paring knife?
i love stewed potatoes…. thats what i grew up on….. same way u cook em…. but yes i have to say,,, i hate peeling them!!!!
Will this work just as well in a slow cooker. Slow cookers make for a better way to transport and keep warm, but not everything cooks well in them.
One day at work I said something about having stewed potatoes and cornbread for supper the night before. One of my coworkers (yes, she was raised in the south!) asked me what I was talking about! She had never heard of stewed potatoes! When I explained how I made them (like your Granmamma’s second way), she said she had cooked them, she just never had heard them called “stewed” potatoes!! You can’t find a better supper!!!
One of my favorites too Joan!! So, what did she call them?
We always called them “boiled potatoes”, but then, we are from Texas.
[...] Butter Stewed Potatoes, one of Ricky’s favorite way to eat taters [...]
My mother fixes these similar to your grandmama’s way except I don’t think she adds flour. I have always called these “soupy potatoes”.
I was talking with my aunt & uncle the other day about this very same dish. I grew up on these potatoes! My mama use to make them the way your grandmother did, she also added sliced onions and sliced green peppers. I tried for the first time to make them (of course they didn’t come out like my mama’s), however, I googled and there u were! After viewing your recipe and you’re grandmother’s recipe, I’m going to try them again. Thank you so much!!
Wow…. I do this exact same thing but only in the microwave. Slice the taters (raw) & place in my white corning ware. Add the stick of butter (but I cut it and dot it over the taters) add a few tbsp. of water and then nuke 10 mins (till taters are tender) my family loves them!
Christy, love potatoes this way. My Granny did it just a little different. She did her potatoes exactly like you except when she added the butter, she would pour in evaporated milk and let them simmer a few minutes to make a milk sauce. Love the site and your cookbooks.
I grew up eating these in Mississippi, but I think my mom and aunts added flour and a little milk or something. The potatoes seemed to have a bit of a white sauce or gravy to them. But I agree: keep it simple, and you can’t go wrong with buttered taters.
Christy, my grandmother made these and I always thought she was calling them “osh potatoes”, when what she was really saying was “Irish pototaoes”. Have you ever heard them called that? She was from Rogersville, AL, which is where you have said some of your relatives were from. Her name was Reba Slaton. Did you happen to know any Slatons from Rogersville?
my granny taught me the same way your granny does them….love em:)
Christy, how come some of your recipes have the “Print recipe” option but others don’t? I LOVE your recipes and like to print them out all the time! Thanks!
I can’t wait to fix these for my family! I have fond memories of eating these at my grandmother’s house, but she used little potatoes that she called Irish potatoes? It was probably something her mother called them and so on. Thanks for the recipe!!
Hey Christy, Mother would cook the potatoes & sometimes leave them in the water, thicken with flour or cornstarch, add the butter, S&P. We called them Soupy Potatoes. Great with crumbled cornbread, a little chopped onion mixed into the potatoes. Talk about good to the last drop… WOW! Thanks, for the memories. Love these Stewed Potatoes. Oh, by the way, we never had a veggie peeler, only knives, so I learned from Mother how to peel potatoes & everything else with a paring knife. I always pull the knife towards me… up the potato… slowly buy surely until you get the feel of it. So easy when you get it!
I have never learned how to peel with a vegetable peeler. We had plain boiled potatos a lot when I was a kid. My mother just boiled and drained them, then put them in a bowl on the table and we each mashed the ones that we put on our plates and put our own butter, salt and pepper on them. Our version of creamed potatos was cut up boiled potatos in a white sauce, like one other woman stated. That is in South Dakota, as far as I know that is how most of the people here make creamed potatos.
Being a Yankee I have never had a potato like this. Looks yummy! Here we have salt potatoes that you cook whole with the peel on in salted water, then drain and and butter and salt and pepper.
Love these potatoes.
Sue, you can highlight the recipe, go to print preview, select as selected on screen and print the recipe when it does not have it listed.
I’ve made these for years, only I cook my chunks in microwave. Sometimes I leave the skins on. Also works good for little red potatoes! Enjoy!
