15 Sweet and Savory Sweet Potato Recipes - Grits and Pinecones (2024)

Date: · Updated: Author: Sharon Rigsby

This collection of 15 Sweet and Savory Sweet Potato Recipes features simple, homemade, no-fuss sweet potato recipes that are perfect whether you are serving them for a quick weeknight meal or for a special occasion.

Although crowd-pleasing sweet potato side dishes reign supreme at Thanksgiving and the holidays, they are also perfect to serve any time of the year. Whether you are looking for a sweet potato side dish, main dish, salad, soup, or even dessert, I’ve got you covered.

15 Sweet and Savory Sweet Potato Recipes - Grits and Pinecones (1)

From my personal favorite, Sweet Potato Bread with Pecans, to breakfast and brunch staple, Sweet Potato Hash, and dessert superstar, Sweet Potato Pie, there is something for everyone. All are easy, hearty, delicious, and satisfying recipes that include sweet potatoes, which are classified as a superfood!

Southern Bourbon Sweet Potato Casserole

Southern Sweet Potato Casserole with Bourbon and Pecans isa delightful combination of flavors that is sure to draw rave reviews from everyone. This isa lighter version of the classic recipefor sweet potato casserole with pecans most folks expect to see on Thanksgiving. But it has a fun twist, atouch of bourbon, the quintessential southern liquor.

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Southern Candied Sweet Potatoes

Old-fashionedSouthern Candied Sweet Potatoeswith pecans is a dazzling holiday side dish with a rich combination of flavors and textures. This recipe features thinly sliced tender sweet potatoes perfectly seasoned with cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground cloves and blanketed in caramelized brown sugar, sweet, creamy butter, andcandied pecans.

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Easy Southern Sweet Potato Bread with Pecans

Easy Southern Sweet Potato Bread with Pecans is theultimate quick bread! It’s moist, flavorful, and loaded withsweet potatoes and crunchy pecans.Tasty sweet potato bread is the height ofquick bread perfection, and trying to resist a slice is futile!

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Roasted Turkey Breast with Sweet Potatoes and Cranberries

Flavorful Roasted Turkey Breast with Sweet Potatoes and Cranberries is the perfect Thanksgiving dinner recipe for a small gathering. Not only does this amazing dish make a beautiful presentation and feed four, but it is made in one skillet and cooks in under an hour.

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Healthy Roasted Sweet Potato Stacks

Healthy Roasted Sweet Potato Stacks are the stuff sweet potato dreams are made of, full of nutritious and flavorful sweet potatoes, scallions,roasted pecans, and maple syrup!

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Sweet Potato Pie with Condensed Milk

My, oh my, Sweet Potato Pie!Southern Sweet Potato Pie with Condensed Milktastes like a cool crisp fall day; warm, pungent spices and Thanksgiving all wrapped up in one delicious and decadent bite.

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Easy Sweet Potato Hash

Easy Southern Sweet Potato Hash is full of healthy sweet potatoes, crisp Granny Smith apples, tart cranberries, and bacon cooked with eggs in a cast-iron skillet! Versatile, sweet, and savory Easy Southern Sweet Potato Hash is the “breakfast of champions” and a great way to start the day!

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Savory Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

Imagine, if you will, soft, fluffy, and savory baked sweet potatoes combined with shallots, thyme, butter, and delicious Fontina cheese. These unique Savory Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes should be making an appearance on your Thanksgiving table this year!

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Healthy Roasted Sweet Potato Salad

Healthy Roasted Sweet Potato Salad is a unique, colorful, healthy, and, best of all, delicious choice for your Thanksgiving dinner.

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Terry’s Traditional Sweet Potato Casserole

Are you looking for the most delicious Thanksgiving sweet potato casserole that you have ever eaten? One that is decadent beyond description and will have your family clamoring for more?

Well, you are in the right place because Terry’s Thanksgiving Sweet Potato Casserole is all that and more!

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Easy Creamy Southern Sweet Potato Soup

Easy Creamy Southern Sweet Potato Soup isas smooth as velvet, a little spicy, and pure creamy deliciousness. Sweet and savory with carrots and sweet potatoes, this homemade soupis quick to make and even quicker to disappear.

Topped withcandied pecans, this easy soup recipe is 100% delicious.

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Fall Harvest Salad with Apples and Sweet Potatoes

This irresistibly delicious Fall Harvest Salad with Apples and Sweet Potatoes is as pretty as a picture and tastes as good as it looks! Full of roasted sweet potatoes, juicy sliced apples, and crunchy roasted pecans, this healthy salad will remind you of a cool crisp Fall day.

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Smoked Sweet Potatoes

Sinfully delicious, Smoked Sweet Potatoes topped with Maple Bourbon Butter will rock your world with their sweet and savory smoked potato goodness. The light smoky flavor goes beautifully with the delicate sweetness of the potato, and this incredible side dish is super easy to make.

