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.
In a buttery pie crust with a dollop of whipped cream, this southern dessert is a memorable one.
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.
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.
More Sweet Potato Recipes
- Sweet Potato Cream Cheese Bars
- Lightened-Up Sweet Potato Pie
- Sweet Potato Waffles
- Sweet Potato Pancakes with Marshmallow Sauce
- Southern Candied Sweet Potatoes
Southern Sweet Potato Pie
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.
SERVINGS: 8
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.
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
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Excellent
Super delicious, airy. I baked the sweet potatoes and reduced the sugar to 1 cup. Perfect.
Awesome flavor. Tastes like my mom’s 😍
Easy following recipe, few ingredients, suggestions 4 even better taste with alternative means (bake or boiled sweet pots). I LOVE this pie over pumpkin, love that 1 too, but flavor of sweet soooo much better. Even found spices 2 go with sweet potato over “pumpkin pie spices”! Made it tasted it shared it! Pie on sweet freaks.
I have made other sweet potato pies, but have tried to imitate the ones I used to see in Anse La Butte, Louisiana when I worked there for a couple of years. The ‘pies” were the size of muffins, but flat like tarts, and made in muffin tins or those litte aluminum tins. And they were made for men to take to work in their “dinner boxes.” They are perfect for kids’ lunch boxes and for after school snacks. It also had some other spice, but being a culinary dullard, I haven’t the foggiest. Might be something to work on. Hmmm
Thanks for a good take off poimt!
GREAT ADDITION to the table. Easy to make.
Your recipe title says Southern Sweet Potato Casserole instead of Pie.
Very tasty
I made this last Thanksgiving and going to bake it again this year. My family love it. Very good!
So good!!! First time ever. Ate an entire pie myself. Good thing I doubled up for two.
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.
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!
I was hoping I could substitute heavy cream for the evaporated milk for the same reason, taste and it adds richness. Thanks
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!
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.
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.
A friend use to bake seeet potato pie. And I don’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.
Is it supposed to be thick??? Thank you
One other comment I’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 Mom’s recipe called for putting everything into a blender. So that’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?
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 Mother’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 opinion😊). 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 Mother’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 that’s what I ended up with. Thank you for sharing!!
I made this into a sweet potato cheese cake pie, it was scrumptious…thank you.
Would love the recipe for a sweet potato cheese cake pie
Me too
Yvette Stanley — I’d love the recipe for sweet potato cheese cake pie as well. Thanks!
Did anyone ever get the recipe for the sweet potatoe cheese cake