Looking for a few make-ahead Thanksgiving side dishes that are easy and frugal? We’ve got you covered with easy make-ahead recipes for sweet potato and mashed potato casseroles!
Easy Make-Ahead Sweet Potato Casserole
If you’ve never had this sweet potato casserole before, let me tell you, you’re in for a treat. Even if you don’t normally like sweet potatoes, you’ll want to try this because I’m guessing this is one sweet potato dish you will eat and like.
Best of all, it’s simple and fairly economical–especially if you can snag a deal on sweet potatoes.
Ingredients for Sweet Potato Casserole
- 3 lbs. sweet potatoes (you’ll want to end up with at least 4 cups of mashed sweet potatoes)
- 1 cup sugar
- 2/3 cups milk
- 6 Tbsp. butter, melted
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoons vanilla
Topping Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1/3 cup cold butter; chopped into small chunks
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans, optional
How to Make these Easy Sweet Potatoes
1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. Peel and dice 3 pounds of sweet potatoes.
3. In a large pot, cover sweet potatoes with water and boil until tender (about 15 minutes).
4. Drain water off potatoes and mash until large clumps are gone.
5. In a large bowl, measure out at least 4 cups of cooked and mashed sweet potatoes (this does not need to be exact).
6. Add in sugar, milk, butter, eggs, and vanilla and mix well with an electric hand mixer.
7. Spread mixture into a greased 9″ x 13″ baking dish.
8. In the same bowl, mix topping ingredients together until mixture feels like coarse sand, then sprinkle over sweet potato mixture.
9. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes.
Make Ahead Directions:
After step 8 above, let the potatoes cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate until the day of your party.
Bake, as directed, in the preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until the potatoes are fully heated through and the topping is crispy.
Easy Make-Ahead Sweet Potato Casserole
Ingredients
- 3 lbs. sweet potatoes you’ll want to end up with at least 4 cups of mashed sweet potatoes
- 1 cup sugar
- 2/3 cups milk
- 6 Tbsp butter melted
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoons vanilla
Topping Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1/3 cup butter cold and chopped into small chunks
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF.
- Peel and dice 3 pounds of sweet potatoes.
- In a large pot, cover sweet potatoes with water and boil until tender (about 15 minutes).
- Drain water off potatoes and mash until large clumps are gone.
- In a large bowl, measure out at least 4 cups of cooked and mashed sweet potatoes (this does not need to be exact).
- Add in sugar, milk, butter, eggs, and vanilla and mix well with an electric hand mixer.
- Spread mixture into a greased 9″ x 13″ baking dish.
- In the same bowl, mix topping ingredients together until mixture feels like coarse sand, then sprinkle over sweet potato mixture.
- Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes.
Notes
Make-Ahead Directions
After step 8 above, let the potatoes cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate until the day of your party. Bake, as directed, in the preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until the potatoes are fully heated through and the topping is crispy.Nutrition
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Easy Make-Ahead Mashed Potato Casserole
Mashed potatoes are sort of a staple for holiday gatherings — they are a great way to fill you up and they are usually fairly frugal to make.
This make-ahead recipe allows you to enjoy creamy, delicious, homemade mashed potatoes without any of the time or mess the day of your party.
Ingredients for Mashed Potatoes
- 15 small to medium potatoes
- 1 Tbsp. salt
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 8 oz. block cream cheese
- salt and pepper to taste
How to Make Mashed Potatoes
1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. Peal and chop potatoes (unless you prefer them with the skin on).
3. In a large pot, cover chopped potatoes with water. Add 1 Tbsp of salt, cover, and boil until potatoes until they are tender (about 10-15 minutes of boiling).
4. Drain water off potatoes.
5. Mash potatoes using a hand mixer.
6. Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
7. Scoop potatoes into a greased 9″ x 13″ baking pan and dot with butter.
8. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes.
Make-Ahead Directions:
After step 6 above, let the potatoes cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate until the day of your party.
Bake, as directed, in the preheated oven for 20-30 minutes, or until the potatoes are fully heated through (yes, you can reheat them at the same time as the sweet potatoes!)
Make-Ahead Mashed Potato Casserole
Ingredients
- 15 potatoes small to medium
- 1 Tbsp salt
- 1/4 c butter
- 1/2 c sour cream can use plain yogurt
- 8 oz. cream cheese
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF.
- Peel and chop potatoes (unless you prefer leaving the skins on).
- In a large pot, cover chopped potatoes with water. Add a Tbsp of salt, cover, and boil until potatoes until they are tender (about 10-15 minutes of boiling).
- Drain water off potatoes.
- Mash potatoes using a hand mixer.
- Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
- Scoop potatoes into a greased 9″ x 13″ baking pan and dot with butter.
- Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes.
Notes
Make Ahead Directions:
After step 6 above, let the potatoes cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate until the day of your party. Bake, as directed, in the preheated oven for 20-30 minutes, or until the potatoes are fully heated through (yes, you can reheat them at the same time as the sweet potatoes!)Nutrition
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What are your favorite make-ahead holiday side dishes?
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To get sweet potatoes to mashing consistency, I always boil them, with the skin on, until a fork comes out easily. Then, once they cool a bit, the skin slips right off, then add your extras and mash away.
Hope that helps. The fresh sweet potatoes are so much better than canned.
Can someone please anwser the question posted by Mandy reguarding how to get sweet potatoes to mashing consistency? This will be my first time working with sweet potatoes also and I am a little nervous since I am making these for my new soon-to-be BIL.
Thanks
Those mashed potatoes sound yummy. I’m definitely going to try that recipe out.
