One of our most favorite parts of Thanksgiving dinner? Sweet potato souffle!
While it’s not the healthiest version of sweet potatoes for your Thanksgiving spread, this sweet potato souffle is absolutely the tastiest. And let’s face it, covering your sweet potatoes with marshmallows and brown sugar, like many people do, isn’t healthy either. But sweet potato souffle is much better!
Posing as a side dish or even a dessert, this versatile dish will be a crowd pleaser, so have the recipe ready to share.
Since it’s such a big hit, I usually double the recipe listed here and make it in a bigger pan. If it’s not gone the first day, it makes great leftovers. My kids love it for breakfast the day after Thanksgiving.
My father-in-law introduced us to growing sweet potatoes years ago. Every year we have an impressive harvest. My kids love digging them up every year. Since they grow underground, you have no idea how they are doing until it’s harvest time. We love guessing how much the biggest ones are going to weigh.
Here are a couple of boxes from this year’s harvest:
Over the years we have added many more sweet potato recipes into our arsenal of family favorites, but sweet potato souffle stands as everyone’s all-time favorite.
While you can absolutely use a can of yams for this recipe, we never buy cans of yams because we always have plenty of actual sweet potatoes.
If you’re using actual sweet potatoes, simply peel the potatoes and cube them. Everything on the cutting board below is from ONE sweet potato (and it’s not even the whole potato)! The homegrown sweet potatoes get huge!
Boil the cubed sweet potato in a pot of water until they are soft enough for mashing.
Whether you’re using fresh sweet potatoes or a can of yams, mash them with a potato masher.
Now you are ready for the recipe. Everything from here on is the same whether you are using fresh sweet potatoes or canned yams. You’ll find a printable recipe at the bottom of the post.
Sweet Potato Soufflé
Ingredients
- 3 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes (or 1 large can of yams)
- ¾ cup white sugar
- 1/3 cup butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ½ cup milk
Topping
- 1 cup flaked coconut
- 1/3 cup flour
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup chopped nuts
- 1/3 cup melted butter
Mash cooked sweet potatoes (or large can of yams) with a potato masher.
Add white sugar, softened butter, eggs, vanilla, and milk. Mix thoroughly.
Spread evenly into a greased square baking dish (8 or 9 inch).
For the topping, combine coconut, flour, brown sugar, chopped nuts and melted butter.
Sprinkle evenly over the top of the sweet potato mixture.
Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes or until knife comes out clean.
Serve warm or cold– it’s delicious both ways!
This updated post was originally published October 9, 2015.
- 3 cups mashed sweet potatoes (or large can of yams)
- ¾ cup white sugar
- ⅓ cup butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ½ cup milk
- [TOPPING]
- 1 cup flaked coconut
- ⅓ cup flour
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup chopped nuts
- ⅓ cup melted butter
- Mash cooked sweet potatoes (or large can of yams) with a potato masher.
- Add white sugar, softened butter, eggs, vanilla, and milk. Beat eggs and mix.
- Spread evenly into a greased square baking dish (8 or 9 inch).
- For the topping, combine coconut, flour, brown sugar, chopped nuts and melted butter.
- Sprinkle evenly over the top of the sweet potato mixture.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes or until knife comes out clean.
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Whoa, I make this each year using a similar recipe that omits the coconut. What a fantastic addition; I’m eager to give it a try. Since pecans are always so expensive, I’ve also stretched it out a little by adding some finely chopped, less expensive mixed nuts, and it tastes just as good. Regards, Stephanie
Raw sweet potatoes are so hard to peel and cut. How do you cut yours in such uniform cubes? Most of the time I just bake mine but if I could get them cut into cubes as shown in your picture, I am sure it would not take as long for them to cook on the stove top and as it would baking the whole potatoes in the oven.
Hi Peggy! Our sweet potatoes weren’t too bad to peel. In fact one of my kids peeled the ones in the picture (I can’t remember if it was my 6- or 12-year-old, they are both like to help me peel things). I used a big knife to cut them, but it wasn’t too difficult. I would say it’s harder than a potato, but not as hard as a carrot. Maybe the difference is that they were pretty fresh (just dug out of the ground two weeks before). Or maybe we have a sharp peeler/knife?? Another nice thing about huge potatoes is that there is less peeling overall. Good luck and happy Thanksgiving!
Hello!
I couldn’t find yams that weren’t sweetened, so I ended up buying them sweetened with Splenda. Have you run into this? Hi would you cut back on the sugar in the recipe in order for it it to be too sweet
Thank you!
I haven’t bought canned yams in over a decade, so I’m not going to be much help! If they’re presweetened in the can, then try cutting down the sugar in the recipe. It’s a dish that’s definitely not lacking in the sweets department! 😊
Sweet Potato Souflee is a must on Thanksgiving! Thanks for sharing with us at Merry Monday.
I made a similar recipe for the first time last Thanksgiving. It was so delicious! My sister dubbed them “Dessert Potatoes.” 😀
I’m not a fan of “sweet” sweet potatoes, but I make this dish regularly. We don’t use sumac, just paprika. http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2011/04/recipe-for-twice-baked-sweet-potatoes.html
Thanks for sharing Jen!
Are they easy to grow? We buy organic ones from the supermarket but they are always imported from the USA.
They are pretty easy, but you kind of have to baby them when they are new. My father-in-law orders the plants (bareroot) in bulk. We plant them in the evening (dig hole deep enough to accommodate the root and give lots of water) and cover them with boxes during the sunny part of the day for the first week or more. Once they get going, they do really well. And they are really pretty too.
Thanks for that. Do they grow on a vine or in the earth like normal potatoes? We just had some potatoes from the garden for dinner.
Yum- homegrown potatoes are the best. Sweet potatoes grow like normal potatoes- underground. 🙂
Yea, no Thanksgiving or Christmas table is complete without sweet potato souffle. My sweet southern grandma never put coconut in her crust, however, and down south the only nut to use would be PECANS! Makes the crust taste like crunchy pralines. Yum!
Yum! Praline crust sounds divine! 🙂
Wow, I do this every year from a similar recipe that doesn’t call for coconut. What a great addition, can’t wait to try that. I have also mixed a few finely chopped less expensive mixed nuts with less pecans to stretch it out a bit because pecans are always so pricey and it’s equally delicious. Thanks Stephanie!
What do you use without coconut? This sounds really good but I HATE coconut.
That’s a good idea to stretch the nuts! I always use walnuts because I get them free (my uncle has a walnut orchard).
Thanks for posting a Thanksgiving side dish on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend 🙂 This looks delicious!
Awesome! I didn’t even do that on purpose! Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! 🙂
We do this, too! Sweet Potato Souflee is hands down my favorite leftover to have after Thanksgiving or Christmas. Yum.
Yes! I will even eat it cold for breakfast! 🙂