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Sweet Potato Casserole

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My Best Sweet Pota­to Casse­role recipe is a scrump­tious­ly per­fect com­fort food clas­sic, you’ll be asked to make over and over again.

Sweet Potato Casserole
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The creamy, but­tery sweet pota­toes are topped with a crunchy pecan streusel and baked in a casse­role dish. 

We love serv­ing Sweet Pota­to Casse­role with ham, turkey or even as the side for pot roast, pork loin or chick­en. It is sim­ply the per­fect com­ple­ment to any protein. 

slow cooker ham
Mississippi Pot Roast served over mashed potatoes with beef gravy
Maple Mustard Pork Loin sliced on a wooden cutting board
Perfect Baked Chicken Breasts

Most of us think of Sweet Pota­to Casse­role as a Thanks­giv­ing or Christ­mas side, but it’s love­ly at any spe­cial Fall or Win­ter meal. And it’s even a fan­tas­tic dish for Easter.

Veg­eta­bles nev­er tast­ed so good! You’re going to be the hero of your kitchen with this best Sweet Pota­to Casse­role recipe!

Sweet Potato Casserole on a white plate with a fork lifting a bite

The Ingredients

Sweet pota­toes and pecans are sta­ples in my pantry, but even if they’re not in yours, they’re like­ly the only two ingre­di­ents you will need to add to the shop­ping list for this ele­gant hol­i­day and Fall gath­er­ing side dish.

For the Casserole:

  • Fresh Sweet Potatoes
  • Eggs
  • Milk
  • Sug­ar (Both gran­u­lat­ed and brown sug­ar work equal­ly well. Choose your favorite.)
  • But­ter
  • Home­made Vanil­la Extract
baking sweet potatoes on a sheet tray with parchment paper and peeling them after baking

Bake the sweet pota­toes on a parch­ment-lined bak­ing sheet and clean-up is a breeze. Once the pota­toes are cool enough to han­dle, slide them out of their skins. Gath­er the parch­ment up by the cor­ners with the skins inside and toss in the trash. Super simple!

For the Streusel Topping:

  • But­ter
  • Brown sug­ar
  • Flour
  • Cin­na­mon
  • Pecans

FAQs

10 oz bag of frozen sweet potato cubes
Can I use canned or frozen sweet pota­toes, instead of bak­ing fresh ones?

I pre­fer fresh for their fla­vor and tex­ture. How­ev­er, frozen sweet pota­toes can be a quick and easy option.

Frozen sweet pota­toes come already peeled and usu­al­ly in small cubes. Some can even be steamed right in the bag.

They can also be cooked on the stove top or even in the oven. Frozen sweet pota­toes also bake quick­ly on a sheet tray with parch­ment paper. Just be sure to keep an eye on them and pull the sweet pota­to cubes out as soon as they are soft. Don’t wait until they have browned or caramelized on the out­side as they won’t mash as smooth­ly.

I do not rec­om­mend canned sweet pota­toes in this recipe. They are packed in sweet syrup which will alter the fla­vor and tex­ture of your sweet pota­to casse­role recipe.

blue bowl sitting on a blue and white plaid dishtowl on a white countertop. The bowl contains both white and brown raw eggs in their shells.
Do I have to use eggs in Sweet Pota­to Casse­role?

Yes. Eggs add struc­ture to your recipe and bind all the ingre­di­ents togeth­er. If you have a veg­an egg sub­sti­tute you are con­fi­dent in as a binder, then you might be able to sub­sti­tute that. Just be sure your sweet pota­toes are cooled enough before adding the eggs so they don’t cook and cur­dle when you add them.

Can I make Sweet Pota­to Casse­role veg­an?

I per­son­al­ly have not tried this. How­ev­er, veg­an milk and that don’t con­tain oats should bake up with­out any dif­fi­cul­ty. Try almond milk, cashew milk or coconut milk. Veg­an but­ter sub­sti­tutes should also be fine. Just choose your favorite. How­ev­er, the veg­an egg sub­sti­tutes will need to be some­thing you are already con­fi­dent works as a binder in bak­ing. I don’t have expe­ri­ence with this, so I can’t rec­om­mend brands or guar­an­tee they will work in this recipe.

