In my family, the Best Sweet Potato Casserole recipe is one that’s served up sweet and salty with a delicious, crunchy streusel topping! You’ll love this mashed sweet potato recipe and the nutty brown sugar crunch on top!
For more holiday side dishes, don’t forget the Instant Pot Green Bean Casserole, and of course Pistachio Salad!
Why this Sweet Potato Casserole is Best
Every family has traditions, and in most cases, you can’t shake things up. Ever.
For instance, Thanksgiving. You are either a plain sweet potato or a mini marshmallows topped sweet potato family. There is no middle ground. (of course you could also love candied sweet potatoes)
For years, my family was divided. Depending on who hosted Thanksgiving dinner, we either were served gooey, sweet marshmallow sweet potato casserole….or a sweet potato casserole with a little butter and brown sugar.
Now I serve both.
If you’ve ever been to a Ruth’s Chris restaurant you’ll recognize these potatoes!
- Sweet and creamy mashed sweet potatoes.
- Topped with a brown sugar crumble with a crunch for salty pecans.
- One of the best things about these sweet potatoes is that you can have them prepped ahead of time so that you only need to bake them on Thanksgiving.
Ingredients in Sweet Potato Casserole
- Sweet Potatoes. Choose fresh sweet potatoes that have no root growing off of them.
- Sugars. You’ll want sugar for the mashed sweet potato and brown sugar for the pecan topping.
- Vanilla extract. These candied potatoes are almost like a dessert. Using real vanilla extract (or try my homemade vanilla extract) gives even more flavor.
- Eggs. Helps the casserole fluff up to a delicious texture.
- Unsalted butter. If using salted butter, omit the extra kosher salt in the recipe.
How to Make this Easy Sweet Potato Casserole
Start by cooking your sweet potatoes.
- Bake. You can bake them in the oven (my preferred method), at 400 degrees F for an hour.
- Stove Top. Or you can peel and boil potatoes in a large pot of water (for about half an hour).
- Microwave. The third way would be to poke them with a fork and microwave the potatoes for about 15-20 minutes.
- Instant Pot. OR you can pop them in the Instant Pot! Cook them tender by using my Instant Pot Sweet Potato recipe!
Mash the sweet potatoes.
Once your potatoes are cooked, combine them in a large bowl with the sugar, salt, vanilla extract, eggs, and melted butter. Using a mixer, beat them for about 4-5 minutes until fluffy and smooth.
Bake. Pour this into a 2 qt casserole dish and bake in a 375 degree oven for about 25-30 minutes.
Make the topping. While the potatoes are baking, make your streusel topping. Combine brown sugar with flour, chopped pecans, and melted butter. Stir together with a fork and set aside.
Once your sweet potatoes have cooked, top with streusel (and extra pecans on top if desired) and return to the oven to bake an additional 10-15 minutes. Serve hot.
Making ahead of time
There is nothing worse than trying to figure out what goes in the oven, and when. Fortunately, this sweet potato casserole gets it’s “BEST” rating because of the flexibility.
Here are THREE options on how to make today’s sweet potato casserole recipe:
- First, you could bake as written above, if oven space is not an issue.
- Or, you could bake the 25 minutes, top with the streusel and refrigerate until the next day. Then you would only need to pop it back into the oven for about 20 minutes.
- You could also bake it as directed for entirety and allow to sit on the table for about 30 minutes (covered with foil to keep hot). This gives you time and space to warm up some dinner rolls and get the rest of your food heated and ready.
Favorite Side Dishes
See all Side Dishes recipes
Sweet Potato Casserole Recipe
Ingredients
For the Mashed Sweet Potatoes:
- 4 large sweet potatoes
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup unsalted butter melted
For the streusel topping:
- 1 cup light brown sugar packed
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- ½ cup unsalted butter melted
Instructions
- Cook sweet potatoes in desired manner, until soft. See notes.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray a 2 qt baking dish with nonstick spray (I use coconut oil spray). Set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine cooked sweet potatoes, granulated sugar, salt, vanilla, eggs and melted butter. Beat with an electric mixer for about 4-5 minutes, until fluffy and smooth.
- Pour into prepared dish. Bake for 25 minutes.
- While baking, prepare streusel topping by combining brown sugar, flour, pecans, and melted butter in a small bowl. Mix with a fork and set aside.
- Sprinkle the baked sweet potato mixture with streusel and return to oven for about 10-15 minutes until crumble is lightly browned. Serve immediately or cover with foil and serve in 30 minutes.
Notes
- For the sweet potatoes you can cook them your favorite way. Bake in a 400 degree F oven for one hour. Or pierce with fork and microwave for 15 minutes (or more depending on size). Or peel and boil them for 30 minutes.
- Butter– for a traditional Ruths Chris topping, you’ll want to melt the butter. If you prefer more of a crumble, just use softened butter instead.
- First, you could bake as written above, if oven space is not an issue.
- Or, you could bake the 25 minutes, top with the streusel and refrigerate until the next day. Then you would only need to pop it back into the oven for about 20 minutes.
- You could also bake it as directed for entirety and allow to sit on the table for about 30 minutes (covered with foil to keep hot). This gives you time and space to warm up some dinner rolls and get the rest of your food heated and ready.
