Candied Sweet Potatoes are a traditional side for holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas with butter (or margarine), brown sugar, cinnamon and marshmallows.
Candied Yams are the classic holiday side dish on tables across the country every year and these Candied Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows take that recipe up a notch! For more ideas of what to cook for the holidays, check out our Holiday Recipes.
CANDIED SWEET POTATOES WITH MARSHMALLOWS
Thanksgiving is coming up quick, so if you need a side dish that’s really going to wow your extended family, then you need to try this delicious sweet potato recipe. Candied Sweet Potatoes are fork-tender and covered in ground cinnamon and mini marshmallows.
This is the best candied sweet potato recipe ever. Why? It takes ten minutes to peel your sweet potatoes and toss with the ingredients, less time than the oven takes to preheat.
As far as Thanksgiving recipes go, this is one of the easiest you’ll make, and they are the perfect addition to any holiday meal. This recipe is not just good for Thanksgiving either, we love this recipe for Christmas and Easter! Any holiday meal where we enjoy a large gathering with a main course of a turkey, baked ham or prime rib, we enjoy baked potatoes too.
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HOW TO MAKE CANDIED SWEET POTATOES
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Toss all sweet potatoes, butter, brown sugar and spices together in a large bowl.
- Add the mixture to a 9×13 baking dish and cover with foil pan.
- Cook for 30 minutes
- Uncover and stir.
- Cook an additional 20 minutes.
- Top with marshmallows and broil for up to30 seconds, 6-8 inches from the top broiler.
Can you make Candied Sweet Potatoes the night before?
You can make Candied Sweet Potatoes the night before, up until the marshmallow topping. While your turkey is resting and your oven is already heated, put your sweet potatoes back in the oven to warm them. Once warmed through, turn the oven to broil and top the sweet potatoes with marshmallows and broil until golden brown.
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VARIATIONS ON CANDIED SWEET POTATOES
- Spices: Sweet potatoes are a root vegetable that goes well with so many spices. Add some cayenne or paprika for some warmth. You can even add Pumpkin Pie Spice to make them burst with holiday flavors.
- Nuts: Take this fall dish to the next level by making your Candied Sweet Potatoes with pecans. Sprinkle chopped pecans over the sweet potatoes before baking for added crunch and flavor.
- Maple: Candied Sweet Potatoes with maple syrup is a great way to further update this classic dish. Swap out the brown sugar for maple syrup and reduce the butter to 1/4 cup.
TIPS FOR MAKING CANDIED SWEET POTATOES
- If you choose to add the marshmallows to the top and then place the whole dish under the broiler, keep a very close eye on it to make sure that it doesn’t burn.
- Slicing and dicing make a difference. Southern Candied Sweet Potatoes are traditionally sliced. We dice the potatoes in this recipe, so if you choose to slice your potatoes and line them up like Scalloped Potatoes, they will cook faster so keep an eye on them. They are done when they are fork tender.
- To peel or not to peel is up to you. You can eat the skin of sweet potatoes and many people like that texture. There is a current meal delivery service that we use (and love) that serves it’s meals with sweet potatoes with the skin on. While I would not originally have considered this appealing, I can tell you it has changed how our kids enjoy them in meals and we now enjoy sweet potatoes skin on.
- Eating your sweet potatoes with the skin on contain MANY more nutrients than peeling the skin. This may not be the recipe where you worry about the nutrients in a sweet potato, but it could be food for thought for January. 😉
- If you want to enjoy your sweet potatoes skin on be sure to scrub your sweet potatoes VERY WELL. The skin is thick and dirt can cling well to it.
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HOW LONG ARE CANDIED SWEET POTATOES GOOD?
- Serve: Don’t leave the Sweet Potatoes out for longer than about 2 hours at room temperature.
- Store: Candied Sweet Potatoes will last up to about 4 days in the fridge as long as they are properly sealed in plastic wrap or an airtight container.
- Freeze: You can freeze Candied Sweet Potatoes for up to 6 months. Remove the marshmallows before freezing and add a new layer when you’re ready to reheat.

Candied Sweet Potatoes
Candied Sweet Potatoes are a traditional side for holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas with butter (or margarine), brown sugar, cinnamon and marshmallows.
Ingredients
- 2 large sweet potatoes , cubed
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter , melted
- 3/4 cup brown sugar , packed
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ginger
- 2 cups mini marshmallows
Instructions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Toss the sweet potatoes, butter, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger together in a large bowl.
- Add the mixture to a 9x13 baking dish and cover with foil pan.
Cook for 30 minutes.
Uncover and stir sweet potatoes gently.
Cook an additional 20 minutes uncovered.
Top with marshmallows and broil for up to 30 seconds, 6-8 inches from the top broiler.
I made this and liked it a lot. I was looking for a recipe like this, where it was baked in the oven the whole time and made with fresh sweet potatoes. I thought it seemed like too much butter when I was making it and after I ate it. Not that it affects the taste (that’s great), but there’s a lot of the sauce left in the dish after the potatoes have been eaten (and yes, I used 2 very large potatoes). Just seems like a bit of a waste. For me, I would probably make about 30% less of the sauce.
If I don’t have Ginger will that mess up the taste
No you’ll be fine, it just helps to temper the sweetness a little and add depth. It’ll still be delicious.
This recipe was a delicious hit! I added a teaspoon of vanilla because it just seemed right (LOL) and it was excellent! We’ve saved the leftover juices and will serve over vanilla ice cream tonight!
Thank you!!!
Wonderful, thank you so much for the review! That sounds like such an awesome dessert too. I cooked a sweet potato crisp recipe (like apple crisp) for us for dessert last night that we had with ice cream. Looking forward to posting that one too, but the sweet potatoes and ice cream were amazing. Happy Holidays!
Is this recipe for 2 lbs = less than 1 kg? Thank you.
1 kg is 2.2 pounds, so yes just under 1kg. Happy Thanksgiving!
My recipe turned out really great but it’s super watery did I do something wrong?
The key is to do 30 minutes covered then 20 minutes (or until tender) uncovered. Did you cook it this way? If so in the 20 minutes a lot of the liquid should have cooked off before you got the marshmallows onto it.
Mine turned out the exact same. Sweet potatoes in a pool of liquid.
Hi Christine, can I ask how many sweet potatoes you used? If the pan is really crowded with potatoes it won’t allow the sauce the cook off.
Only 2 large ones (a bit under a pound per)
And what size pan? Was it really crowded? There’s a picture in the post that shows the amount of liquid I had leftover, you had more liquid than this?
So you don’t boil the sweet potatoes and they are soft after a half hour in the oven? ???
Hi Sakara, not quite. They’re cooked, covered, for 30 minutes. Then you stir and cook for an additional 20 minutes before the marshmallows go on. So 50 minutes to make sure they’re tender. Happy Thanksgiving!
You mention 2 large sweet potatoes. What is the weight? 2 pounds?
yes, about 2 pounds. Happy Thanksgiving!
Is it alright to use 2 ll can of sweet potatoes instead of the real one, and if so what do I need to do differently?
I’ve not tested them but usually they are packed with in a syrup so you may need to adjust the brown sugar for sweetness. I’d love to know how they turn out if you decide to try. Enjoy!