What To Do With Leftover Sweet Potato

We'll be eating leftover sweet potato for breakfast, dinner, and dessert.

Oven-Baked Sweet Potatoes
Photo: Jennifer Causey; Food Stylist: Torie Cox; Prop Stylist: Claire Spollen

No Southern Thanksgiving table would be complete without a classic Sweet Potato Casserole. It's a mainstay on our sideboard and helps balance out the salty components of our plates. In true Southern fashion, we always prepare much more of this signature dish than necessary—after all, running out of sweet potato casserole on Thanksgiving would be a travesty unforgotten and harped on by the in-laws for many holidays to come. But our tendency to overprepare often leaves us with copious amounts of leftovers.

What Can You Do With Leftover Sweet Potatoes?

Leftover turkey boasts many straightforward, cult-favorite uses—Dad's leftover turkey sandwich is the stuff of dreams—but what exactly can you do with leftover sweet potato casserole? Don't worry: we have all the answers. No matter how you've prepared your sweet potato—whether it's still raw, mashed, or topped with marshmallows and baked into a casserole—we have a leftovers solution for you. Whether you like your sweet potatoes for dinner or dessert, sweet or savory, these ideas and recipes will keep things interesting in the days after Thanksgiving.

Recipes for Leftover Raw Sweet Potatoes

If you picked up an extra couple of sweet potatoes during your pre-Thanksgiving trip to the market—rejoice! There are so many ways, both sweet and savory, to make use of these seasonal spuds. The best part? Sweet potatoes are a great healthier substitution for your favorite carb- or starch-heavy foods, like bread and Russet potatoes.

After a night of feasting, turkey and gravy probably sit heavily in your stomach. Lighten things up for breakfast with healthy, yet still substantial Sweet Potato Breakfast Casserole.

Spice up your sweet potatoes with our Grilled Sweet Potato Fries topped with honey, chili powder, and queso fresco. If you want to convince the kids to eat their vegetables, Air Fryer Sweet Potato Fries are the perfect, healthier side to that leftover turkey sandwich.

For dinner, nothing quite satisfies like a steaming bowl of soup, and Sweet Potato Soup may be one of our all-time fall favorites. For a creative and lower-carb appetizer, try thinly slicing your sweet potato to make Sweet Potato Crostini.

Recipes for Leftover Mashed Sweet Potato

Mashed sweet potato can be a bit trickier to revamp, as it's already been cooked and isn't such a blank canvas, but this simple side can surprisingly be repurposed in myriad ways. We've collected a few of our favorite uses for mashed sweet potatoes that will carry you from breakfast to dinner to dessert.

Making morning-after-Thanksgiving brunch? Whip up some creative, orange-hued Sweet Potato Waffles. Perfumed with ground cinnamon and nutmeg and drizzled with maple syrup or apple butter, these waffles channel all of our favorite seasonal flavors.

If you're preparing lunch for a crowd, ditch the basic sandwich bread—Sweet Potato Biscuits or Sweet Potato Rolls are the flavorful answer to your prayers. Hosting a post-Thanksgiving party? These bite-sized Sweet Potato-Chorizo Sausage Balls will be gone in a flash. Looking for a hearty side for dinner? How about a Smoky Sweet Potato-Mashed Potato Bake.

Take the stress out of baking for a dozen houseguests—our Southern Sweet Potato Cake is a sure-fire crowd-pleaser.

A Recipe for Leftover Sweet Potato Casserole

Oh, sweet potato casserole. Our holiday table wouldn't be complete without it. Chances are you won't have too much leftover of this fan-favorite side, but in the case that you do, we have a solution.

We've dreamed up a way to use up that extra sweet potato casserole in an indulgent holiday breakfast: Sweet Potato Casserole Pancakes. Just whisk that sweet potato casserole—marshmallow topping and all—right in with some milk, butter, and eggs, toss in the dry ingredients, and you've got an easy-as-can-be pancake batter. Complete with a leftover cranberry sauce syrup, these savvy leftover-friendly pancakes will become a new family tradition.

If you're looking for more inspiration, we've got you covered: we've collected all of our favorite sweet potato recipes for you to cook up this fall.

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