Consider Trying Mashed Turnips As An Alternative To Mashed Potato
N. J. Graham
Picture this. It’s Saturday, you have the day off and you want to cook something nice for yourself. Maybe you’ve got a chicken breast in the oven and the PERFECT sauce to go with it. You reach for some greens – an easy choice, right?
Healthy, tasty, you know they’re going to go well with the chicken and the sauce. But you need something else for your plate. You reach into your store cupboard and pull out potatoes. AGAIN.
Now, there’s really nothing wrong with the humble mashed potato. It’s a staple side dish for a lot of meals. But it can get a little…_ repetitive,_ shall we say? And you want something different, something more! Well, there is a solution. Next time you find yourself reaching for that potato to mash, stop, and consider the often overlooked turnip.
Now believe me, I was sceptical at first too. But honestly, I’ve yet to find a mashed potato substitute that stands up to my three most important tests: taste, texture, and health benefits, in quite the same way as mashed turnips. Trust me, you might be a diehard mashed potato fan, but you HAVE to try mashed turnips with your next meal, and you won’t be disappointed!
So lets look at taste first. After I tried mashed turnips for the first time, I was shocked with how much flavour there was. They tasted much stronger than mashed potato, but in a good way. For me at least, their flavour was such a welcome change to mashed potato that I even served them up for my next roast dinner (and I’m not sure I’ll ever go back, but shhhh don’t tell the REALLY diehard potato fans that just yet, we’ll just have to coax them to try it a little bit at a time).
My next test was texture.
Silky smooth mashed potato can’t be beaten for texture, right? Actually, wrong. Now hear me out. Turnips are naturally less starchy than potatoes, and so you’re already at less risk of over mashing them and turning them into a heavy glue-like mess.
Turnips are even smoother than potatoes when mashed, and delicious alongside most things!
My final, and most important test, was health benefits. Mashed potatoes have been used for years, right? So they HAVE to be healthier otherwise why don’t we use turnips all the time? Honestly, I was shocked to find that recent studies have suggested that turnips may help to prevent certain cardiovascular diseases and even some cancers. This was likely because of how great they are as part of a balanced diet for helping you to maintain a healthy weight.
There we have it. Three tests, and mashed turnips beat the mashed potato for me on every one of them. So give them a try next time, and see if you agree!
