Duchess Potatoes Recipe (Pommes Duchesse)

These duchess potatoes are always a hit during the holidays in our house. Making them yourself is easier than you might think. It’s a great way to serve potatoes and the decorative swirls look great on your plate!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Pommes duchesse or duchess potatoes have become somewhat of a Christmas tradition in our family. We hardly ever eat them outside of the holidays. They’re pretty much reserved for Christmas dinner.

We always called them “potato puffs” (they’re also known as potato rosettes) and we used to buy them ready-made, just to pop them in the oven.

But in the spirit of “let’s make everything from scratch”, I added homemade duchess potatoes to my list. And believe me when I say that golden brown homemade pommes duchesse are so much better than store-bought!

It looks pretty and tastes amazing. Perfect for your holiday dinners.

Recipe Ingredients

• potatoes – for making duchess potatoes, you need starchy potatoes. Basically, the same potatoes you would use for making a potato mash. You can also use leftover mashed potatoes for making this!
• egg yolk – for the creamiest result you add one egg yolk to the mix. If you don’t want to use egg, you can leave it out. Adding an egg will make it extra creamy but it will still work without the egg in the potato mixture.
• butter – for mixing the potatoes you need to use butter to get that creamy and smooth result
• other additions – I kept this recipe pretty simple, but you can easily make Parmesan duchess potatoes as a variety by adding Parmesan cheese. Adding herbs (fresh or dried) is also a great idea.

How To Make Duchess Potatoes

Making these pretty potato swirls is very straightforward and easy. You boil the potatoes in a large pot as you would for potato mash. Drain the potatoes and mash them until very smooth.

You can use a potato ricer for doing this. Do not use a stick blender as that will make the starch in the potatoes act like a glue and will not get you a very pleasant texture.

Add the egg yolk and the butter to the potatoes and stir it through. Season well with salt, pepper and nutmeg. You will have a smooth and creamy result.

Take a pastry bag and fit it with a large star tip (like the Wilton 1M) and pipe small swirls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake the duchess potatoes for about 25 minutes in the preheated oven or until golden brown.

What Potatoes To Use For Duchess Potatoes

This duchess potatoes recipe is made with mashed potatoes, so starchy potatoes work best, something like Yukon Gold potatoes in the U.S.. It also helps to use a good potato masher, because you want a smooth mash to pipe into nice, neat swirls.

Now the good news is that you can also use other types of potatoes for making these pommes duchesse. Sweet potatoes will work and you could even use pumpkin puree for creating the swirls.

Storing Duchess Potatoes

You can make these duchess potatoes in advance, which makes them perfect for prepping for your Christmas dinner. You can store either the potato mash or the potato swirls in the fridge for up to 1 day.

Can I freeze Duchess potatoes?

Definitely! Either baked or unbaked. If freezing unbaked, freeze them individually on a tray first, then transfer to a well-sealed freezer bag.

They’ll keep up to three months. If baking from frozen, just add a couple of extra minutes to the cook time. Check below on how best to reheat them.