Southern Sweet Potato Pie is a southern tradition for fall and Thanksgiving. It’s a simple pie made from fresh sweet potatoes, sugar, eggs, flour and fall spices.

Slice of Southern Sweet Potato Pie topped with whipped cream.

In a buttery pie crust with a dollop of whipped cream, this southern dessert is a memorable one.

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Sweet Potato Pie vs Pumpkin Pie

Sweet potato pies have a very similar taste and texture to pumpkin pie, but I prefer sweet potato pie. Typically a pie made with sweet potato is a little lighter in texture and sweeter with less spice and I think sweet potato pies are more buttery.

Ask any southerner and they will tell you that sweet potato pie is greatly superior to pumpkin pie.

Slice of pie on a plate with sweet potatoes in background.

Tips For Making Southern Sweet Potato Pie

  • I love to use this Flaky Pie Crust recipe, but a store-bought pie crust or your favorite homemade one is just fine.
  • You’ll need 1 cup of mashed sweet potato for this recipe. I bake a few medium to large sweet potatoes until they are very soft. Let them cool and then peel the skin off. Hand mash them really well.
  • Instead of baking them, you could peel the sweet potatoes, cube them, and boil them in water until soft, but I find they have better flavor if you bake them.
  • This pie is done when it jiggles in the center just slightly when you shake it.
  • Can be served chilled or at room temperature.
Southern Sweet Potato Pie slice topped with whipped cream.

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Southern Sweet Potato Pie

4.93 from 27 votes
Prep: 10 minutes
Cook: 55 minutes
Total: 1 hour 5 minutes
Servings: 8
Southern Sweet Potato Pie is a southern tradition for fall and Thanksgiving. It's a simple pie made from fresh sweet potatoes, sugar, eggs, flour and fall spices.

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Ingredients

  • 1 cup mashed sweet potato
  • 1/2 cup salted butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup light brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup evaporated milk
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
  • 1 (9-inch) unbaked pie crust

Instructions 

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  • Place sweet potato and butter in a mixing bowl and use an electric mixer to beat until smooth.
  • Add brown sugar, granulated sugar, milk, eggs, vanilla extract, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and flour. Beat until smooth.
  • Pour into pie crust. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until center is set.

Video

Notes

I like to refrigerate this pie before serving, but you can serve it warm.
Use either a homemade pie crust, refrigerated or frozen pie crust.
My favorite way to make mashed sweet potato is to bake them until very soft, peel the skins off and then mash them. Two medium to large sweet potatoes should be enough for 1 cup of mashed sweet potato.

Nutrition

Calories: 387kcal

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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42 Comments

  1. Surati says:

    I didn’t make this – yet. But I’ve been looking for a sweet potato or pumpkin pie that had the right spice mixture. This is one looks delicate, and won’t overwhelm my taste buds or turn the pie brown.

  2. Doris says:

    Hello there!
    Great recipe but I will substitute heavy cream for the evap. milk which we don’t care for…. also, did you notice that the printed version states in header that it’s “casserole” . No biggie. Sometimes I add a bit of cardomom spice just to make folks guessing. Have a glorious and safe holiday!

    1. Johnnie says:

      I was hoping I could substitute heavy cream for the evaporated milk for the same reason, taste and it adds richness. Thanks

  3. L Waller says:

    Absolutely, hands down, thee best sweet potatoe pie recipe I’ve used! And trust me, I have been in search of the best recipe that could come close to my grandmother’s and by George I think I’ve found it! Easy to make while combining the best of ingredients. I doubled the recipe and made 2 of them. Mmmm mmm, good! I love the little thin layer of crust that forms on top…my favorite part!

  4. Ramona says:

    Thank you for this great recipe for southern sweet potato pie. I usually mess up when I make deserts from scratch, but was successful and pleased when my pies came out perfect. Koodos is to the creator of this recipe.

  5. Ramona says:

    Thank you soooooooo much for this easy very tasty recipe. I rarely bake deserts from scratch, cause no matter how good I follow the recipe, they fail. This one didn’t to my surprise. So many thanks to th creator of this great recipe for sweet potato pie.

  6. Myrna says:

    A friend use to bake seeet potato pie. And I donโ€™t know what she did to make it happen. But when she took pie out of the oven, it had a very very paper thin crispy crust on top of pie. Can you help me.

  7. Kevin M Donahue says:

    Is it supposed to be thick??? Thank you

  8. Glinda says:

    One other comment Iโ€™ll make & ask a question. For some reason when I added the flour it separated into tiny white pieces. I could not figure out what was happening and then I remembered my Momโ€™s recipe called for putting everything into a blender. So thatโ€™s what I did and blended on high for several minutes and everything came out smooth. Any thoughts on why the flour separated like it did?

  9. Glinda says:

    Hi Christin, I searched the internet high and low looking for just the right recipe. I wanted something that was along the same line as my Motherโ€™s recipe but tweaked a bit to add some brown sugar and a bit of spice (not pumpkin pie spice, which is for pumpkin pies, in my opinion๐Ÿ˜Š). I selected your recipe because it called for the brown sugar along with some white sugar, and it called for evaporated milk and the added flour & vanilla extract that was in my Motherโ€™s. The pie came out delicious – the ingredients are spot on. I loved the addition of the brown sugar as well as the spices. I used about 1-1/4 cup of sweet potato because thatโ€™s what I ended up with. Thank you for sharing!!

  10. yvette stanley says:

    I made this into a sweet potato cheese cake pie, it was scrumptious…thank you.

    1. Martha Showen says:

      Would love the recipe for a sweet potato cheese cake pie

    2. Reginald V Williams says:

      Me too

      1. Nancy Price says:

        Yvette Stanley — I’d love the recipe for sweet potato cheese cake pie as well. Thanks!

        1. Anita says:

          Did anyone ever get the recipe for the sweet potatoe cheese cake