Making Sweet Potato Casserole Ahead and Freezing

To freeze Sweet Pota­to Casse­role for use at a future date, sim­ply stop after Step 5, in the recipe. Be sure your casse­role is 100% cool before cov­er­ing. Cov­er and seal the pan tight­ly with heavy duty foil. (If you only have reg­u­lar foil, use a dou­ble lay­er to pre­vent freez­er burn. Freeze the casse­role for up to 3 months. How awe­some is that? 

Sweet Potato Casserole mixture spread in a 9x13 foil baking pan

Being able to pre­pare parts of big meals ahead of time is a huge time saver. Plus, savvy cooks dou­ble recipes when they make them. It takes no more time to mix up a dou­ble batch, than a sin­gle. Bake one sweet pota­to casse­role and put the oth­er in the freez­er for a potluck or gath­er­ing, lat­er. You are so smart!

Freeze just the casse­role por­tion of your sweet pota­to casse­role recipe. (Add the streusel just before bak­ing.) Spread it in the bak­ing pan or casse­role dish and cov­er it tight­ly with plas­tic wrap and then with a lay­er of foil.

When you take the sweet pota­to casse­role out of the freez­er to bake, be sure to thaw it in the fridge overnight. 

It should be com­plete­ly thawed before you start to bake. Then top with the Streusel Top­ping and bake just as steps 6–8, of the recipe, instruct.

collage of images showing how to make sweet potato casserole. A large finished plate of casserole being served is the top image. Three smaller images under it show raw sweet potatoes ready to bake, the casserole mixture being stirred in a bowl and casserole in a baking pan.

How to Make Sweet Potato Casserole

  1. You’ll need to bake the sweet pota­toes, before you start mix­ing up this recipe. The pas­sive bak­ing time is some­thing you should plan ahead for, since they’ll need an hour to an hour and a half to bake, depend­ing on their size. Light­ly grease a casse­role dish and pre­heat the oven to 350° F.
  2. Then, remove the skins and mash the sweet pota­toes. I actu­al­ly mash them right in the mea­sur­ing cup I am using to mea­sure them for the recipe. It only requires a fork.
  3. Mix­ing up the sweet pota­to mix­ture is a five-minute task. Put the sweet pota­to pulp in a mix­ing bowl with the sug­ar, eggs, but­ter, milk and vanilla. 
Ingredients for Sweet Potato Casserole

  1. Every­thing in one bowl. I dou­bled it this time, so mine is super full. Also, I had vanil­la bean pow­der in the pantry, so used that instead of liq­uid vanil­la, today. Both work beautifully!
  2. Whisk them to com­bine all the ingre­di­ents and pour the sweet pota­to mix­ture into a 9x13 bak­ing dish. (You could also fill indi­vid­ual *ramekins, depend­ing on how you plan to serve the casse­role. See image, below.) 
  1. See­ing a few streaks or flecks of but­ter through your mix­ture is nor­mal and noth­ing to be con­cerned with. Choose the bak­ing con­tain­ers that make the most sense for your gath­er­ing.
  2. Cov­er the mashed sweet pota­toes mix­ture with the Brown Sug­ar Streusel Pecan Top­ping and bake for thir­ty minutes. 
Sweet Potato Casserole ready to bake in an individual ramekin.

Divine! Sweet Pota­to Casse­role will be a cel­e­bra­tion hit on your hol­i­day menu. It’s an easy side dish with wide appeal.

