Homemade Sweet Potato Purée is an easy and decadent side dish using just one ingredient, sweet potatoes. With pretty much no prep time, you can have a creamy, restaurant-quality side dish that pairs perfectly with proteins, vegetables, and can even be used in baked goods.
Step aside mashed potatoes, you are delicious but there’s a new potato purée in town. It’s Sweet Potato Puree and it’s truly divine. If you want to level up your potato game at dinnertime, this recipe is pretty much as easy as it gets but tastes unbelievably gourmet.
The best news is you only need one ingredient, sweet potatoes. We roast ours until caramelized and super tender, then purée them in a food processor until they’re creamy as can be.
These puréed sweet potatoes taste almost like candy. They’re perfect with savory proteins, stirred into soups, or even used in baked goods (we give ideas below!). They truly are a side dish we make on rotation during the cold winter months.
If you love a sweet potato recipe, we have so many options for you! Sweet Potato Cake for your sweet tooth, Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls, and Savory Sweet Potato Casserole are all fantastic options.
Why You’ll Love this Recipe
- Restaurant-quality side dish at home. Sweet potato purée is the base for many restaurant-dinners because it’s versatile and stunning. Luckily for us, it’s easy and simple to make in your home kitchen.
- One ingredient only. All you need is sweet potatoes. Yes, you can jazz them up with herbs, spices, garlic and butter, or you can keep it plain and simple.
- Meal prep bliss. This is a great side dish to prep for the week. Serve it for dinner, add it to a grain bowl for lunch, dollop on top of a warm soup to thicken it with vegetables. The options are endless.
Ingredients
The ingredient list is short and sweet, no surprise there!
- Sweet Potatoes: Not surprisingly you need sweet potatoes for this recipe. We recommend seeking out sweet potatoes that are similar in size and shape—this will make the roasting step easier because the potatoes will roast at about the same rate. You can use any type of sweet potato for sweet potato purée.
- Optional Flavorings: If you would like to add some flavorings to the purée feel free! Depending on how you plan to use the purée you can keep it as-is or you can add some warm spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves), sweetness (maple syrup, brown sugar, honey) or savoriness (grated Parmesan, cream, garlic, rosemary).
Tools You’ll Need
You can purée using a variety of kitchen equipment and tools. Here are several options so you can find success with this recipe any place any time.
- Food processor—our preferred method. If you are making a small batch of sweet potato purée you can use a mini food processor. And if you are making a large batch, use a regular food processor.
- Blender—a high-powered blender is best for this job.
- Immersion blender also does the trick, but be sure to use a tall, slender container or plastic bowl to hold the potatoes. This will help with the efficiency of blending.
- Ricer—a great overall option. Creates the silkiest, smoothest mash.
- Stand mixer or hand held mixer are both options that will make a creamy, whipped texture.
- Potato masher—this will leave a few small chunks, but that shouldn’t be a problem for most recipes.
How to Make Sweet Potato Purée
There are three main steps in making homemade sweet potato purée: cooking (I prefer roasting), peeling and puréeing. It’s simple as can be!
The cooking and the puréeing steps can be modified to suit your kitchen, equipment, and schedule. Here are the steps, and options for each step.
- Heat your oven to 425°F.
- Prick the surface of two medium sweet potatoes with a fork and arrange on a foil-lined baking sheet. Roast the sweet potatoes until the skins are wrinkly and a steak knife easily slides into the potatoes, 50–60 minutes.
- Let the potatoes cool slightly, then peel and discard (or snack on!) the skins.
4. Transfer the potato flesh to a food processor or blender and process until completely smooth.
Ways to Cook Sweet Potatoes
There are so many ways to cook sweet potatoes. We recommend roasting sweet potatoes for sweet potato purée, but you can also boil or steam them, especially if you need the oven space on a busy day of cooking, like Thanksgiving.
Not only is roasting very hands-off and requires little to no prep, but it creates a deeper, toastier flavor and does not add moisture (important for our baking recipes that use this sweet potato purée).
To roast the sweet potatoes: prick sweet potatoes all over with a fork. Roast in a 425ºF oven until skins are wrinkly and potatoes are very tender, 50–60 minutes. Let cool slightly, then peel off skins; purée as directed.
To boil the sweet potatoes: bring a pot of water to a boil. Meanwhile, peel and cut sweet potatoes into 1-inch chunks. Add sweet potato chunks to boiling water and cook until tender, about 20 minutes. Let cool then purée as directed.
*pro tip: you can cut down on prep time by using frozen diced sweet potatoes.
To steam the sweet potatoes: peel and cut sweet potatoes into 1-inch chunks. Transfer to a steamer basket and steam until tender, 20–30 minutes. Let cool then purée as directed.
Expert Tips
- Choose sweet potatoes of similar size. This helps them roast at an even rate in the oven. If you choose to dice your potatoes before roasting or boiling, be sure to dice them to a similar size as well for even cooking.