I halved the amount of butter and sugar in the filling and halved all ingredients in the topping. Came out delicious, without being overly sweet!
This is what I changed for the recipe. Only because I had 3 sweet taters on hand. I added in a can of pumpkin puree.
I baked the taters as directed until soft in a shallow pan with 2 cups water. Once cooked I cut them in half & spoon around the skin to pop em out. Then I gave a good SMASH in a bowl.
IMPORTANT for me: I whipped the Eggs & sugar untill fluffy. About 5 minutes on my stand mixer. Then I added the vanilla & whipped some more.
Then I slowly add in smashed taters & whip in intervals. Did the same with the can of pumpkin puree.
I made this the day before so I baked it for about 25 mins.
Then I let it cool completely before adding the topping.
Well the next day after warming it up….it was a hit.
This PIN is a keeper.
So, this tastes pretty good. BUT!! The video and the recipe both show this and idk what witchcraft you used, but the butter for the streusel topping should be SOFTENED not MELTED! The first try at the topping was like a pecan pie type paste.. i baked it like that then i found a different recipe and made it with softened butter instead of melted and crumbled it in with a fork. Now its perfect!!
Melted butter with the flour should work. I make this every year and it works perfectly.
How many pounds of sweet potatoes? Large sweet potatoes very so much in size.
Can this be made in the crock pot?
Hi. I just finished making the first part of the recipe and I’m finishing it with the topping tomorrow. (We have a double oven, but at the holidays I feel like I need a quadruple oven.)
I love using our crock pot but I’m not sure this would give you what you’re looking for. I think the toughest part would be getting the topping adequately cooked. That said, I made something a few weeks ago where I put the crock pot in the oven to finish it off so you might be able to do that. I’d probably start out by roasting the sweet potatoes in the crock pot then mashing and whipping them with the eggs and sugar and such then cooking them and finishing them off in the oven, but that might be more hassle.
As an aside, they smell and look delicious. I’m excited for my finished dish.
I’d like to freeze a head to time. How do I bake this?
This recipe looks so good I can’t wait to try it! If I double it, roughly about how much would the baking time be increased?
I would like to add cranberries to this for a little zing. Should I add them to the potatoes or to the strussel ?
This was the best recipe I have ever made for sweet potato casserole. The sweet potatoes that I got were HUGE. I used 3 of them (approx 4 & 1/2 to 5 pounds). I also used sugar substitute and brown sugar substitute and almond flour, as my husband is newly diabetic. Mine came out perfect. So good that we finished the pan yesterday, so I made another batch with the rest of the sweet potatoes that I had today. I mixed mine for a long time, until they were really creamy and fluffy. The topping I did bake a little longer to get that crunch.
Will make again! The whole family loved it and went back for more! The creaminess was delightful!!
I received so many compliments on these sweet potatoes. I baked the potatoes first, used less sugar and we even added marshmallows on top because our family has a real sweet tooth. I will make these from now on.
Hello Aimme Happy Thanksgiving 🙂
I want to cook a yummy Sweet Potato Casserole so I checked online for recipes but I want to try yours! I read the recipe, went to the market and bought everythinhg that I needed and followed the instructions 🙂 I love it, every step was well explained and easy to make. Everyone loved the sweet potato casserole 🙂 can’t wait to try more yummy recipes.
Thank you and God Bless you!
So happy to hear this 🙂
Is it supposed to be 1/2 cup or 1/2 stick butter for the streusel? I used 1/2 cup (1 stick) as the directions indicated and it was way too much and butter pooled all over the top of the casserole.
I had no issues making. You might’ve used to small of a baking dish. Only thing I had to bake longer I doubled the topping. So I had to bake for closer to 30 mins
Thank you for this delicious recipe. I made it for Thanksgiving dinner and as always, it was a big hit. l lost my mom’s recipe so, this one was so close to hers. I added a teaspoon of orange zest and a teaspoon of orange juice to the sweet potatoes and added the same to the topping. Tasted like my mom’s recipe.😊
Yes , I also add orange zest. To me it’s a must.
1/2 cup butter. Did you combine it with the pecans and brown sugar?
I have made this recipe once before and everyone loved it! I plan to make it tomorrow again, but I need to make it vegan. I have vegan butter that I plan to substitute, but am not sure what to do about the egg. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Bobs red mill egg replacement best I’ve found
You can use flax seed for egg sub. Google ‘vegan egg substitutes’ you can choose from many.
Can this be made in a 9×9 dish?
Can this recipe be doubled? Would the baking time be increased?
You can double, triple or more as you want. If you use a bigger pan and don’t increase the depth you should need to increase the time!
Can you use canned sweet potatoes?
I boiled mine! I would like to know this answer too!
I have used canned in the past, but this year I’m using fresh just to compare.
I used canned twice and it was perfect I
Hello! My little guy has an egg allergy, so you have any recommendations for a substitute in this recipe for the eggs? Thanks!
Very good. Had these today with pork chops. Will do this one again and again.
I tried many recipes before, but this one is perfect. I made it for our Thanksgiving meal at work. Everyone loved it, I’ll make it again for my family every year. Thank you so much for the recipe.
So happy to hear it. It’s always a hit 🙂