This delicious scalloped sweet potatoes recipe features buttery brown sugar sauce spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Top it off with mini marshmallows and chopped pecans and you've got the perfect side dish for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner!
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The holidays aren't complete without sweet potatoes on the table! Impress your guests with this beautiful side dish. It'll look super fancy and impressive, but it's really easy to make.
I love serving my potatoes with a classic main course like spiral ham or roasted turkey. Don't forget the corn casserole, cranberry sauce, roasted brussels sprouts and pumpkin pie!
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Ingredients & Substitutions
- Sweet potatoes: 5-6 medium sized sweet potatoes. At the grocery store, I typically look for the ones with orange skin and flesh, but white sweet potatoes would also work nicely.
- Sauce: unsalted butter, brown sugar or maple syrup, water, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, ground cloves and salt.
- Topping: roughly chopped pecans and mini marshmallows! Walnuts can be substituted for pecans.
How To Make Easy Scalloped Sweet Potatoes
Prepare potatoes:
- Time to fire up the oven! Preheat to 400°F.
- Peel your potatoes and use a mandolin slicer or sharp knife to cut potatoes into thin medallions.
- Line sweet potato slices in your baking dish.
Prepare sauce:
- Mix butter, brown sugar, spices, salt and water in a small saucepan over medium heat. Allow ingredients to melt together.
- Use a pastry brush to distribute about ¾ of the mixture over the sweet sweet potato medallions. Cover with aluminum foil and set baking time for 50 minutes.
- Remove foil, use a pastry brush to distribute remaining sauce mixture over the potatoes. Sprinkle with chopped pecans & mini marshmallows.
- Broil in the oven for 1-2 minutes, until marshmallow are golden brown.
Serve:
- Allow to cool slightly, serve and enjoy!
Handy Tips
Mandoline slicer: For best results, I highly recommend getting a mandoline slicer if you don't have one just yet. They are so handy in the kitchen and help cut down on prep time. A knife will work, but it's harder to keep slices even (which is important for uniform cooking).
Pecans: You don't need a large quantity of pecans for this recipe and many grocery stores carry small packets of nuts. Before buying a large bag of pecans, check to see if you can find a mini bag in the baking isle.
Baking dish: Scalloped potatoes are traditionally made in an au gratin baking dish. I don't have an au gratin dish in my collection just yet and with Christmas approaching, we're trying to save up some extra cash for gifts.
I decided to get creative and use this beautiful, porcelain pie dish we received as a wedding gift last year. It worked like a charm!
If you don't have an au gratin dish, I recommend using a pie baking dish or any other shallow casserole dish you have on hand. You can also use a large skillet, just be sure it's oven-safe!
How To Store Leftovers
Simply allow leftovers to cool and transfer them to an airtight container. Store in the refrigerator for 3-5 days. Microwave to reheat. Hot tip: leftovers make a really tasty breakfast the day after Thanksgiving!
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Best Scalloped Sweet Potatoes
Equipment
- 1 Pie dish *Or use an au gratin baking dish, shallow casserole dish or oven safe skillet.
- Aluminum foil
Ingredients
- 5-6 medium sweet potatoes *Peeled & cut into thin medallions
- ¼ cup unsalted butter *see note below
- ¼ cup brown sugar *light or dark
- ½ cup water
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup chopped pecans *or walnuts
- ½ cup mini marshmallows *see note below
Recipe notes:
General: I highly recommend using a mandoline slicer to cut your potatoes into thin slices. You can use a knife, but a mandoline will make the task much easier! Unsalted butter: salted will work in a pinch, but I wouldn't include the additional ¼ teaspoon of added salt if you go this route. Marshmallows: add a handful more for good measure, if desired!Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Peel sweet potatoes, cut them into thin medallions and arrange them in your baking dish.
