Sweet Potato Crisp is a warm, comforting dessert with a soft center and a crisp, golden topping. Perfect for holidays or anytime cravings!
If you like Sweet Potato Pie, then you’re sure to love this simple Dessert Recipe. Instead of a pie crust, crisps are made with a sweet oat topping. It’s simple to make, and you don’t have to worry about the pie filling cracking or any other complications. It’s an easy, breezy recipe from start to finish!
Sabrina’s Sweet Potato Crisp Recipe
Sweet Potato Crisps are a similar concept to the more popular Apple Crisps. They have a similar gooey, warm filling and crunchy topping. However, sweet potatoes come with their own unique flavor. The potatoes bring a sweet, starchy, and slightly earthy flavor to the recipe that goes great with the warm spices of nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger.
Recipe Card
Ingredients
- 4 pounds sweet potatoes , peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2/3 cup brown sugar , packed
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 pinch ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Crisp Topping:
- 1/2 cup rolled oats
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter , diced
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup pecans , chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Melt the butter in a microwave-safe bowl or in a small saucepan.
- Add the 2/3 cup brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and ½ teaspoon salt into the bowl with the butter and mix.
- Add sweet potatoes to the baking pan and toss with melted butter mixture.
- Cook covered for 45-50 minutes.
- While the sweet potatoes are cooking add the rolled oats, 4 tablespoons butter, ½ cup brown sugar, flour, and ¼ teaspoon salt to a small bowl and smash with a fork to combine or just combine with your hands into large crumbles.
- Take foil off the baking pan, sprinkle the crumb mixture evenly on top, and top with pecans.
- Bake for an additional 20 minutes.
Nutrition
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Table of Contents
About this Recipe
Delicious crisps are a great combination of textures with the crispy, crunchy oat-pecan topping and tender, sweet center. It’s the ultimate combination of flavors and textures. The directions for this recipe are also wonderfully easy! Although it takes a little over an hour to finish the crisp, you don’t have to spend all that time in the kitchen. Most of it is just a matter of leaving the crisp to bake, so you can work on other recipes or relax while the dessert finishes. The smell of sweet potatoes, brown sugar, and warm fall spices will fill your house as it bakes!
Chef’s Note: Health Benefits
Along with how delicious they are, Sweet Potato Crisps also come with more health benefits than your average crisps. Sweet potatoes are great to add to your diet because of the many essential vitamins and minerals they provide. There is a good amount of magnesium, potassium, protein, fiber, and anti-inflammatory vitamins in servings of sweet potato. They also aren’t high in calories for how filling they are. Enjoying this Sweet Potato Crisp is a great way to incorporate healthy ingredients without compromising on how delicious your dessert is.
Key Ingredients
- Sweet Potatoes: Although available year-round, sweet potatoes are typically harvested in late summer and early fall. This makes them perfect for both savory and sweet holiday dishes. For this sweet recipe, look for sweet potatoes with reddish-orange skin that is smooth without cracks, and avoid potatoes that look dry or shriveled on the ends.
- Spices: Cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg combine to give your Sweet Potato Crisp a warm, spiced flavor that will fill your home with a delicious aroma while baking.
- Oatmeal Pecan Topping: Oats and pecans give your crisp topping a wonderful, chewy texture with a bit of crunch. Butter, flour, brown sugar, and a little salt combine to make the crispy topping the perfect complement to the sweet, buttery potatoes underneath.
What to Pair With
Crisp recipes are always delicious with a scoop of Ice Cream melting over the top. You can try other toppings to experiment with this dessert. Try adding marshmallows on top like in Candied Sweet Potatoes. Drizzle on maple syrup for some extra sweetness. You could even add a sweetened cream cheese spread for some contrast and tang in the flavors.
Frequently Asked Questions
Sweet potatoes and yams are often mixed up. While sweet potatoes do come in a variety of colors, including white and purple, a typical sweet potato will be a bright orange inside with a reddish skin. Yams are a firmer, starchier vegetable with a white interior and rough brown exterior.
Both cobblers and crisps refer to baked dishes with a fruit, or in this case a sweet vegetable filling that has a sweet topping. Cobblers have a topping that is more like a dough or batter, and sometimes even biscuits are used. Crisps are usually topped with a crumbly streusel topping made from brown sugar, butter, flour, and oatmeal. If you leave out the oats, it would be more like a Sweet Potato Crumble.
Sweet potatoes are very firm and starchy, but when fully cooked, they become soft, gooey, and even sweeter. By cooking the sweet potatoes slowly with the melted butter, brown sugar, and spices, they’ll soften and absorb all the delicious flavors that meld with the sweet potatoes to make the delicious filling. Then you’ll need to add the crisp topping for the last 20 minutes so that it does not burn during the rest of the cooking time.
Absolutely! Just replace the butter with your favorite non-dairy margarine variety. Just make sure to use an unsalted butter alternative so that you can control the amount of salt that goes into this sweet dessert recipe.
Variations
- Cranberry Sweet Potato Crisp: Try adding cranberries to the crisp recipe. Bake the potatoes as usual. Then sprinkle a cup of cranberries over the potatoes before you add the oat topping.
- Apple Sweet Potato Crisp: To make this with apples, use half sweet potatoes and half apples for the filling.
- Sweetener: You can replace the brown sugar in the recipe with other sweeteners like maple syrup, molasses, or honey.
- Marshmallow Topping: For an easy marshmallow topping to add after the crisp bakes, combine ¾ cup white sugar, 1 tablespoon corn syrup, 2 ½ tablespoons butter, and ¼ cup milk in a saucepan. Put it on low heat and stir until dissolved. Once it comes to a boil, let it simmer for 5 minutes. Melt half a package of marshmallows with 2 tablespoons of water. Stir the melted marshmallows into the syrup. Remove from the heat and mix in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
How to Store
- Serve: Your Sweet Potato Crisp can stay good at room temperature for up to 2 days. Wait for it to cool, then cover it in aluminum foil or plastic wrap and store it in a dry, cool place.
- Store: Once the crisp has cooled, you can also keep it covered in the refrigerator. It will stay good for up to 1 week.
- Freeze: Properly sealed, Sweet Potato Crisps can also be frozen for 2 months. Let it thaw in the fridge before reheating it in the oven.
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These photos were in a previous version of this post
This recipe sounds (and looks) so good! I am interested in adding cranberries to my sweet potatoes. Would you suggest using fresh or dried cranberries or does it not make a difference? Thanks in advance.