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This Crispy Pecan Topped Sweet Potato Casserole is the perfect side dish for your fall and your holiday meals! This classic casserole is perfect for busy days as you can make it the day before and simply pop it into the oven on the day of the big dinner!
How to Make Sweet Potato Casserole
There are many versions of how to make sweet potato casserole, this is simply the way that I prefer to make it. To briefly outline the steps needed to make sweet potato casserole:
- Bake the sweet potatoes in the oven until soft. This can be done a day ahead of time as well!
- Scoop out the sweet potatoes and combine them with the ingredients.
- Scoop the sweet potato mixture into a casserole.
- Top with pecan brown sugar topping and bake!
How To Bake Sweet Potatoes
I am testing out the De Longhi Livenza Compact Convection Oven this fall and one of my favourite tricks for making a side dish for a big meal is using a countertop oven to free up oven space for the main dish. This oven allows you to bake, roast and broil, everything you need to make a side dish easily. You could also fit a chicken in this oven as well if you want!
This compact oven is available online at Hudson’s Bay and is perfect for prepping foods and cooking them on the side when you need your oven free. There are nine preset functions in total that you can use: a Bake function, Cookies function, Grill function, Roast function, Reheating function, Toast function, Heat convection function, Keep warm function and a Pizza function. The one I wanted to use was the Roast function for baking the sweet potatoes up first.
You want to bake the sweet potatoes instead of boiling them ( which is what most recipes tell you to do) as not only does baking the sweet potatoes add flavour, it doesn’t add moisture. When you boil sweet potatoes you add too much water to the mixture and end up with a runny sweet potato casserole.
The next step is to prepare the sweet potato casserole and then cover it with tinfoil. The topping will brown far too fast if you don’t cover it with tinfoil! For those of you that use vintage bakeware like I do, you can use a sheet of parchment paper under the tinfoil to avoid aluminium transfer. It works like a charm!
For this step, I used the Bake Function on the De Longhi Livenza Compact Convection Oven and baked it for 30 minutes to start. When the oven beeps and is done, you are going to remove the tinfoil and bake it for another 30 minutes, or until the topping has crisped and the center of the casserole is set and cooked completely. Watch the topping so that it doesn’t brown too much and cover it again if needed. The digital controls make it easy to switch between presets and the double glass door helps the heat inside the oven at a consistent temperature. There is even a dedicated recipe app for it as well.
The result? A smooth and silky sweet potato casserole, all baked on the counter-top! The center is smooth and sweet, the pecan topping is crunchy and sweet, it’s the perfect fall side dish!
This sweet potato casserole recipe bakes up in an 8×8 pan, which fits inside the oven perfectly.
Happy Baking!
Love,
Karlynn
Crispy Pecan Topped Sweet Potato Casserole
- Prep Time
- 1 hour 20 minutes
- Cook Time
- 1 hour
- Total Time
- 2 hours 20 minutes
- Course
- Side Dish
- Cuisine
- American
- Servings
- 8
- Calories
- 343
- Author
- Karlynn Johnston
Ingredients
- 2 large sweet potatoes
- 2 teaspoons canola oil
Sweet Potato Casserole Filling
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 3 tablespoons salted butter softened
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Crispy Pecan Topping
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/3 cup all purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons salted butter
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans
Instructions
Bake The Sweet Potatoes
- This can be done ahead of time. Wash and dry the two sweet potatoes. Preheat your oven to 425 °F. Pierce the potatoes with a fork in multiple places. Run the canola oil over them.
- Bake in the oven for 45-60 minutes until the potatoes are cooked and soft. Remove and cool.
Sweet Potato Casserole Filling
- Preheat your oven to 350 °F. Scoop out the inside of the sweet potatoes into a large bowl. Add in the sugar, eggs, butter, cream and vanilla.
- Using a hand mixer or immersion blender, beat together the ingredients until smooth and creamy. Scoop into an 8×8 pan.
Crispy Pecan Topping
- In a medium bowl, mix the brown sugar and flour together. Cut in the butter until the mixture is coarse and has small pieces of butter throughout, smaller than peas.
- Stir in the pecans, then sprinkle the mixture on top of the casserole. Cover with tinfoil and bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and keep baking for another 25-30 minutes, until the casserole is cooked and set in the middle and the topping has browned. If the topping browns too quickly, cover again with the foil.
- Remove and cool for 10-15 minutes before serving. This casserole stays HOT a long time!
Recipe Notes
Nutrition Information
All calories and info are based on a third party calculator and are only an estimate. Actual nutritional info will vary with brands used, your measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
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Billie says
It says add the ingredients to the scooped out pot.s bu it never says what they are!@!!!