Sweet Potato Casserole

Do you like marshmallows toasted with pecans, brown sugar, in a delicious dish swimming with sweet potatoes? You’re in luck—my sweet potato casserole has all that and more.

This sweet potato casserole will be ready before you know it, so let’s get started.

Bake the Sweet Potatoes

First off, we’re going to bake our sweet potatoes. If you boil them, you’re going to introduce a lot of water that’s just not delicious. You want to concentrate the flavor and cook them down. Place them on a baking sheet and pierce the tops with a fork to let the steam out. After you’ve pierced your potatoes, pop them into the oven at 400 °F for 40 to 45 minutes, depending on how big they are.

Prepare the Pecans

My sweet potatoes are out of the oven, and while they cool down just a bit more, I’m going to roughly chop about a cup of pecans. I always like to toast mine, but it’s an optional step. If you want to toast them, just pop them into the oven at 350 °F for about 10 minutes, mixing them up halfway through. My nuts are chopped; I can set them aside.

Scoop and Mash the Potatoes

Now let’s get all the flesh out of those sweet potatoes. Take the tips off of your sweet potatoes—there’s a lot of fiber in there—and then just cut down the middle and open them up. They should peel really easily. As we peel them, I’m just going to give them a very light cut and pop them right into the bowl you’ll be working in. You want a nice big bowl for this.

Sweet potato casserole is one of those dishes that we just have to have for big family gatherings, especially in the fall, although I’ll tell you it’s good all year round and it makes the best leftovers. So even if you’re only having dinner for two, this will last you for the week and you will be in heaven.

Look at that color—it’s glorious. These are ready to get mashed up. The deal is that sweet potatoes do have a good amount of fiber in them, so you really want to break it up. I’m going to go the old-fashioned way today and use a ricer—just mush it up. This is a really fun job for kids; if you have any idle little hands hanging around, it’ll keep them occupied, and you can just keep mushing. There’s like no limit to how much you can do this, so if you want someone to be busy for a little bit doing something constructive…

Mix the Casserole Base

After your potatoes are all nice and mashed, it’s time to add the rest of the ingredients. You can whisk this by hand, but today I’m treating myself to the electric hand mixer.

Be right back. To my mushed mixture, I’m going to add:

• 2 room-temperature eggs (they could be a little cold—it’s not a big deal)
• ¾ cup packed brown sugar (you can adjust the sugar to taste)
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon (optional, but it adds a wonderful little extra kick)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup (about 70 g) melted butter

If you are so inclined, you could definitely add 2 tablespoons of dark rum or bourbon to this, and it gives you a nice little extra kick. In my opinion, the alcohol bakes off, so don’t worry about that.

Mix it up—give it a good mix so you have a nice distribution of ingredients and it’s pretty smooth. You could have some texture, though.

Assemble the Casserole

Living dangerously, we are ready to pop this into our baking dish. First, let’s just add a tiny bit of butter onto the bottom so it makes everything more delicious and less sticky. This is completely optional and maybe superfluous, but I’m giving my baking dish just a very light brushing of butter. A little butter never hurt anyone, especially if we’re talking about sweet potatoes and brown sugar.

Don’t think I forgot about those toasted chopped pecans—they’re back. I’m going to take about ½ cup of chopped pecans and just fold that into our sweet potatoes. They’ll be nice and crunchy and add a little bit of depth of flavor and plenty of texture. It’ll be wonderful.

Now we’re ready to add all of this into our 9-by-13-inch baking dish. The smell is divine. Spread this out into an even layer.

Top with Marshmallows and Pecans

It is not a sweet potato casserole unless it is topped with marshmallows. We’re taking about 2 cups of mini marshmallows and just making a nice even layer on the top. It is totally up to you—use more for greater coverage (which I’m going to do today) or less if you want to be a little bit more frugal with your marshmallows.

Our last step is to sprinkle the remaining pecans on top. Let’s give a nice even distribution; these will crunch up and be really tasty.

Bake and Serve

This is ready to go into the oven at 375 °F for about 25 minutes or so. It’s gonna cook up super fast—you’re just waiting for those marshmallows to get lightly browned, ooey-gooey, and delicious.

Now it’s time for a bite. That is so good—the brown sugar with the butter, a little bit of cinnamon, the pecans, and those sweet potatoes… ah, it is really delicious. I hope you get a chance to make this recipe.