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These Southern candied sweet potatoes will be your new favorite way to prepare sweet potatoes! Perfect for Thanksgiving dinner or any other meal. This old fashioned Candied Sweet Potatoes recipe is one that you’ll keep for generations.
Today we have a recipe for the perfect candied sweet potatoes for your Thanksgiving dinner. But this dish is one that we Southerners enjoy year round. These potatoes are so good that they deserve to be eaten much more often than just once a year!
This recipe doesn’t require the oven. These old fashioned sweet potatoes will be cooked right on your stovetop. Just like Grandma used to make them.
Candied sweet potatoes are served as a side dish for not just turkey, but for meatloaf, chicken wings, baked ham, pork chops, and well…pretty much any dish you can imagine!
Watch How to Make Old Fashioned Candied Sweet Potatoes
Lots of folks call these candied yams. But, sweet potatoes are not yams…and if you like fun facts, you may be interested in the differences between sweet potatoes and yams!
Tips and Tricks for Making the Candied Sweet Potatoes
You’ll need a very large skillet for this quantity of potatoes. A Dutch oven will also work.
Be sure to very slowly cook your potatoes in your skillet or Dutch oven. You may be tempted to increase the heat to speed up the cooking…but don’t! Leave it at Low. You’ll get the perfect tenderness with a slow cook.
Don’t stir the potatoes while they’re cooking. You don’t want to risk making mush. Fully coat the potatoes in the sugar and butter mixture up front so that there’s no reason to flip them around during cooking.
You can substitute the brown sugar for white, but you may not end up with the carmelized flavor brown sugar will give you.
Slice the sweet potatoes at about 1/2 inch thickness, so that they will come to the right level of tenderness by the end of the cook time.
You can’t use canned sweet potatoes for this recipe. Sorry – fresh sweet potatoes only!
Additions to the Sweet Potato Recipe
Mini marshmallows are great with sweet potatoes, right? If adding these, transfer the sweet potatoes to a casserole dish after cooking. Bake at 350 for 5-10 minutes, or until your marshmallow topping is golden brown.
A pecan topping also a delicious addition. For the best flavor, follow our Simply Delicious Roasted Pecans recipe and then sprinkle them on after the potatoes have cooked.
Raisins are also a great companion for sweet potatoes; sprinkle them into your skillet when you’re about half-way through the cook time.
I hope you’ll enjoy our Old Fashioned Candied Sweet Potato recipe!
Old Fashioned Candied Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients
- 6 sweet potatoes
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup white granulated sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp salt
- roasted halved or chopped pecans, miniature marshmallows, and/or raisins optional
Instructions
- Peel the sweet potatoes and slice. Slices should be about 1/2 inch thick.
- In a mixing bowl, stir together the white sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
- Melt the butter in a large skillet or Dutch oven at Medium heat. Stir the sugar mixture into the butter until melted into a sauce. Stir in the sliced potatoes, coating fully with the sauce.
- Cover the skillet and reduce the heat to Low. Cook for 40 minutes to 1 hour, or until potatoes are tender and candied. Don't stir.
- Remove from the stovetop and gently stir in the vanilla.
Notes
Nutrition
And if you like sweet potato dishes, you might also love these other recipes:
