Savory Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Savory mashed sweet potatoes are smoky and spiced up with pantry staple seasonings and simple to customize to your liking. These easy sweet potatoes make a great side for a variety of main dishes.

I know I don't do this often, but I'm about to drop a controversial opinion. Sweet sweet potatoes? You know the ones with marshmallows, pecans, maple syrup, brown sugar, etc.?

Not a fan.

I'm all about the savory, and super spiced up at that. Smoked paprika, ancho chile powder, garlic, and cayenne? Yes, please.

Already on the blog we have my go-to favorite spiced oven roasted sweet potatoes, a slow cooker smoky sweet potato soup, and seriously good crispy baked buffalo sweet potato fries, but you know what was missing? Mashed sweet potatoes. Savory ones. 😉

Recipe ingredients

Two pounds of sweet potatoes are the star of this recipe. While you don't need to measure your potatoes right down to the ounce, this is usually right around the weight of five to six medium-sized sweet potatoes.

The other base ingredients are fairly normal as far as mashed potatoes are concerned: milk, butter, salt, pepper, and garlic.

What will vary though are the spices. They really kick this recipe up several notches and drive home the 'savory' part of savory mashed sweet potatoes.

I really go to town pulling out spices from my pantry and adding a little bit of this and a little bit of that to this recipe. Chili powder, smoked paprika, coriander, and ground chipotle chile pepper bring a deep and smoky flavor, with oregano and onion rounding everything out.

Recipe steps

You won't deviate too far from the traditional way of making mashed potatoes with these savory mashed potatoes. Potato chunks are boiled until fairly tender, then drained and mashed along with milk, butter, and spices. Simple enough.

The beauty of a recipe like this is that there's a ton of wiggle room for you to make it your own. You certainly don't have to use exactly the same spices I have listed in the recipe card below. Keeping this in mind, I broke up the recipe into staple ingredients and *highly recommended* seasonings. Because if your paprika isn't smoked, you'd rather use cayenne than chipotle, or you're out of coriander, you can still make delicious sweet potatoes.

Oh, and a note on the paprika. I find smoked paprika to be so much more pungent-in-a-good-way than regular paprika. You don't need much of it at all to really bring a bold smoky flavor to a variety of foods.

Since a little goes a long way, I bet you'll find more ways to sneak smoked paprika into your cooking. It's a must in my homemade taco seasoning, smoky shakshuka, and sweet and smoky hasselback sweet potatoes. <--maybe the only time I've included sugar/sweetness in with sweet potatoes. Worth it.

Recipe notes

• Salted butter would totally work here. I usually have unsalted on hand so that's what I use. If using salted butter, omit the ¾ teaspoon salt in instruction step #3 below and instead just add salt to taste.
• Not sure about you, but peeling garlic cloves takes me forever. Forever! And with the number of cloves I go through a week, huffing and puffing about it gets old quickly. These (inexpensive + Amazon Prime) garlic peelers (affiliate link) seriously work like a charm. Each clove goes into the silicone cannoli shell-esque device and the peel slides right off after you press and roll. I was skeptical but these are really game changers in my kitchen!

Savory Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Alyssa

This savory mashed sweet potatoes are smoky and spiced up with pantry staple seasonings and simple to customize to your liking. This easy variation on mashed potatoes makes a great side dish for a variety of main dishes.

4.67 from 6 votes

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Prep Time 5 mins

Cook Time 20 mins

Total Time 25 mins

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Servings 6

Calories 163 kcal

Ingredients

  

• 2 lbs sweet potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 1 tablespoon plus ¾ teaspoon salt, divided
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ cup milk, your preferred variety
• 4 tablespoon unsalted butter
• ¾ teaspoon ground black pepper

*Highly* recommended seasonings:

• ¼ teaspoon chili powder
• ¼ teaspoon onion powder
• ¼ teaspoon smoked paprika
• ¼ teaspoon ground coriander
• ¼ teaspoon ground chipotle chile pepper
• ¼ teaspoon dried oregano

Instructions

 

• Peel and quarter sweet potatoes and place them in a medium-large saucepan. Add enough water to the pan to cover the potatoes, along with 1 tablespoon of the salt.
• Place pan over high heat and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat a little bit once boiling. Boil potatoes for 12-15 minutes, or until the potatoes are fork tender. Drain the potatoes and add them back to the pan over low heat for 1-2 minutes, then shut off heat.
  
• Add the remaining ¾ teaspoon salt, minced garlic, milk, butter, and pepper to the saucepan and mash until smooth. Add the remaining seasonings and mash in, tasting to adjust the spices to your liking. Serve.

Notes

I used 2% milk here, but any variety (including half-and-half or cream) will do.

 

You can use 4 tablespoon of salted butter if you like. If doing so, omit the remaining ¾ teaspoon of salt that gets mashed into the potatoes until you take a taste. Then season according to your liking.

 

The recommended spices and seasonings are what I like to use, but feel free to vary the quantities and spices as you see fit.

Keyword mashed sweet potatoes