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Sweet Potato Biscuits

Easy Southern Sweet Potato Biscuits with Cranberry Aioli – say yes, please! How could you not love this combination of sweet and savory flavors? Add some salty country ham, and you have a delicious homemade biscuit fit for a king or queen.

If you are not planning to entertain the Royals, how about serving these yummy biscuits for an Easter or Mother’s Day Brunch or Lunch?

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Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Soup

What better way to celebrate cooler weather than with the warm, cozy deliciousness of a steaming bowl of smooth, velvety Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Soup?

Creamy roasted pumpkin and sweet potato soup is a perfect first or starter course for Thanksgiving, or it’s an easy, healthy, light lunch or dinner. And, the best part, kids love it!

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Sweet potato FAQs:

What is the most popular Thanksgiving side dish?

This depends on where you live. Although mashed potatoes are the number one side dish across the country, in the South, sweet potato casseroles such as Bourbon Sweet Potato Casserole and Terry’s Traditional Sweet Potato Casserole are unabashedly the star of the side dish lineup and are a must on any southern Thanksgiving dinner table.

What is the most popular topping for a sweet potato casserole?

There are two camps on what kind of topping should be on sweet potato casseroles. One insists on marshmallows, and the other is adamant that you can’t have a sweet potato casserole without a pecan brown sugar topping or a pecan streusel topping.

Ours is a house divided, so I often put marshmallows on one side and pecans and brown sugar on the opposite side.

What is the healthiest way to cook sweet potatoes?

Baking or roasting sweet potatoes in the oven is the healthiest way to cook sweet potatoes. On their own, sweet potatoes are considered a superfood and are loaded with vitamins and minerals; it’s when you add copious amounts of butter, sugar, and other “fixin’s” that you can get into trouble.

What dishes can be made from sweet potatoes?

As you can see from this collection, sweet potatoes can be used in all sorts of dishes, from sides to mains. These versatile, flavorful, and colorful potatoes can also be substituted for regular white potatoes in most recipes.

What’s the difference between sweet potatoes and yams?

While many folks use the terms interchangeably, and while both are tuber-shaped, sweet potatoes and yams are two very different food items.
Most of the time, when folks think they are eating yams or when they see candied yams in the grocery store, they are actually sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes are grown in the South, while yams are grown in West Africa.

More Thanksgiving recipes:

  • 32 Easy No-Fuss Thanksgiving Turkey Recipes – 2023
  • 27 Easy Savory Dressing and Stuffing Recipes for 2023
  • 37 Southern Thanksgiving Side Dishes to Impress – 2023

No Thanksgiving meal would be complete without dessert, and these two recipe collections are full of ideas for ending everything on a sweet note:

40 Best Desserts for Thanksgiving 2022 and 40 Non-Traditional Thanksgiving Desserts.

And, because Christmas isn’t far behind, I thought you might be interested in these Christmas recipe collections:

  • 29 Best Christmas Dessert Recipes
  • 25 Best Christmas Breakfast/Brunch Recipes
  • 30 Easy and Elegant Christmas Dinner Menu Ideas
  • 31 Easy Homemade Edible Christmas Gifts

★★★★★If you make any of these recipes, please leave a comment and give it a star rating. I would love to know how you liked it!

Thanks so much for visiting Grits and Pinecones! I hope you come back soon!

More Thanksgiving Recipes

  • Best Southern Fried Corn with Bacon Recipe
  • Easy Peanut Butter Mousse Recipe with Whipped Cream
  • Homemade Gingerbread Ice Cream Recipe (No Churn)
  • Creamy Turkey Noodle Casserole Recipe with Leftover Turkey

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  1. 15 Sweet and Savory Sweet Potato Recipes - Grits and Pinecones (24)April

    What a great list of sweet potato recipes! So much inspiration! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

  2. 15 Sweet and Savory Sweet Potato Recipes - Grits and Pinecones (25)Gloria @ Homemade & Yummy

    What a great collection of recipes. Sweet potatoes can be used so many delicious ways for sure.

    Reply

    • 15 Sweet and Savory Sweet Potato Recipes - Grits and Pinecones (26)Gritsandpinecones

      Thanks so much Gloria!

      Reply

  3. 15 Sweet and Savory Sweet Potato Recipes - Grits and Pinecones (27)Kimberly @ Berly's Kitchen

    This is a lovely list of sweet potato inspired recipes and such a large variety of ways to prepare them. Definitely, goes above and beyond the traditional baked sweet potato! Love this post.

    Reply

    • 15 Sweet and Savory Sweet Potato Recipes - Grits and Pinecones (28)Gritsandpinecones

      Thanks so much Kimberly!

      Reply

  4. 15 Sweet and Savory Sweet Potato Recipes - Grits and Pinecones (29)Amy

    So much goodness here! How do you decide?! Although that scalloped sweet potato dish might be calling my name…

    Reply

    • 15 Sweet and Savory Sweet Potato Recipes - Grits and Pinecones (30)Gritsandpinecones

      I’m with you! My husband wants me to make the Scalloped Sweet Potato dish for his office Thanksgiving party! It does look yummy!

