Whole Foods Has 2 Unique Tips To Upgrade Your Mashed Potatoes

If you buy groceries, there's a good chance you've paid a visit to Whole Foods Market. Business Insider describes the "typical Whole Foods shopper" as a "highly-educated West Coast millennial woman earning $80,000," but in reality, the grocery giant has a much wider customer base. In fact, per Business Insider, one in every 10 U.S. shoppers is a Whole Foods customer. Whole Foods has over 500 stores in the U.S. staffed by more than 105,000 employees, which rake in approximately $16 billion in sales every year — making it the 10th-largest grocery store chain in the country.

Whole Foods is famously a food purveyor, but now the Amazon-owned stores are offering cooking tips, including some major upgrades to your mashed potatoes, and of course, they're all about adding more produce into the mix. In a clip on its Instagram, Whole Foods shared two unique, perhaps-unexpected tips for taking mashed potatoes to the next level. The post recommends adding parsnips for "sweet earthiness," or celery root for "herbaceous flavor." Here's why they work for your dish.

Parsnips are a tuberous root vegetable with a sweet, nutty taste, and they're also a good source of vitamin C, fiber, and potassium, says pharmacologist Hina Firdous, Ph.D. (via Lybrate). They're commonly used to garnish salads, as an accouterment to roasted chicken and other veggies, in tarte tatins, per Bon Appétit – but they can also simply be sliced and caramelized. Whole Foods recommends infusing your mashed potatoes with pureed parsnips and serving with savory accouterments shredded cheddar cheese and sliced green onion.

Celery root (aka "celeriac") is a root vegetable with a similar taste to stalk celery, says Healthline. It has a crunchy texture when raw, but softens when cooked, making it a fitting textural and flavor addition to mashed potatoes. Celery root, it says, can even be used as an alternative for potatoes altogether. Plus, it's packed with fiber, vitamin K, and antioxidants. Whole Foods suggests pairing celery root mashed potatoes with tahini to emphasize the flavor profile's herbaceousness. Esteemed New York chef and TV personality Anne Burrell's secret ingredient for taking mashed potatoes to the next level is celery root, too, via Food Network.