KFC Mashed Potato Facts You Can't Unlearn

Fans of Southern-style fried chicken have plenty of fast-food options to choose from, but one of the top is good old KFC, formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken. From buckets of fried chicken pieces to sides like coleslaw and mac and cheese, the chain is known for comfort food that's tasty and filling. And the mashed potatoes, with or without gravy, rank as the best of the bunch.

The chain had humble and hard-working beginnings, with founder Harland Sanders creating franchises by driving all over the country to different restaurants and making deals in person for his pressure-cooked fried chicken recipe. The company continues to serve that chicken along with mashed potatoes and other sides, but the potato and gravy recipes went through changes that had Sanders so mad that he actually ended up in court. But whether Sanders liked them or not doesn't seem to matter to the many customers who order the potatoes day after day. Here are some KFC mashed potato facts you'll never forget.

Despite the image and history of KFC as serving meals reminiscent of from-scratch home cooking, the potatoes really are made from an instant mix. Hey, a lot of home cooks make mashed potatoes from instant flakes, so KFC's version is still technically like a home-cooked meal in that respect. In fact, when an employee posted the potato-making process online, and followers acted disgusted, another person clapped back at the comments, reminding people that they'd likely used instant mashed potatoes themselves.

But yes, when you get the mashed potatoes now, you're getting hot water mixed with "KFC One Step Mashed Potato Mix." If you want KFC-related potatoes made from whole potatoes, you'll have to visit Claudia Sanders Dinner House in Shelbyville, Kentucky. This restaurant was started by Colonel Sanders and his wife, Claudia, after he sold Kentucky Fried Chicken to investors and its web page notes that all the food is made from scratch.

Most people may not care whether their mashed potatoes are made from an instant mix or not as long as the potatoes taste good and don't cost too much. Harland Sanders was another matter entirely. After selling the chain, the Colonel would make surprise visits to Kentucky Fried Chicken locations and inspect the kitchens and cooking methods. At those visits, he would make it very clear — complete with clean but harsh language — that he was not a fan of how the company made the food, including the potatoes.

However, he would also make it clear that his wrath was directed at the company and not the cook; after one such visit, in which Sanders said no one could make him eat the potatoes, the cook mentioned that he was just following the recipe he was given. Sanders then reportedly told the cook that it wasn't his fault and that it was the company that was creating the problem.

Sanders' ire didn't stop with the potatoes. He didn't like the new gravy that was served, either, and he wasn't shy about calling it "sludge" and "God-damned slop." After KFC was sold in 1964, the new owners changed the gravy recipe. It's still a huge hit with fans, but the process for making it was simplified to save time, money, and employee exasperation. They approached it as a matter of numbers, pointing out that while the Colonel wanted excellent gravy no matter the time and cost it took to make it, great gravy that didn't pull in great profit would have looked like a failure.

A KFC employee posted the gravy-making process online in 2020. The current gravy is still made with crackling from the chicken-frying process, along with warm water and a powdered gravy mix. It's not much different from how a home cook might make quick pan gravy when wanting to save time. However, you can see why Sanders wasn't pleased as it's not a traditional home-cooked recipe made from scratch. Still, the gravy sells well and is one of KFC's more popular offerings in the U.S.

Sanders' distaste for the gravy actually landed him in court. A franchisee sued him for libel in the 1970s for calling the mashed potatoes and gravy "wallpaper paste" in an interview with a local paper. However, the suit was dismissed, with the court ruling that Sanders wasn't referring specifically to that franchisee's location.

As far as nutrition goes, you could do worse than to order the mashed potatoes, especially plain. An individual-size side of plain potatoes has only 110 calories, 3.5 grams of fat (with only 0.5 grams saturated fat), 330 mg of sodium, and 2 grams of protein. Add gravy, and the numbers don't jump up much; you get 130 calories, 4.5 grams fat (with 1 gram saturated fat), 520 mg sodium, and 3 grams protein. Compare those numbers to other sides, and you can quickly see that mashed potatoes are middle of the road. Vegetable sides typically are lower in calories and fat (green beans will net you 25 calories, zero fat, and 300 mg sodium, for example, while the more carby options will have more calories (cornbread has 210 calories) and sodium (the biscuit has 520 grams of sodium). 

Having the potatoes as part of the Famous Bowl is another matter. The bowl is meant to be a complete meal with mashed potatoes as one component, and the numbers reflect that. 590 calories, 22 grams fat with 5 grams saturated, and a whopping 2,160 grams of sodium. You do get 31 grams of protein, though.

It's true! Despite the role of mashed potatoes and gravy as a classic side for fried chicken in the U.S., you're not going to find them at KFCs the world over. This isn't unusual, and fast-food companies routinely have different menus customized to local tastes. It can still be a surprise to find that a chain whose menu is based on a regional style of eating doesn't quite follow that region's rules — if you're from the U.S., you kind of expect Southern fried chicken to come with mashed potatoes. But not every country's population likes the dish. Some locations simply dropped the side due to a lack of interest, while other locations never offered the mashed side to begin with.

