Canned Sweet Potato Casserole with Marshmallows
This canned sweet potato casserole is a budget friendly recipe for the holidays that comes together in 25 minutes! It’s a quick and easy Thanksgiving side dish that’s made with canned sweet potatoes.
I’m really picky about what goes into my holiday recipes, especially the ones that are iconic, like sweet potato pie and sweet potato casserole with marshmallows. It’s the mallows, ya’ll!
Incidentally, if you’ve never heard a girl from the Midwest speak with a southern drawl, amuse yourself sometime and request it. It’s the funniest danged thing ya’ll will ever hear.
What I mean to say is that the sweet potato casserole that I eat on Thanksgiving must have marshmallows in it.
Canned Sweet Potato Casserole
What I love the most about this particular recipe is how budget friendly it is. Because I purchased absolutely every ingredient for the recipe at Dollar General, this delicious canned sweet potato casserole cost me less than fifty cents per serving to make. That’s crazy awesome, especially since the price of sugar has risen so much in the past year.
There are just a few simple ingredients and a couple of spices needed to make the recipe:
- canned yams or peeled and cooked sweet potatoes.. (read more below)
- brown sugar – to lower the calories, you can use a low glycemic brown sugar substitute
- butter
- maple syrup
- chopped pecans
- mini marshmallows – or use these vegan marshmallows
How do you make sweet potato casserole with canned potatoes?
Assembling the canned sweet potato casserole is super quick and easy. All you need to do is drain the canned sweet potatoes, then mash ’em, mix in the rest of the ingredients, top it off with mini marshmallows and put it into the oven to toast those babies up.
It doesn’t get any easier and it definitely meets the It’s Yummi test for taste! Now if you want to use fresh sweet potatoes you most certainly can. You want to peel and pre-boil (much like how to make mashed potatoes) them ahead of time then proceed with the recipe.
More Must-Have Thanksgiving Sides:
- Butternut Squash Gratin Recipe
- Broccoli Gratin with Parmesan (from Kalyn’s Kitchen)
- Perfect Creamy Mashed Potatoes
- Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Squash (from A Beautiful Plate)
- Quick Rise Easy Yeast Rolls
- Cranberry Sausage Stuffing
Are you ready to make your holiday meal prep easier? Then head to the kitchen to whip up this canned sweet potato casserole recipe. Don’t forget the marshmallows!
Canned Sweet Potato Casserole with Marshmallows
RECIPE VIDEO
Ingredients
- 1.75 pounds cooked sweet potatoes (OR 29-ounce can, drained of all liquid)
- ¼ cup brown sugar substitute or brown sugar, packed
- 2 Tablespoons maple syrup
- 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup finely chopped pecans divided in half
- non-stick cooking spray
- 1 cup vegan mini marshmallows or regular mini marshmallows
Instructions
- Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease the inside of an 11 x 7-inch baking dish with non stick cooking spray.
- Place potatoes into a large mixing bowl. Add sugar, butter, salt, cinnamon, and vanilla extract; Mash mixture with a potato masher.
- Stir in 1/4 cup of pecans.
- Spread potato mixture into an even layer in the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup of pecans over the mixture, then top with marshmallows.
- Bake at 375 F. for 20 minutes or until marshmallows are toasted. Remove pan from oven and serve while warm.
- If covered well and refrigerated, leftovers will stay good for up to 5 days. Reheat in a dish covered with aluminum foil in oven at 350 degrees F. for 15-20 minutes, or microwave uncovered for 2-3 minutes.
Woohoo! I request Chef Becca to speak in a Southern drawl for the next 2 weeks straight. Is that doable? In return, I’ll speak in a Midwestern drawl…even though I don’t really know what that is. Haha. This casserole looks delicious, btw! 🙂
I can’t even imagine how scary it will be for my neighbors to have to suffer through 2 weeks of me speaking that slowly, but to hear you speak Wisconsinese for even an hour should be enough entertainment for the entire year! 😀
Have you ever seen the videos of Paula Deen in slo-mo? They are what I imagine this sounding like. 🙂
Perfect recipe. Dinner and dessert at once. I love it!
Haha! I haven’t seen them, but now I HAVE to check YouTube for them!
P.S. I’m trying to find you on Pinterest, but can’t find you. Please send me your Pinterest handle (if you have one)
Yummy! Use LOTS of marshmallows for delicious gooeyness.
So classic for Thanksgiving. Growing up we always had to have marshmallows on our sweet potatoes to. And by we, I mean my dad – because I wasn’t a fan back then. Now though, that is a different story! Great looking recipe.
I think this has to happen in my kitchen soon. I mean seriously, it’s yummy marshmallows. Nothing else matters.
I hope you have a chance to dig into some of this sweet potato casserole, Kim. Heck yes to those toasty marshmallows!
