Homemade Sweet Potato Pie Recipe

If you like pumpkin pie, you’ll love our homemade sweet potato pie recipe. It has a creamy texture, made with pureed sweet potatoes, spices and baked in a buttery pie crust. It a perfect dessert for fall and Thanksgiving.

As summer begins winding down and the days get shorter, it’s time to leave our flip flops and bikinis behind and pull out our scarves and cardigans. One of the things we love about this season is all of the comforting and savory recipes you can make. From stews to thick bread, there are a variety of things you can whip up in your kitchen this autumn. 

One of our favorite recipes to make is sweet potato pie. It’s similar to pumpkin pie, but with a sweet potato flaovr. If there’s one thing we love it’s sweet potatoes!

Our recipe is easy to follow and includes many ingredients you likely have in your pantry. We love this recipe because of the rich flavor and the perfect consistency. It’s incredibly flavorful, smooth and the perfect pie for Thanksgiving.

How to Make Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients

Sweet Potatoes – The base of the recipe. These potatoes are peeled, chopped and boiled until soft, then pureed.

Unsalted Butter – Adds a rich flavor to the pie. Make sure it’s super soft, almost melted.

Granulated Sugar – Sweetens the batter.

Brown Sugar – Adds a deeper molasses flavor.

Eggs – Stabilize and adds structure to the pie.

Milk – Adds a creamy texture. You can use whole milk (preferred) or 2%

Vanilla Extract – Enhances the flavors in the recipe.

Bourbon – Adds a richer flavor depth.

Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Ginger & Cardamom – All of these spices work together to make it the best sweet potato pie!

Directions

Make and prepare a buttery pie crust for your pie. You can blind bake it if you prefer, but we never do for our pumpkin and sweet potato pie. Just remember if you blind bake the curst, you must use pie weights.

Peel and cube the sweet potatoes.

Boil for about 15 minutes until soft. You’ll be able to stick a fork all the way through. Then strain, saving 1 tbsp water to puree with.

Add the sweet potatoes into a blender with 1 tbsp of the water they were boiled.

Blend until they are perfectly pureed, similar to a can of pureed pumpkin.

In an electric mixer, combine the sweet potatoes, soft butter, both sugars and eggs and blend.

Add in the milk, bourbon, vanilla, spices and salt and blend.

Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl and continue mixing.

Pour into a prepared pie crust and bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 50 minutes until the center of the pie does not wiggle.

Let the pie cool for 30 minutes before serving.

Tips for Making The Best Sweet Potato Pie

• Always use whole, fresh organic ingredients when possible.

• We used a ceramic 10 1/2″ diam., 2 1/2″ high pie dish for this recipe. You can buy it here.

• Make sure the butter is super soft. You can even melt it and let it cool before adding it to the pie. If you it’s not, it will leave tiny little flakes of butter throughout the pie. This is OKAY for flavor but looks better without butter flakes.

• Let the pie cool to room temperature before serving.

• Puree the potatoes to the same consistency of canned pumpkin.

• Save some dough to make pie cutouts to decorate the pie once it’s cooled. Bake the cutouts separately on a baking sheet for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.

• If the curst starts to get really brown during baking, fold tin foil around the edges to cover it. We usually don’t have to do this, but it’s necessary sometimes.

Topping Ideas for Sweet Potato Pie

There are a variety of toppings you can choose from to jazz up your recipe. We used whipped cream and piped it on using a piping bag. We also made pie cutouts using these and added them on once the pie had cooled.

Some of our favorites are:

• Caramelized pecans or walnuts
• Cinnamon streusel 
• Spiced cream 
• Crumble
• Pecan streusel 
• Marshmallow Fluff
• Maple whipped cream 
• Almond streusel

How to Store Sweet Potato Pie

Sweet potato pie recipes typically contain eggs and milk, making them more or less a baked custard pie. Because of that, they should be stored in the fridge. Keep in mind if a dessert contains eggs, cream, and/or milk, you need to keep it cold. 

All you need to do is let the pie cool completely before covering it with foil. It can sometimes take up to three hours for it to cool. You can keep it in the fridge for up to three days. 

How to Freeze Sweet Potato Pie

Once the pie has completely cooled, wrap it with three to four layers of plastic wrap. Ensure that the plastic wrap is sealed over the top of the pie. 

Then, wrap your pie in aluminum foil. It can then keep in the freezer for up to one month. When you’re ready to eat it, thaw it in the fridge overnight. 

If you have an airtight container, you can wrap the pie once, then store it in an airtight container and freeze.

Frequently Asked Qestions

Is Sweet Potato Pie Like Pumpkin Pie?

Known as pumpkin pie’s Southern cousin, sweet potato pie may seem similar to its orange relative on the surface. It’s made with similar ingredients:

• Condensed milk
• Eggs
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg

Instead of pumpkin, sweet potatoes are added to the filling. Pumpkin sometimes has a bit nuttier flavor than sweet potatoes. Where the two pies mostly differ is in regards to their texture. 

Pumpkin pie is creamy and dense. The texture of the best sweet potato pie is airy and light. 

How Do You Know When a Sweet Potato Is Done?

Sweet potatoes take about 15-20 minutes to cook when they’re boiled. Poke them with a fork to see if they’re tender. They’ll take less time to cook if you chop them into smaller pieces. 

When you’re learning how to make sweet potato pie, it’s important to note that the pie will be done when the center is set. You can insert a knife into the center and if it comes back clean, your pie is done. The center also won’t jiggle if it’s cooked all the way through. 

Can I Make It in Advance?

If you have a lot of different recipes to make in preparation for a holiday meal, you can make an easy sweet potato pie in advance. We mentioned earlier that it’ll keep in the fridge for up to four days. Additionally, you can also make it a month ahead of time and pop it in the freezer. 

One thing you can do a week in advance is to cook the sweet potatoes. Get your potatoes boiled and store them in the fridge before you’re ready to make the pie. That’s one less thing to worry about when you’re making the recipe for homemade sweet potato pie. 

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