Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Honey Butter is a great fall side dish your family will love! Turn roasted sweet potatoes into a beautiful mash with homemade cinnamon, nutmeg, and honey butter running through it.
Sweet potatoes are one of the easiest fall vegetables because you can put it in almost anything! Mashed sweet potatoes are a staple in my weekly fall meal plan, and this recipe with homemade honey butter is perfectly sweet and savory next to Brussels sprouts and roasted meats.
Try these sweet potatoes alongside my Maple Bacon Brussels Sprouts for a fall meal covering all the major flavors.
Ingredients
- Sweet potatoes
- Butter
- Honey
- Cinnamon
- Nutmeg
Steps to Make Mashed Sweet Potatoes
- First, preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. I usually start my sweet potatoes before making any other dishes because they take the longest to roast.
- While your potatoes bake, make the honey butter! Mix all the ingredients together and set it aside. You can let it chill or leave it at room temperature.
- Once the sweet potatoes are baked, let them cool about 15 minutes before removing the skins. This is for your hands’ benefit! Once cooled, remove the skins. I like to try removing some of the skin when I first pull them from the oven because this is an easy sign they’re done! If the skin doesn’t come off easily, roast them another 15 minutes and try again.
- Then, roughly mash your sweet potatoes and add the honey butter. Mix together and serve!
This recipe may take a long time but it’s minimal effort for maximum flavor.
How to Roast a Sweet Potato
Everyone has seen someone massacre a sweet potato by boiling it in water. I think this is about the worst thing you could ever do to a sweet potato!
Roasting it in the oven is the best way to maintain, if not improve, the flavor of this amazing fall vegetable. But roast it wrong, and your mashed sweet potatoes will be too hard or too soft to eat.
The key to baking a sweet potato is knowing when it’s done.
Undercook it and you’ll be eating grit. Overcook it and you’ll squeeze the moisture out of it and you’ll be left with a watery stringy mess. Bleh!
One of the key steps for roasting sweet potatoes comes from the moment you pick them! The size really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you buy all of the same sized sweet potatoes!
I prefer to buy sweet potatoes that are about 2.5 inches in diameter. Buy too small and they can overcook quickly. Buy too large and the interior can be undercooked while the exterior is mush.
Make sure you are buying the orange version of sweet potatoes and not some other tuber, if it is called a yam it is probably actually a sweet potato.
How to Tell if Sweet Potato is Cooked
Potatoes are tricky to tell if they’re done because they’re already brown! Until you get inside, you can never tell. Here’s a few tricks to tell how done your potatoes are!
The easiest step is to prick the sweet potato with a fork. If it slides in easily, it should be done. However, this only tests as much potato as the fork can reach! If you have especially wide potatoes, this may not reach the center.
For roasted sweet potatoes, you can give the potatoes a quick squeeze and test their doneness. Properly roasted potatoes should have just a little bit of give.
If they are still very firm, they aren’t done. If they are super squishy, they are probably overcooked, but they are still edible and tasty — they just might be a little watery.
How to Use Sweet Potatoes
Mashed sweet potatoes are a pretty versatile little vegetable! There are a lot of flavor combinations you can stick in them, not just Sweet Potato Casserole.
Much like their white and yellow counterparts, sweet potatoes are delicious with just a little butter and cream. Pro Tip: Don’t be a sissy and use milk. Use real cream in all of your potato recipes if you’re going to use any dairy. It’s definitely worth the extra few calories!
Mashed or baked sweet potatoes are amazing garnished with chives or green onions. This savory option is perfect alongside a roasted chicken or pork main dish.
Make your sweet potatoes extra creamy with goat cheese and chives! This classic combination is a classic for a reason and balances the extra nuttiness in the sweet potato beautifully.
How to Make Honey Butter
This homemade honey butter is great for mashed sweet potatoes but it’s also amazing on all kinds of things! Try it on roasted carrots, dinner rolls, or just your toast at breakfast!
Honey butter can last up to a month refrigerated and about a week at room temperature, so you can have delicious homemade honey butter with no preservatives all year long!
To make it, mix your softened butter, honey, cinnamon, and nutmeg together. At this point, I tend to eyeball my measurements for this homemade butter, but you want just a pinch of nutmeg. I usually use my Microplane for this. A little goes a long way with nutmeg!
MORE EASY SIDE DISH RECIPES YOUR GUESTS WILL LOVE
- Brown Sugar Carrots
- Fondant Potatoes
- Fried Potatoes
- Cheesy Hashbrown Casserole
- Paprika Oven-Roasted Potatoes
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Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Honey Butter
Ingredients
- 1½ pounds sweet potatoes
- Salt to taste
- Pepper to taste
Honey Butter
- 8 tablespoons butter softened
- ¼ cup honey
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
- Wrap sweet potatoes in aluminum foil. Bake sweet potatoes until they are soft, about 45 minutes to an hour. Remove from oven and let cool for 15 minutes.
- Add sweet potatoes to a large mixing bowl and remove skins. Roughly mash the sweet potatoes.
- In a second small bowl, add the butter, honey, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Combine thoroughly. Mix honey butter with the potatoes.
- Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm.