Just wanted to let you know I got a Walmart add today for today through Thanksgiving and they have sweet potatos for $.25/pound and some other really good deals on baking stuff, like Campbells cream of chicken or mushroom for$.60 ea.
These rock! I never thought to use my Kitchenaid mixer to mash potatoes. Duh!
how do you get the sweet potatoes to mashing consistency? Do you peel and boil like regular potatoes or do you bake and peel? I don’t have any experience with sweet potatoes at all. I am hosting Christmas dinner for the first time this year and I’m starting to fear it’s not going to be as good as my mother’s has always been.
I just bought sweet potatoes for $.25/lb at walmart in the DFW area! woohoo!
I cant wait for the day when I get to cook my own Thanksgiving spread, right now we fight over going to my family or my in-laws.
I will be making my mashed potatoes this week, using a technique I learned on Wise Bread:
1) scrub and half a large bag of potatoes (I’ll do 5 pounds, probably)
2) bake them for about an hour
3) scoop insides into mixer bowl, and add your regular add-ins (by the way I love the idea of adding cream cheese, mmm)
4) use the potato skins as a tasty appetizer. you can freeze them just as they are in a freezer bag and put them in oven before serving.
This works out really great for us this year because i’m having a birthday party for myself Saturday. so there will be a tater skin bar at the party, then we’ll eat the insides on Thursday. My only dilemma is finding room in my freezer to store the potatoes until next week! What with all the Jewel Catalina deals and all the pumpkin puree I’ve made, it’s jam packed.
Oh but I cut the sugar back quite a bit when making the casserole. I find it is too sweet with all that sugar!
Mmm sweet potato casserole is one of our favorites. It is like dessert in a vegetable form!
I always make my mashed potatoes in the Kitchen Aid mixer, makes them nice and creamy!
While I’m not making T-giving dinner, these are two really good (and easy) recipes I’ll be trying for sure!! Thanks 🙂
Whoa…. mashed potatoes with the Kitchenaid? And how do I do that??? (I begged and pleaded for years for a Kitchenaid mixer and now I don’t really know what to do with it – I usually just do things by hand still!)
Oooh…these recipes look yummy! Thanks for sharing and I’ll be definitely making them for our Thanksgiving meal. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
Sweet potato casserole sounds good. Why not use the “Steam n’ Mash” sweet potatoes that some of us probably have in the freezer from previous (free after coupon) deals? I probably won’t make a turkey breast this year for my DH and myself. I’m planning on making the filet mignons that I got from the Omaha Steaks deal (remember the deal? BTW I did not get the free steak burgers either!LOL)
I will also make pumpkin pie, the canned Libby’s pumpkin I got a few months ago on clearance at Walgreens for $0.40 a can, the condensed milk I got last week at Walgreens very cheap, too with coupons. Publix has Keebler’s pie crust on sale (last day today) for $0.99. I got to go there now…
Sweet Potatoes are .43cents/lb this coming week (my ad runs from thurs – weds.) !!! I think I’m REALLy going to stock up! Now all I need are some healthy recipes to make and freeze….
Any ideas?
My MIL gave me the potato recipe and not only is it nice because you can make them ahead of time, but they are some of the best mashed potatoes I have ever had.
We love those sweet potatoes too. I cut the sugar in half and we don’t even miss it. Food Lion has sweet potatoes for 29 cents a pound this week.
Your sweet potatoes look a lot like my MIL’s recipe. I was a fool for years to not try it- what I was missing! That’ll teach me to be picky. One suggestion- you could substitute graham cracker crumbs for the nuts in the topping. Way cheaper than the nuts, but it still adds some texture. My family loves it that way.
our Kroger’s had sweet pots for 33 cent/lb this week!!!
Thank you for this recipe! We do the sweet potato casserole each year (for the past 3 or 4) and I don’t have a specific recipe, so I’ll try this one. Also, our Kroger has sweet potatoes for .37 a pound this week, so if there’s no Aldi nearby you can get them there – it’s almost the same price.
I have frozen mashed potatoes successfully many times. I just freeze them in a Rubbermaid container and then put them in an oven-safe dish for reheating in the microwave. I stir it a few times while reheating. You cannot even tell that they’ve been frozen!
Your sweet potato casserole sounds yummy!
I like to bake the sweet potatoes in the oven like a regular potato. Split them open, add a little butter, just a touch of salt and a sprinkle of brown sugar. The baking brings out the natural sweetness so much you can even skip the brown sugar!
I actually hosted an early Thanksgiving dinner at my house last week, and made my mashed potatoes in the crock pot – not frozen, but they cooked all day and then I mixed them right in the crockpot. It was nice because it didn’t take up any room in the oven – or on the stove top! 🙂
Just a note to say I am loving this series so far. This is my first year hosting Thanksgiving, so I am very glad for the ideas & advice!
Jennifer, hi. I don’t know if gluten is the issue or just wheat, but OAT FLOUR is a nice, tasty substitute for wheat flour! I think oats might contain gluten, so if that’s the issue it wouldn’t work. Hope that helps.
Boy, all those pictures are making me hungry! I use the same recipe for sweet potatoes, but it is called “sweet potato crunch” in these parts…It really is the best recipe I’ve ever found. Its like dessert! I think I’ve successfully reduced the sugar slightly, but hey, why scrimp-its a holiday and you’re pregnant. 🙂
My mother-in-law begs me to make a variation of this dish every year. I originally got my recipe from my great-aunt. I add cinnamon instead of vanilla and sometimes coconut and pecans to mine. Also, I usually top mine with marshmallows since my mil is allergic to wheat flour. I might try a flour subsitute this year.