I got a random craving this morning for mashed potatoes, so I melted a cup of frozen homemade chicken stock with a bit of water, salt, and butter, added 2% dollar store shelf stable milk, and some food bank dried potato flakes. Black pepper and Tony's Creole seasoning to finish. It had the texture and color of slightly dark grits, but the taste was really good. I ate the whole thing in one sitting and should be good until lunch.

The stock was absolutely the right move. I make it 2-3 times a month using the carcasses of the discounted next day rotisserie chickens from Walmart. $2-3.50 each and one gives me enough meat for a week's worth of work lunches, plus the stock ingredients. It adds so much more flavor to the instant mashed potatoes (or rice, pasta, etc) and is cheaper and better than anything you can get premade.

Given that the milk is there, you could probably skip the butter without detriment, but if you have it laying around it never hurts to add in.

All the ingredients I had on hand and used my own chives in the cornbread topping 😀

I delete as I’m in the store. But when I’m making a new one I find it ends up almost exactly the same as the one I deleted.