- Place a small or medium saucepan on the stovetop. Add unsalted butter, brown sugar, water, spices and salt. Turn heat to medium and stir ingredients as they melt together.¼ cup unsalted butter, ¼ cup brown sugar, ½ cup water, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground cloves, 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg, ¼ teaspoon salt
- Once the mixture is fully melted, use a pastry brush to evenly distribute ¾ of your sauce onto sweet potato medallions. Cover baking dish with foil and bake for 45-50 minutes.
- Remove baking dish from the oven and take foil off. Distribute the remaining ¼ of your sauce mixture onto the potato medallions. Sprinkle with chopped pecans and mini marshmallows.¼ cup chopped pecans, ½ cup mini marshmallows
- Place baking dish back into the oven and turn it to the broil setting. Broil for 1-2 minutes to toast the marshmallows. Keep a close eye on the dish as your broil, it won't take long!
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes. Serve and enjoy!
Nutrition
Did you make this recipe?!
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Mary Anne Russo says
This looks delicious and fancy! Love the way you sliced the potato's!
stacey_olson says
Thank you so much, Mary Anne!!
Karen says
Looks so yummy! Very nice presentation too!
stacey_olson says
Thank you, friend!!
Paula@SweetPea says
This looks so good and I can't wait to try it!
stacey_olson says
Thank you, Paula!
Melba says
I can't believe is almost here! Stacey this looks so beautiful. I always make them mashed, but I am making them this way this year! So pretty!
stacey_olson says
I'm so excited! I love this time of year. Thank you, Melba!
Juliet says
Bring on all the potato recipes ... I never met one I didn't love. And, these are so pretty ... the star of any holiday table! xo
stacey_olson says
Definitely the star!! Thanks, Juliet!
Libbie Burling says
This looks pretty and sounds yummy! I pinned for the holidays.
stacey_olson says
Thank you, Libbie!
Cindy Rust says
Thanks for this recipe Stacy! I’ll be making it this Thanksgiving!
stacey_olson says
Yay! Thank you, Cindy!
Marie says
This dish looks so tasty. I also use my pie dish for making side dishes!
stacey_olson says
I love using my pretty pie dishes whenever I can!!
Marieza says
It looks amazing, Stacey! I'm definitely going to try your recipe.
stacey_olson says
Thank you so much, Marieza!
Kim says
Sweet potatoes are my Thanksgiving weakness! Wow. This looks so good!
stacey_olson says
They're the best, right!?
Sylvia says
Can you prepare this the day before and bake it later. Will the potatoes turn brown?
Garlic Salt & Lime says
Hi, Sylvia! I haven't tried this yet, so I'm not 100% sure. I searched around on google a bit and many sites say to submerge uncooked sweet potato slices in water when you refrigerate them to keep them looking fresh and avoid browning (I don't think you'd have issues with browning if you're just cutting them up one day in advance but I'm not positive). So you could probably peel, slice and store potatoes in water. I'd then drain, pat them dry, and assemble for baking. You could also make the sauce ahead of time and warm it back up before applying to the potatoes! Hope that helps a little.
Chandra Thompson says
Any suggestions on how to easily cut sweet potatoes into thin slices they are always so difficult to cut
Garlic Salt & Lime says
Hi, Chandra! I really recommend getting a mandoline slicer. I've got one linked in this post (affiliate link). There are LOTS of options on Amazon and they'll make cutting thin slices WAY easier!
Terri says
Do you think you could slice canned sweet potatoes a bit thicker and then just cut down on the cooking time?
Garlic Salt & Lime says
Hi, Terri! I can't say for sure since I've never tried this. I imagine things would turn out okay using canned sweet potato but it's so hard to say without trying it in my own kitchen. Let me know if you give it a try!
Marie says
Never had an issue with a sweet potato recipe before, but this came out pretty watery. Flavor was good though!
Garlic Salt & Lime says
I'm so sorry to hear that, Marie. I haven't had that issue so I'm not sure what could have happened! I'm glad the flavor was good.