My Irish husband, though he’s had potatoes every which way you can, had never had potatoes cooked this way until he married me. I’m from Texas and we cook them like your grandma. Mama always said to make sure to leave some of the pot liquor to have something to sop.
Christy, I also make potatoes this way and we love them. You can also make them just a smidge different if you’ll melt a stick of butter in an iron skillet, drain the potatoes very well then add them to the iron skillet with some salt and black pepper and let fry until the butter is absorbed and just a little brown and crispy on the sides. Never have any left when I make these either! Give ‘em a try!
Love your recipes girl! Keep doing what you do!
I grew up on “stewed potatuhs”…they were my absolute FAVORITE way of eating potatoes! LOVE this recipe.
I love growing herbs and have tried these potatoes with many types of herbs. My family likes them best with fresh chives snipped into small pieces with kitchen shears. Yummy!
Christy,
My mother in law is from Tennesse and she taught me to make these but she also adds 1 small onion cut into quarter size pieces. My family loves these potatoes.
I am from NJ and now live in FL. We always called them boiled potatoes. We added the butter to them on our plates. I like your method so much better. It looks so buttery and yummy.
What great memories! Like Karen ‘s comment, I was a married woman when I realized my grandmother was referring to Irish potatoes when she said “arsh
potatoes”. Her parents died young with all her family here in the “triad ” of N.C.
You can never beat simple Southern recipes. Thanks, Christy!
I haven’t made this yet, but I can tell this has to be yummy comfort food side dish!!!
I hope you get the chance to try it soon Leia!!
I have made this for years, never knew it had a name, =) I just leave a little water in when adding the butter and stir ….. mine is more like half whole and half mashed. I made it when making mashed and was out of milk ……….
I love your site, thanks so much … BTW made the Crock-pot Cola Chicken and these potatoes tonight, soooo goood =)
I am so glad you liked the potatoes and chicken Tracy!!
I make mine exactly the same as yours!! Everybody loves them.
I feel a bit silly being the only guy posting BUT whatever, I’m 19 and I just moved out on my own (I went from the USA to Prague, Czech Republic) and I don’t know how to cook anything! haha so thank you for posting this! For someone who has so far avoided cooking as much as possible easy (and what to many seem obvious) recipes are awesome!
My mother used to peel potatoes and medium dice them and put on a sheet of aluminum foil, cut up an onion and scatter on the potatoes, with salt and pepper, then dot with butter. Wrap real well and bake in 350 degree oven on cookie sheet, makes the foil packet easier to handle. When almost done, take out of oven, open foil and scatter shredded cheese to your taste, on top. Put back in oven and bake until cheese is melted and slightly browned. You can also substitute cabbage for the potatoes and make the same as the potatoes. Mama also boiled red potatoes whole, with the skin on to make potato salad. Any potatoes left over, she put in ice box and sliced them the next day and fried them with butter and onions. Thanks for helping me remember my mother’s recipes every time I read yours. BTW, she used to make Buttermilk Sherbet with pineapple in an ice cream maker which everyone loved and something called Cush Cush. I have been trying to find recipes for these since 1970 and can’t. Would you happen to know any.?
I fix mine the same way but in less water…and when the potatoes are done, stir them around with a fork….this will break off the edges of the taters and thus the starchy cooking water will “thicken” up. I’ve also heard them called “shaker potatoes “.
Oh, I have never heard them called that. Thanks for sharing Donna!!
Oh, you’ve brought back sweet memories!! My mama made these at least once a week when I was growing up. They were the BEST!! She’s been gone 4 years and had stopped cooking a couple years before she passed, so it’s been a long time since I’ve had them. I’ve got to go make some… and shed a few tears too, I’m sure. Thank you
Hi Kristie, I hope you enjoy the recipe and they taste just like your Mama’s did!
love this recipe. I cheated and used canned potatoes, drained and no salt since they were salted when processed. love your way of cooking, keep it up and wish you much success in your future
Hi there from australia
Just found this recipe & it’s comments interesting .. i have been making this dish since i was at least 15 years old , i’m now 38 .. i find it extra delicious if a touch of garlic salt accompanies the potatoes or a nice cheese sauce .. am making myself hungry now lol.