Meagan, when I was young, I used to wonder why it was the older generation’s southern-style recipes that got the most attention on holidays. Now that I’m the older one and I see how comforting and perfectly easy they are to prepare, like this sweet potato casserole, it all makes perfect sense! I hope this recipe makes your mom proud 🙂
I make a version of this but I love the changes you made and need to try your version.
I sometimes mix mini mashmallows into the recipe too (shhhh, don’t tell).
One can never have enough mini marshmallows… especially on Thanksgiving, Karen! 🙂
I think “one-stop shop” is a perfect way to describe Dollar General!
Sweet potato casserole is a favorite around my house too, Sandy!
Sadly, Dollar General is not an everyday shopping option for me but I love your sweet potato casserole, Becca! Marshmallows are IT!
I often wonder about my overseas friends like you, Stacy. Do dollar stores exist in Dubai?
We don’t have dollar stores but we do have the Japanese chain, Daiso, which is close. It doesn’t have any food though.
Ahhhh yoou and I make this almost identical! I make this and everyone eats it up. The only difference is I use fresh sweet potatoes and cook them up myself rather than canned – to me it just tastes better . I will also go to yams and there is a sllightly diifferent flavor to it. So good its like a dessert!
Ellen, it’s a delicious side dish for sure. On busy days, the convenience of canned yams is nice, but I agree with you that fresh sweet potatoes are always the best!
WOW I never would have thought to add marshmallows to a casserole before! You definitely have got me curious to know what this tastes like.. think I have to recreate the recipe!
I hope you have a chance to try the recipe sometime, Thalia. The sweetness of the marshmallows pairs wonderfully with the sweet potatoes, making the casserole a cross between a side dish and a dessert! It’s a little bite of Heaven 🙂
Becca, I make a version of this but I love some of the additional ingredients that you put in yours, definitely going to give it a try.
Thanks for linking up on our Thanksgiving projects post.
Thanks for the invite to participate, Karen!
OH! This sounds SO much easier and better than the recipe I have used in the past! I am definitely going to try this out this year!!! THANK YOU!
AND I have a Dollar General just down the road! I never thought about getting food there!
Thank you for linking up with the Blog with Friends Thanksgiving Projects! 😀
You’re so very welcome, Stacy, and thank you for the sweet comment! YES YES, Dollar General sells food, and a lot of it is cheaper than you’d find it at the grocery store. Especially things like spices and baking products like sugar. Check it out!
Love this recipe I added a little splash of orange juice it’s so delicious. Thanks for sharing !
When do you add the maple syrup? It doesn’t mention it in the recipe. Going to make this for Thanksgiving. Seems easy enough.
Add it when you are adding the sugar. Maple syrup is sugar but we’ll edit the recipe to make it a bit more clear. 🙂
Sounds perfect but I have one question do you drain the potatoes or not?
Yes you drain them. We make a mention about this in our post. Always a good idea to read our posts since we’ve always got tid bits and tips to helping making our recipes. 🙂
Can you do this in a slow cooker? Oven is already taken ?
I don’t see why not! It’s actually something I’ve been considering at trying this week as well.
Can you use a 40 oz can instead of 29 oz? If so how much would the ingredients change. I want to make it for Thanksgiving
It shouldn’t make a huge difference if using 40oz. Just more sweet potato more the fun.
(Apologies it took us this long to respond and hopefully your dish turned out well with this change! We took the holidays off for some RnR this year)
Can you prep this…minus the marshmallow, a day ahead?
I’d say so yes.
Yes I have always made it the day before because it taste much better reheated the next day.
Delish! My family had no idea that these were canned sweet potatoes. This recipe was so delicious and easy to make that I will be making it every thanksgiving. Thanks for sharing!
How many canned of sweet potatoes do I need for 40 people?
The recipe says a 29 oz. can makes enough for 6 people. So that is 5 oz. per person. If you used a 40 oz can that would be enough for 8 people; so for 40 people you would need 5 40 oz cans or 7 29 oz. cans for 40 people. Of coarse, you will need to use 7 times the amount of the other ingredients, such as 2 1/2 sticks of butter, 3 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla, etc.
Apologies. We make a mention that if you are going to use canned sweet potatoes you need to drain the liquid within the post itself. We always recommend to read the entire post as we do tend to give quite a few tips within the post itself for that particular recipe. We have edited the recipe card to be more clear though if you are using canned potatoes. Hope you get a chance to make it again.
Can sugar free syrup be substituted in this recipe?
Love this easy recipe -thank you!!! my go to recipe for sweet potato casserole every thanksgiving ❤️
So delicious! I added 1 egg and 1 can of crushed pineapple and it turned out so good. My family loves it!
This recipe is outstanding. I used 2 40-oz cans and doubled the ingredients. So easy to put together and absolutely delicious!
Can you substitute the pecans with chopped almonds, you think?
I will be using a 40 oz can of Bruce’s Yams. What alteration, if any, to ingredients & cooking time should I make?