Sweet Pota­to Casse­role is actu­al­ly deli­cious any time of year and a per­fect side dish to com­ple­ment deli­cious Fall mains like my friend, Sarah’s, slow cook­er pork loin. Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Casserole

The Recipe

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Sweet Potato Casserole on a white plate with a bite being lifted on a fork

Sweet Potato Casserole

★★★★★

5 from 14 reviews
  • Author: Glen­da Embree
  • Total Time: 35 min­utes
  • Yield: 12-15 serv­ings 1x
Print Recipe

Description

Sweet Pota­to Casse­role is a creamy but­tery sweet pota­to side dish with a Brown Sug­ar Pecan Streusel on top.  It’s beloved by kids and adults alike and makes a gor­geous com­fort food side for any spe­cial meal.

Ingredients

Units Scale
  • 3 1/2 — 4 cups mashed sweet pota­toes, (2 very large sweet pota­toes or 3–4 medium)
  • 2/3 cup sug­ar (Gran­u­lat­ed or brown sug­ar, or even a com­bi­na­tion of both works fine.)
  • 1/2 cup but­ter, softened
  • 2 eggs, light­ly beaten
  • 1 tea­spoon vanil­la extract
  • 1/3 cup milk
Top­ping
  • 1/3 cup but­ter, melted
  • 1 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1 Table­spoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1 cup chopped pecans

Instructions

  1. Bake 2 — 3 sweet pota­toes in a 350° oven for 60 — 90 min­utes.  Place the washed sweet pota­toes on a parch­ment-lined *bak­ing sheet.  Pierce the skins to pre­vent burst­ing.  A fork will slide into them eas­i­ly and they will be ten­der, when done.
  2. Cool pota­toes 20–30 min­utes until they are not too hot for you to handle.
  3. Remove sweet pota­to skins and mash the sweet pota­toes pulp.  I actu­al­ly use a fork and mash them right in the mea­sur­ing cup, I’m work­ing with.  You will need 3 1/2 to 4 cups of mashed pulp.  Any­thing with­in that range will def­i­nite­ly work.
  4. Beat mashed sweet pota­toes, sug­ar (gran­u­lat­ed or brown sug­ar), but­ter, eggs, vanil­la and milk until ful­ly com­bined.  Mix­ture will be smooth with a few small sweet pota­to lumps.  (You could use a mix­er to get it per­fect­ly smooth, but I just use a spoon or whisk and it comes togeth­er beau­ti­ful­ly in less than a minute.)-
  5. Pour the sweet pota­to mix­ture into a *9x13 bak­ing dish or casse­role dish (or indi­vid­ual ramekins).
  6. To make the Streusel Pecan Top­ping, com­bine the but­ter, sug­ar, brown sug­ar, cin­na­mon and pecans in a small bowl. Stir to be sure every­thing is com­bined and even­ly dis­trib­uted.  Mix­ture will be crumbly.
  7. Even­ly dis­trib­ute the streusel top­ping over the sweet pota­to mixture.
  8. Bake at 350 for 30 — 35 min­utes minutes.

Notes

Frozen sweet pota­toes can be sub­sti­tut­ed for the fresh.  Cook enough to make 3 1/2 to 4 cups of plain mashed sweet potato.

  • Prep Time: 5 min
  • Cook Time: 30 min
  • Cat­e­go­ry: Side Dish, Vegetable
  • Cui­sine: Amer­i­can

Nutri­ent Infor­ma­tion is pro­vid­ed as a cour­tesy only.  Nutri­ent val­ues are esti­mates only based on this spe­cif­ic cal­cu­la­tor.  Each one uses it’s own data­base.  Cal­cu­la­tors, and the results they pro­duce, can vary wide­ly due to use of a dif­fer­ent brand of prod­uct, the man­ner of food prepa­ra­tion, ingre­di­ent ori­gins, fresh­ness of ingre­di­ents and oth­er fac­tors.  Please do your own due diligence.

28 thoughts on “Sweet Potato Casserole”

  1. Thanks for a great recipe. This is sim­i­lar to what my moth­er used to make and I had to try it. The casse­role is super easy to make and went with our grilled pork chops. Loved the topping.

    ★★★★★

    Reply

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