A holiday ham or turkey needs a star side dish like a sweet potato recipe. This southern side dish recipe is easy to make. It is one of my favorite crock pot recipes.
Free up some oven space and make this sweet potato side dish recipe in the slow cooker.
Your favorite holiday side dish recipe can be made in the crock pot. Freeing up oven space for the main course and keeping your house cooler.
Candied Sweet Potatoes are one of our favorite side dish recipe when I am making a holiday ham or turkey.
For more crock pot side dish and vegetable recipes head over to my crock pot recipes page.
Homemade Candied Sweet Potatoes
Candied sweet potatoes are so much better when you make them from scratch.
The frozen boxed version of candied sweet potatoes can not compare to the flavor of fresh sweet potatoes cooked in a brown sugar glaze.
That also goes for using canned yams or sweet potatoes instead of fresh sweet potatoes.
When you use the canned sweet potatoes they are way too soft to begin with and turn out mushy and don't hold their shape like fresh sweet potatoes will.
The texture is never the same and the flavor of fresh sweet potatoes is so much better.
Peeling fresh Sweet Potatoes
The hardest part of this recipe is peeling the fresh sweet potatoes. It is a little time consuming, but a sharp paring knife will get the job done better.
I tried using a vegetable peeler, but it was awkward to hold the bigger sweet potatoes and use the peeler. It was much easier to use a paring knife than the vegetable peeler.
A sharp ceramic knife makes quick work of cutting the raw sweet potatoes into thick slices.
I cooked this recipe in my 6 qt crock pot slow cooker.
There was plenty of room left in the crock pot so if you need to double the candied sweet potatoes recipe to feed a large crowd you could easily double the recipe.
I like to serve most of my crock pot recipes right from the crock pot.
It makes my life so much easier but for the holidays setting a pretty table is more important.
Keep the sweet potatoes warm in the crock pot until its time to serve dinner.
Then carefully transfer the sweet potatoes to a casserole dish so you can serve them from the table.
Directions
Step 1: Make the brown sugar syrup: Place the butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, ground cinnamon, and grated nutmeg into a medium saucepan. Heat to boiling, stirring occasionally. Once the syrup starts to boil cook for 3 minutes. Remove pot from the heat and set aside.
Step 2: Place half of the peeled and sliced sweet potatoes into the bottom of a 4-quart crock pot. Pour half of the brown sugar syrup over the sliced sweet potatoes.
Step 3: Layer the remaining sliced sweet potatoes in the crock pot. Pour remaining syrup over the sweet potato slices.
Step 4: Fold a triple layer of paper towels and place over the top of the crock pot pulling it taunt so it does not touch the ingredients.
Step 5: Place the lid on the crock pot and cook on high for 2-3 hours or until fork tender.
Step 6: Once the sweet potatoes are fork tender uncover the crock pot and remove the damp paper towels and discard.
Step 7: Spread the mini marshmallows over the top of the cooked sweet potato slices. Replace the lid and turn the crock pot on the warm setting.
Step 8: Serve once marshmallows are melted. Sprinkle some ground cinnamon over the marshmallows if desired. Keep warm if not serving immediately.
Recipe FAQS
Candied yams and candied sweet potatoes are the same thing. Yams are a variety of sweet potato.
If the brown sugar syrup of your candied sweet potatoes is runny you can thicken it very easily. Mix 2 tablespoons of corn starch and 2 tablespoons of cold water in a small bowl. Pour the corn starch slurry into the brown sugar glaze and carefully stir. Try not to break up the pieces of sweet potatoes. Heat over medium high heat until thickened or return the dish to the oven and continue to cook until thickened.
Ingredient Tips & Substitutions
- sweet potatoes: Use fresh unbruised sweet potatoes.
- butter: salted butter can be used in place of the unsalted.
- brown sugar: dark brown sugar will result in a better color
- corn syrup: white corn syrup is usually used but of all you have on hand is dark corn syrup you can use it instead.
- spices: I like using fresh grated nutmeg. It has a stronger flavor than ground nutmeg powder. Use the same amount of ground nutmeg if that is all you have.
- marshmallow topping: mini marshmallows will melt faster. You can use large marshmallows that have been cut into pieces as a substitute.
Recipe Expert Tips
- Sweet Potatoes: Do not use canned sweet potatoes! Canned sweet potatoes will not work for this recipe because they are already cooked and soft. They will turn to mashed sweet potatoes.
- Cooking times: Cooking time will vary. It will depend on how full the crock pot is and how thick you have cut the fresh sweet potatoes.
Tool tips
- slow cooker: this recipe will fit in a 4 quart crock pot. It will cook faster in a 6 or 8 quart.
- peeling & cutting fresh sweet potatoes: use caution when peeling. A sharp knife works better than a vegetable peeler.
Need to make sweet potatoes side dish fast? You can try my 5 minute Instant Pot Candied Sweet Potatoes recipe if you have a pressure cooker.
More side dish recipes you'll love!
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Crock Pot Candied Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients
- 3 pounds fresh sweet potatoes (peeled and cut into 1 inch thick slices)
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 1 ½ cups brown sugar
- 1 cup light corn syrup
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- ½-3/4 bag bag of mini marshmallows
Instructions
- Place the butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, ground cinnamon, grated nutmeg into a medium saucepan. Heat to boiling, stirring occasionally. Once the syrup starts to boil cook for 3 minutes.
- Remove pot from the heat and set aside.
- Place half the sliced sweet potatoes into the bottom of a 6 or 8 quart crock pot.
- Pour half the syrup over the sweet potatoes.
- Layer the remaining sliced sweet potato in the crock pot.
- Pour remaining syrup over the sweet potato slices.
- Fold a triple layer of paper towels and place over the top of the crock pot. Place lid on crock pot and cook on high for 2-3 hours or until fork tender.
- Once the sweet potatoes are fork tender uncover the crock pot and remove the damp paper towels and discard. Spread the mini marshmallows over the top of the sweet potato slices.
- Replace lid and turn the crock pot on warm. Serve once marshmallows are melted. Sprinkle some ground cinnamon over the marshmallows if desired.
- Keep warm if not serving immediately.
- Serve with your holiday meal.
Video
Recipe Expert Tips
- sweet potatoes: Use fresh unbruised sweet potatoes.
- butter: salted butter can be used in place of the unsalted.
- brown sugar: dark brown sugar will result in a better color
- corn syrup: white corn syrup is usually used but of all you have on hand is dark corn syrup you can use it instead.
- spices: I like using fresh grated nutmeg. It has a stronger flavor than ground nutmeg powder. Use the same amount of ground nutmeg if that is all you have.
- marshmallow topping: mini marshmallows will melt faster. You can use large marshmallows that have been cut into pieces as a substitute.
- Paper towels: This is a trick to keep the condensation from dripping into the slow cooker and thinning the syrup.
- Sweet Potatoes: Do not use canned sweet potatoes! Canned sweet potatoes will not work for this recipe because they are already cooked and soft. They will turn to mashed sweet potatoes.
- Cooking times: Cooking time will vary. It will depend on how full the crock pot is and how thick you have cut the fresh sweet potatoes.
Nutrition
If you like this Crock Pot Candied Sweet Potatoes recipe head over to my Crock Pot Recipe page where you will find 200+ Crock Pot Recipes.
Laura
I made this recipe for Thanksgiving yesterday and it was a hit! Everyone loved them and they were even better today as leftovers. I doubled the recipe and cooked on high 4 hours and they were perfect. My peeler worked fine on them, too. I did stir them 3-4 times to rotate the top and bottom layers so all would have cooking time immersed in the sauce. Thanks for this recipe -- I will make these again for sure!!