Sweet Potato Casserole
This easy Sweet Potato Casserole topped with pecans and marshmallows is a traditional side at a typical Thanksgiving table. I am gonna be honest, I am not a huge fan of this being a side dish and not a dessert to have after the grand feast. But I’ve been told some people that this is their ultimate favorite Thanksgiving sides.
Where does it come from?
For many, the Thanksgiving meal must include sweet potatoes with marshmallows. The happy marriage of the tuber with caramelized, gooey goodness owes itself to two developments of the 1800s. In the late part of the century, in the decades when the national Thanksgiving holiday took hold, Northerners discovered sweet potatoes — long eaten in the South — and incorporated them into the special meal.
Meanwhile, marshmallows had been recently invented by those culinary trendsetters, the French, who beat the roots of the marshmallow plant with egg whites and sugar to make a chewy treat. Handmade and something of a luxury at first, marshmallows became more affordable after entrepreneurs substituted more widely available gelatin for marshmallow root and, in an era that was developing mass production techniques more generally, figured out how to manufacture an affordable product on a grand scale.
In 1917, the Angelus Marshmallows company distributed a recipe booklet that taught Americans how they might use marshmallows. With that, the classic pairing somehow took hold and now we have this “is it a side dish or is it a dessert?” to look forward to every Thanksgiving.
Recipe | Serving: 3-6
Ingredients
Sweet Potatoes, Ruby or Garnet - 2
Unsalted Butter - 2 tbsp
Ginger - 1 tsp, finely chopped
Fresh Herbs, Thyme or Sage - 2 sprigs
Egg - 1
Buttermilk or Sour Cream - 1 tbsp
Brown Sugar - 1 tsp
Cinnamon - 1 tsp
Nutmeg - ½ tsp
Salt - just a pinch
Toasted Pecans - ½ cup
Marshmallows - ½ cup
Directions
Preheat the oven to 300°F. Place sweet potatoes on a baking sheet, pierce with a fork or knife and bake for 2 hours.
Remove from the oven and set aside until cool enough to handle.
Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, swirling gently until particles are pale golden brown and smell nutty.
Add chopped ginger and herb sprigs. Swirl the ginger and herbs in brown butter off-heat until frizzled. Set aside.
Peel sweet potatoes and discard skins.
Add the flesh to a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat with the whisk attachment or with a handheld mixer until smooth and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
Strain brown butter into potatoes, discarding ginger and herbs.
Add eggs, buttermilk, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt to the sweet potatoes. Mix until smooth and fluffy.
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Fold in the chopped toasted pecans. Scrape the potato mix in a small baking dish, smoothing surface with a rubber spatula. Bake until heated through, about 30 minutes.
Increase oven temperature to 475°F (246°C) and top with mini marshmallows. Bake until marshmallows are melted and lightly browned, about 3 minutes (keep an eye on them, as they can brown and then burn very quickly).
Serve hot, while the marshmallows are still fluffy!
If you do recreate our recipe, be sure to
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