How To Make 10-Minute Mashed Potatoes or Sweet Potatoes For Your Dog

When prepping some potatoes for Thanksgiving today, I realized that I had just two taters left in the bag. I was overloading my pot as it was, so I decided to save them for my dogs.

One problem – I had already put away my cutting board and didn’t have room on my stovetop for another pot.

Potatoes and sweet potatoes are easy to digest, and many dog foods include them. You can give your dog plain mashed potatoes if you’d like. However, they’re full of carbohydrates, so if you only feed kibble, using taters as a meal topper would make a pretty carb-heavy meal.

Potatoes and sweet potatoes can be added to canned food, raw, cooked food, or fed as a little snack.

And if you’re like me and you just want to make a small amount for your dog without having to wash your pot and cutting board, I found a super easy, super fast way to prep them in the microwave.

1. Scrub and wash 1-2 medium sized potatoes.
2. Stab a few times with a sharp knife.
3. Place on a plate and microwave for four minutes.
4. Turn potato over and microwave for two more minutes. Repeat until potato is completely soft. Cooking time varies on the size of your potato, cook until it’s easy to pierce with a knife.
5. Let the potato cool until it’s easier to handle.
6. Cut open and scoop and mash the insides. The skin contains vitamins and fiber, but it’s hard for dogs to digest, so you should remove most of it.
7. Mix with water, yogurt, or kefir for a smooth, mixable mashed tater. You can add a little cinnamon to sweet potatoes.
8. Add to your dog’s food. Matilda weighs five pounds so she gets about a tablespoon of taters per meal. Cow weighs 30 pounds and can have about half a potato.

Lindsay Pevny

Lindsay Pevny lives to help pet parents make the very best choices for their pets by providing actionable, science-based training and care tips and insightful pet product reviews.

She also uses her pet copywriting business to make sure the best pet products and services get found online through catchy copy and fun, informative blog posts. She also provides product description writing services for ecommerce companies.

As a dog mom to Matilda and Cow, she spends most of her days taking long walks and practicing new tricks, and most nights trying to make the best of a very modest portion of her bed.

You'll also find her baking bread and making homemade pizza, laughing, painting and shopping.