- Over cook the potatoes rather than under. This ensures the potatoes will be silky smooth when they are puréed. You know the potatoes are ready to blend when they can be easily pierced with a fork.
- Add aromatics to change the flavors. You can add spices, fresh herbs, or garlic to the potatoes if desired for a twist on the flavors. We love thyme, rosemary, nutmeg, and even ground cloves or cinnamon.
How to Serve Sweet Potato Purée
- Soups: There are so many ways you can use sweet potato purée. For starters it’s a great base for a creamy vegetarian soup, use it in place of carrots in our Curried Carrot Soup or in our Butternut Squash Bisque.
- Smoothies: Sweet potato purée is a great way to bulk up and add fiber to smoothies. Try it in place of carrots in our Carrot Cake Smoothie.
- Side Dishes: Make a savory version of the classic sweet potato casserole usually adorned with toasted marshmallows. Our Savory Sweet Potato Casserole is sure to surprise and impress.
- Risotto: Use this purée in place of the butternut squash in our butternut squash risotto recipe.
- Pancakes or Waffles: Use sweet potato purée in place of eggs in our Toasted Oat Pancakes or Fluffy Yogurt Pancakes. Use a ¼ cup purée for each egg.
- Baked Goods: One of our favorite ways to use this smooth sweet potato purée is to use it in baked goods, similar to how you would pumpkin purée. Use purée to make this moist and healthy Sweet Potato Quick Bread or make our tender and fluffy Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls. We’re also head over heels for our Sweet Potato Coffee Cake. Or how about a sweet potato pie instead of pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving?
- Kids Snack: Add a few scoops of purée into Homemade Applesauce for a tasty fruit-and-veggie snack.
- Fillings: Sweet potato puree is made to be a filling! Use it to make our Sweet Potato Ravioli or use it in place of pumpkin butter and make Pop Tarts (be sure to season the purée with some sugar and spices).
- For some savory entrées we like the idea of adding sweet potato purée to the filling for these enchiladas (how gorgeous would that be?!). It would also be a great binding agent for our favorite Veggie Burger Recipe.
- Dips: Put this purée to use in our Sweet Potato Harissa Hummus—it’s creamy, savory and slightly spicy. You can also use the purée in melty cheesy dips or queso.
Storage and Freezing
Store the sweet potato purée in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 1 week. You can also freeze the sweet potato purée in a freezer safe container as well for up to 2 months. Just thaw in the fridge overnight and reheat in the microwave or on the stovetop until warmed through.
Another pro tip we have is to freeze the purée in ice cube molds. Once frozen, pop out the frozen purée and store in a zipper-lock bag. This makes for easy reheating of individual servings of the purée.
FAQs
Sweet potatoes are the only ingredient needed. You can also add herbs, spices, and aromatics like garlic and onion too. Butter and olive oil are also delicious.
Yes, sweet potatoes are full of great vitamins and minerals like vitamin A, C, and potassium.
No, pureéed potatoes are made using a blender or food processor to make them silky smooth. Mashed potatoes have a rougher texture and are made by smashing the potato.
Sweet Potato Purée
Description
Ingredients
- 2 medium sweet potatoes
Instructions
- Heat oven to 425°F; line a baking sheet with foil.
- Prick the surface of two medium sweet potatoes with a fork and arrange on prepared baking sheet. Roast sweet potatoes until skins are wrinkly and a steak knife easily slides into potatoes, 50–60 minutes.
- Let potatoes cool slightly, then peel and discard (or snack on!) skins.
- Transfer potato flesh to a food processor or blender and process until completely smooth.
Save This Recipe!
We’ll email this post to you, so you can come back to it later.
Equipment
Notes
- Choose sweet potatoes of similar size. This helps them roast at an even rate in the oven. If you choose to dice your potatoes before roasting or boiling, be sure to dice them to a similar size as well for even cooking.
- Over cook the potatoes rather than under. This ensures the potatoes will be silky smooth when they are pureed. You know the potatoes are ready to blend when they can be easily pierced with a fork.
- Add aromatics to change the flavors. You can add spices, fresh herbs, or garlic to the potatoes if desired for a twist on the flavors. We love thyme, rosemary, nutmeg, and even ground cloves or cinnamon.
Nutrition
Need help with canning sweet potatoes that have been already baked and peeled. Do you know a process I can use?
Unfortunately I have not canned cooked and peeled sweet potatoes but this guide should be helpful! https://kekao.co/?ref=batc34lwrj
Can you can this purée? If so, could you give directions please.
Hi Marilyn, for food safety reasons, I do not recommend canning this puree. However, you can freeze it for up to 6 months! I would transfer the puree to a zipper-lock bag, remove the air, and press flat. Freeze flat until frozen, then you can stack or wedge it easily in the freezer between things.
The first time I baked a sweet potato, I wrapped it in foil and put it on a baking sheet but it leaked and I had quite a time cleaning the baked on goop off. The next time, I put foil on the pan, top, and it stayed clean!
Great tip!