KFC Japan doesn't offer potatoes as a regular side. You can get fried potatoes with your Christmas dinner special, and the chain has had a mashed-potato patty promotion in the past, but mashed potatoes just aren't a thing at the chain normally. KFC U.K. offers mashed potatoes now, but they were only reintroduced a few years ago after apparently not being an option for years due to low interest. And KFC Canada apparently took mashed potatoes off the menu a year or so ago due to low popularity.

While mashed potatoes may not be a thing at some international locations, that doesn't mean potatoes are completely off the menu. In fact, some international locations get potato sides that the U.S. never sees. A trip to a local KFC when abroad can showcase just how differently countries think about the humble spud, and in many cases, "fried" is the word of the day. Italian customers can order pata puffs, which look like the mashed potato equivalent of a tater tot with a little bit of onion, and Australian and New Zealander customers used to have a similar menu option called potato mashies.

In 2012, Japanese customers were able to order fried mashed potato patties containing bacon and sour cream; the limited-release side was a tribute to the company's Southern U.S. origins. But China may have had a mashed potato dish that was the best example of listening to one's customers. Joey Wat, the CEO of KFC China, had a habit of going to KFC locations and watching what customers did while they ate. At a conference in 2024, Wat claimed that younger customers were dipping fried chicken strips into mashed potatoes and gravy, so the company had locations serve a "mash potato burger." There aren't any reviews online detailing what the actual dish was like, but it sounds like the burger was a hit.

KFC has long been a staple of Christmas dinner for many families in Japan; a 1974 Christmas ad campaign plus the Colonel's resemblance to Santa Claus eventually led to the chain's chicken becoming the Japanese equivalent of the British roast turkey or American ham during Christmas dinners. But those meals don't typically contain mashed potatoes, instead offering fried potatoes as a side. In the U.K., many families have made KFC part of its Christmas meals, but for them, it's not about the chicken — it's about the gravy.

Vice reported via its sister site Munchies in 2017 that somehow, having a pot of KFC gravy for your Christmas turkey had become a tradition for many in the U.K. The reasoning was simple: Gravy tasted really good with turkey, and people liked KFC's gravy the best. Not everyone was on board; a number of people online claimed they'd never heard of such a thing and that they couldn't picture having the gravy with turkey. But the holiday combination is apparently a thing there, with KFC even releasing special meal deals that specifically included two large pots of gravy. Its normal combos don't include mashed potatoes or gravy in the U.K., instead adding fries as a side.

Fast-food brands have long used humorous advertising to draw in more customers and make more money, but KFC's global divisions took that idea and ran wild with it in the 2010s. Rather than coming up with yet another commercial, the chain created products on four separate occasions to appeal to fans' love of the chain's food. Initially, the efforts focused on the fried chicken; first was a chicken-scented candle released in New Zealand in 2019, and a drumstick-shaped, fried chicken-scented bath bomb was released in Japan.

But in 2018, the company focused more on its gravy. It partnered with advertising agency Mother to create KFChill as part of a national Mindfulness Day. KFChill was a website where people could listen to the sounds of not only chicken frying but also gravy simmering for some relaxing ASMR. Mother claimed the site was very popular, and in a review for Adweek, writer Doug Zanger claimed the sounds were "surprisingly relaxing" and that he felt more "mellow and refreshed" after listening to them.

In 2019, KFC U.K. and Mother revisited the world of relaxation and meditation by releasing 230 gravy-scented candles that customers could get only through a contest. People waxed poetic online about the candle, even if they didn't have a chance of winning one; one person even stated they would have ended up eating the candle.

The mashed potatoes at KFCs in the U.S. come in two sizes, one smaller and one larger. According to the online menu, you can order either mashed potatoes alone or mashed potatoes with gravy. However, according to customer reports online, the small mashed potatoes always come with gravy on top, while the default preparation for the large was with gravy on the side. At most locations, if you didn't like gravy, you'd have to either ask for the smaller size without gravy or you could order the larger size that would automatically come without gravy. Occasionally, you'd run into an employee who'd add gravy directly to the large size, but this wasn't common.

This has been changing at several locations. Customers have reported receiving more large-size mashed potato orders with gravy already added to the top instead of being in a separate container, supposedly to reduce packaging. That's not the biggest change for most people; if they were going to get gravy already, then having it on the potatoes instead of on the side wouldn't be a huge deal. But if you don't like gravy, then you need to ask for potatoes, specifically without gravy or with it on the side. Be aware that gravy itself is available as a side, so as one commentator advised, check that you haven't been charged for two different items.