      Reply

15 Sweet and Savory Sweet Potato Recipes - Grits and Pinecones (2024)

FAQs

What is the best tasting sweet potato variety? ›

The most versatile and sweetest variation of sweet potatoes is the Beauregard. Throughout the United States, you will see this species stacked high in the grocery stores during the holiday season. Beauregard's have a bit of a stringy texture, but they stay soft: this is what makes them so popular.

How many sweet potatoes do I need for 19 people? ›

“A general guideline to estimating how many sweet potatoes you need when hosting friends or family for a meal is one medium sweet potato per person,” Burgess says, as if she's done this many times before.

What can I put on sweet potatoes besides butter? ›

Favorite Sweet Potato Toppings:

Maple Syrup, Cinnamon, and Butter – ok, I'm a big fan of savory but this combo is also a favorite! ghee is an excellent (and delicious!) substitute for butter if you need it. Brown Butter, Brown Sugar, Vanilla, and Cinnamon – another sweet variation that never disappoints.

Which sweet potato is healthiest? ›

Sweet Potatoes and Health

Sweet potatoes with orange flesh are richest in beta-carotene. Sweet potatoes with purple flesh are richer in anthocyanins. Beta-carotene and anthocyanins are naturally occurring plant “phyto” chemicals that give vegetables their bright colors.

Which sweet potato is not sweet? ›

So if you want all the health benefits of sweet potatoes without the super-sweet flavor, try a white sweet potato. The white sweet potato has a crumblier texture than its orange counterpart, but it's also easy to transform.

How do you enhance the flavor of sweet potatoes? ›

1. Cinnamon: It enhances the natural sweetness of sweet potatoes. 2. Nutmeg: Adds a slight earthy, nutty flavor that complements sweet potatoes well.

Why do you soak sweet potatoes before baking? ›

TIPS & TRICKS to Make this Recipe: The main secrets to achieving that incredible crispy texture, is to soak the cut sweet potatoes in cold water for at least 30 minutes. This helps remove the starch from the sweet potatoes so they´re not limp & soggy.

What makes sweet potatoes taste good? ›

Why Are Sweet Potatoes Sweet? When you heat a sweet potato, an enzyme starts breaking down it's starch into a sugar called maltose. Maltose is made up of two glucose molecules bound together, and tastes about a third as sweet as regular table sugar, also known as sucrose. Maltose contains no fructose.

What does 1 serving of sweet potato look like? ›

Nutrition Facts Serving size: 1 medium (4.6 oz / 130 g) Calories 100 Calories from Fat 0 *Percent Daily Values (%DV) are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Sweet potatoes are one of the best sources of vitamin A; a medium one contains more than 100 percent of the daily recommended intake, according to the USDA.

How many sweet potatoes for 15? ›

Potatoes or sweet potatoes: 5 to 6 ounces per person, which equals about 1 large Yukon Gold or white potato, or half of a large sweet potato.

How many sweet potatoes do I need for 4 people? ›

Peel and season with butter and salt to taste. Use 1 medium sweet potato per person. Boiled sweet potatoes can be used for pies, cookies, casseroles, glazed, candied or frozen.

When should you not use sweet potatoes? ›

How to tell if sweet potatoes have gone bad. If your sweet potato is soft in spots, smells rotten, or oozes a mysterious liquid, that potato should be discarded. Another sign that sweet potatoes have taken a turn for the worse is if they start growing stalky purplish sprouts.

Why are my sweet potatoes still hard after baking? ›

If the potato is still firm when squeezed, that means it needs to cook more. Baked sweet potatoes can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Reheat for 2 minutes in the microwave, at 400°F in the air fryer for 5 minutes, or at 400°F in the oven for 10 minutes.

What is a companion for sweet potatoes? ›

Aromatic herbs such as dill, thyme, and oregano work well with Sweet potatoes. Alyssum makes a perfect living mulch for them while attracting beneficial insects like wasps. Borage flowers are pretty and not only attract beneficial insects but can deter pests from your Sweet potatoes.

Which type of sweet potato is sweetest? ›

Which sweet potato is the sweetest? Sweetest is subjective but relatively speaking, Garnets and Hannahs are mildly sweet. Purple and Jewels are moderately sweet and the Japanese variety tend to be the sweetest.

What is the most popular sweet potato? ›

The most common varieties in the U.S. are the Beauregard (the most widely grown cultivar), the jewel, and the garnet (also sometimes known as red yams).

What is the sweetest sweet potato in the world? ›

Satsuma-Imo (AKA Japanese Sweet Potatoes)

Their dry, russet potato-like flesh is incredibly sweet and more starchy than other sweet potatoes. They taste amazing simply roasted or sauteed. Since their texture differs from other sweet potatoes, they don't work well as an orange sweet potato replacement in most recipes.

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