Elevate your dinner with these French-style duchess potatoes, piped swirls of mashed potato adding a touch of haute cuisine but also easy to make. My version is infused with sun-dried tomatoes for a Mediterranean touch. This post was originally commissioned by Young’s back in 2016 but updated in 2026.
I don’t think I’d even eaten duchess potatoes since taking GCSE Home Economics in 1989. Although they’re easy to make and prep ahead, they are rarely seen in British restaurants these days. Nor had I cooked them at home since. Which is a puzzle really because they’re really straight forward to make.
Young’s asked me to come up with a new side dish to partner with one of their Simply Bake meals and I chose Mediterranean cod – though I can also suggest a homemade alternative, my baked fish with pesto. The duchess potatoes are a great pairing with saucy baked fish dishes and you could even freeze ahead your swirls of mashed potato to bake them on the day.
Origins of duchess potatoes
Duchess potatoes, or pommes duchesse to give them their French title, are a classic French dish with their roots in the eighteenth century. Traditionally duchess potatoes were made by combining creamy smooth potato with butter and egg yolk, a touch of nutmeg and then piping them into elegant rosettes before gently baking until they have a crisp surface.
The phrase “à la duchesse” was appended to French gastronomy dishes featuring mashed potato and egg yolk mixture. Escoffier wrote about them in 1903 although their culinary history is believed to date back to the 1740s.
How to make duchess potatoes healthier
To echo the Mediterranean flavours in the Young’s fish dish, I added sun-dried tomatoes to my duchess potatoes. I did not include egg yolk, and I used a minimal amount of butter.
I don’t think I’d even eaten duchess potatoes since taking GCSE Home Economics in 1989. Although they’re easy to make and prep ahead, they are rarely seen in British restaurants these days. Nor had I cooked them at home since. Which is a puzzle really because they’re really straight forward to make.
Tips when piping mashed potatoes
Simply pile mashed potato into a piping bag fitted with a wide star nozzle. Fill the bag no more than two-thirds full and twist the end to stop mashed potato escaping from the wrong end.
Allow the mashed potato to cool slightly as you don’t want the bag to feel too hot in your hands. But it doesn’t need to be completely cold, in fact the potato will pipe more easily when it is warm.
Applying pressure to the twisted end, aim your nozzle to a baking tray lined with paper and squeeze the bag in a circular motion. Repeat to pipe out the rosettes to bake in the oven. It’s that simple.
Leave a gap of at least 3-4cm between the duchess potato rosettes so they don’t merge into each other. Piping mashed potato is very satisfying – you can use this technique on top of cottage pies and shepherds pies.
Can you make duchess potatoes without a piping bag?
If you were really scaredy cat you could cheat and just bake dollops of mash – this skips over the refined intention of duchess potatoes but rough and ready they would taste the same.
Sun-dried tomato isn’t compulsory, you could equally make them with plain mash or add something like pesto instead.
The trick is to make sure they’re baked just enough to be heated through and you can move them on the baking paper without damaging them. Mine took around 15 minutes on gas 6 / 200c.
After testing this recipe in the afternoon, I whizzed off out to the special Young’s bloggers’ bake off event in central London at L’Atelier Des Chefs Cookery School.
Young’s had asked me to come up with a new side dish to partner with one of their Simply Bake meals and I chose their Mediterranean cod. However, I can also suggest a homemade alternative to their boxed dish: my baked fish with pesto.
Can you freeze duchess potatoes?
Whilst you can freeze leftover duchess potatoes after baking them, the best way is probably to freeze the mashed potato rosettes before they go in the oven.
You should pop them on a tray in the freezer and after a couple of hours, when they’ve gone harder, you can bag them up to save space. If you are baking duchess potatoes from frozen, allow an extra 10-15 minutes baking time and test the centres to make sure they’re piping hot.
Below you can see my French duchess potatoes with their Simply Bake Mediterranean cod and you can read about the evening in more detail at L’Atelier des Chefs With Young’s Fish.
French Duchesse Potatoes with Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Ingredients
- 800 g white floury potatoes
- 2 heaped tablespoons sun dried tomato paste
- 30 g butter
- Salt and pepper
- You will need a large piping bag with a wide star nozzle.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200c / gas mark 6.
- Fill a large pan to halfway with water and bring up to the boil.
- Meanwhile peel the potatoes and chop into large chunks.
- Boil the potatoes until soft - around 15 minutes - then drain and return to the pan.
- Add the sun dried tomato paste and butter and mash thoroughly until smooth with even colour.
- Fill the piping bag with the potato mix. On a large baking sheet lined with non stick baking paper, pipe 8cm wide rosettes of potato in rows.
- Bake for 15 minutes until gold and crisp. When they're done you should be able to lift them from the paper without damaging them.
- Serve immediately. Alternatively, you could freeze the unbaked potato rosettes to bake a few at a time as required.
This French duchesse potatoes recipe post was commissioned by Young’s to launch their new Simply Bakes range of frozen cod meals.
I love fish- and this idea of mash with added ingredients is a great idea. I shall do it tomorrow, I have the sun dried tomato in the store cupboard
I loved your colourful and tasty duchesse potatoes! I wish food weren’t so prone to the fashion police, no reason for these to have fallen out of favour after the seventies when they are so delicious!