I tried Ina Garten's cheesy twist on mashed potatoes, and they're the perfect Thanksgiving side dish

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the most experienced chef in the kitchen, so cooking more than one recipe for Friendsgiving felt extremely ambitious. 

But Ina Garten has been my guide as I've worked to sharpen my cooking techniques and instincts, so this year I decided to skip my usual store-bought contribution and make a few of her dishes instead. 

I made Garten's overnight mac and cheese, which was a huge hit with everyone. But you can't have a proper Thanksgiving meal without potatoes, and I knew just the "Barefoot Contessa" recipe I wanted to try. 

Garten whipped up her parmesan smashed potatoes while appearing on Al Roker's podcast, "Cooking Up a Storm with Al Roker," earlier this month. 

"The key to mashed potatoes is what you add to them to make them have great flavor," she told Roker. "Two things people really miss a lot, in almost every recipe, is the salt. It needs a lot of salt to give it flavor." 

Garten's dish also features smashed potatoes instead of mashed potatoes, a time-saving technique that I knew would be super helpful with an ambitious Friendsgiving menu. 

But how would the "Barefoot Contessa" twist compare to a classic Thanksgiving dish? It was time to find out. 

To make Garten's smashed potatoes for six to eight people, you'll need: 

• 3 pounds red potatoes (don't peel them!) 
• ¼ pound unsalted butter 
• 1 ½ cups half and half 
• ½ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
• ½ cup sour cream 

I added one tablespoon of salt to the pot and made sure the water covered the potatoes.

Garten recommends boiling the potatoes for 25 to 30 minutes, until they're completely tender. My potatoes were ready right around the 25-minute mark. 

I heated the butter in a small saucepan with the half and half, per Garten's recipe.  

All you need to do is mix the potatoes on low speed for a few seconds to break them up. These aren't supposed to be mashed after all! 

Garten's recipe recommends using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment for this step. I just used my electric hand mixer with a regular mixing bowl, and it still worked great. 

Per Garten's instructions, I folded in the last quarter of cream and butter with a spatula instead. 

I folded in the sour cream before throwing in the parmesan cheese. And as a huge cheese lover, I'm not ashamed to admit that I added a full cup — and then some. As Garten herself said, the parmesan helps give these potatoes "an edge." 

"It's something that's a little sharp," she told Roker. "That kind of wakes up your taste buds."

Garten's recipe only calls for two teaspoons of salt, which did not fly with my boyfriend, who was also my sous chef for the night. He added a little more regular salt to the mix, along with some garlic salt and Italian seasoning for a delicious kick. 

The red from the potatoes' skin gave the dish a nice pop of color, and I loved that you could see all the chunks. It was clear the smashed potatoes had a lot of texture, and they already looked far more appetizing to me than traditional mashed potatoes. 

Also, a pro tip from Garten: If your potatoes are looking a little too thick, simply add more hot cream and butter. And, if you'd like to reheat your leftovers, just throw the potatoes into an ovenproof baking dish, add some more parmesan, and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 to 30 minutes. 

I'm going to confess something to you, reader. My family doesn't really care about mashed potatoes. If they're on the Thanksgiving table, they came out of a box. Thank you for all your years of service, Betty Crocker!

So you'll have to understand that mashed potatoes never used to excite me. But Garten's parmesan smashed potatoes have changed everything. 

These potatoes are deliciously thick and full of flavor, from the sharpness of the parmesan to the subtle sweetness of the red potatoes. And they were a huge hit at Friendsgiving. 

"The smashed potatoes were deliciously salty, and also not overcooked," my boyfriend said. "They still had a bit of texture to them — it wasn't just like a bowl of soup." 

"The best mashed potatoes I've had!" our friend Kayla added. "So creamy and thick." 

Garten has made a name for herself by giving fun and unique twists to classic dishes, and that skill is out in full force with her parmesan smashed potatoes. 

This is such an easy recipe to make ahead of a big Thanksgiving dinner, and I think it's so much more exciting than the traditional mashed potato dishes that I've tasted. After giving the potatoes some time to just sit on the stove, you barely have to do five minutes of work. And the finished product is still way better than anything from a box. 

To borrow one of Garten's favorite phrases, how easy is that?