10 Ways To Upgrade Homemade Sweet Potato Casserole

Sweet potato casserole is a hit during the holidays, although you can make it as a side dish all year long. But if you're like many home cooks, you've been making your sweet potato casserole the same way, year after year. Maybe you're following a family member's recipe, or maybe you're just doing your own thing. Either way, it's easy to get into a sweet potato casserole rut. Why not spice things up this year by checking out these simple ways to upgrade your homemade sweet potato casserole? Most of these upgrades don't add a ton of extra work to the recipe — they just make every bite taste that much better.

Whether you're looking for ways to add flavor to a standard sweet potato casserole recipe or you're trying to change the texture up a bit, these tips will get you started in the right direction. Once you try these methods, you'll wonder why you ever settled for plain old sweet potato casserole in the first place. This year, the holiday season is about to get a lot tastier.

Sometimes, sweet potato casserole can be too, well ... sweet. With all of the brown sugar, marshmallows, and whatever other sweet elements you add to the dish, all that sugar can be overwhelming to your taste buds. One way to balance all that sweetness is to add something salty and savory to the equation. And perhaps the best way to do that is to add bacon to your sweet potato casserole.

Bacon plays a few roles in your casserole. Firstly, and probably most importantly, it creates a salty counterpart to the sweet ingredients in the dish — even if the only sweetness is coming from the sweet potatoes themselves. You know how delicious a salty and sweet treat like chocolate-covered pretzels can be? That's exactly what you're doing here by adding some salt to the mix.

But bacon does more than just create a more savory flavor profile. It also adds a rich fattiness to the dish, which makes every bite that much more luscious. You can reduce the amount of butter you use in the recipe if you don't want to overdo it on the fat, but we think it's best to keep both the butter and the bacon fat for a deeply flavorful and deliciously velvety side dish.

There are some ingredients that seem absolutely essential to a sweet potato casserole. Butter is one example. Brown sugar is another. But just because you're used to your standard ingredients doesn't mean you can't incorporate an unexpected — but undeniably tasty — one to the mix. If you want to add more sweetness along with a rich, caramelized flavor, consider incorporating roasted bananas into your sweet potato casserole.

If you've never roasted bananas before, this may sound like a strange suggestion. After all, you don't want your casserole to taste like straight bananas. But roasted bananas have a very different flavor profile than their raw cousins. After roasting, bananas take on a softer, sweeter, more caramelized flavor that only adds complexity to the finished casserole dish. And since bananas aren't quite as dense as sweet potatoes, they can lighten up the dish and make it less texturally heavy. You'll get a smoother, fluffier texture when you add this ingredient to your recipe.

Of course, this works well with sweeter sweet potato casseroles. If you tend to lean toward a more savory flavor profile, this probably isn't the right ingredient hack for you.

Let's be real: A lot of casseroles are soft. That's not necessarily a bad thing, of course — it's nice when something is easy to chew. But sometimes, you want a little more texture than a standard sweet potato casserole can offer. That's when you may want to turn to an ingredient that can add a bit of crunch to the equation. One easy-to-find and perhaps unexpected ingredient you can add to your casserole for a more interesting texture is cornflakes. Yes, like the cereal. Sure, it may sound a bit odd at first, but once you take that first crunchy bite, you'll understand why cornflakes are such a great addition to your casserole. You can use cornflakes in addition to or instead of the standard marshmallow topping.

Of course, you could always just pile some cornflakes on top of your casserole, but for best results, you'll want to combine them with a few other ingredients. Butter can prevent them from burning too quickly and can add a much-needed richness to the dish. Warming spices like nutmeg and cinnamon can give that crunch a bit of extra flavor. When you're trying to switch up your sweet potato casserole game for something unexpected, cornflakes are definitely the move to make.

Everyone has different holiday traditions, but for a lot of families, sweet potato casserole is a dish that's always, well, sweet. But just because you're used to eating the sweet version of the casserole doesn't mean that's all there is. Only some recipes really focus on the sweet ingredients, marshmallows included. In fact, the addition of marshmallows on sweet potato casserole was actually just a marketing scheme.

If you're looking for more of a savory side dish, you can absolutely incorporate savory ingredients instead of sweet ones in your sweet potato casserole. Instead of using sugar and marshmallows, for example, you can opt to use salt, black pepper, and sage in your sweet potato casserole. Of course, you don't have to make sure every ingredient is savory — salty and sweet flavors can complement each other for a more delicious dish, after all — but really leaning into those saltier flavors may be the way to go if you're not a fan of super-sweet casseroles.

When you're tired of the same old sweet potato casserole you make year after year, there are some easy ways to switch things up and make the dish feel more sophisticated. Perhaps one of the most delicious ways to level up your meal is by turning your casserole into an elegant sweet potato souffle. And the best part? The only thing you really need for the souffle is some eggs, which makes this a simple upgrade you can even do at the last minute. Whipping your pureed sweet potatoes with eggs makes for a lighter, creamier texture than you can achieve with the potatoes alone.

We love this lighter version of the classic dish. However, without all that heft from the plain potatoes, you may want to add a crunchy element to this dish to yield a more interesting texture. Chopped toasted pecans work especially well to upgrade your sweet potato souffle, or you can employ the cornflake hack we covered above. No matter what you decide to top your souffle with, your family and friends are bound to be impressed by this upgraded version of a classic.

Who knew that one of the best ingredients to include in a sweet potato casserole actually isn't in the fridge or pantry at all? Rather, you can find this ingredient in your bar cart. Bourbon makes for a surprisingly interesting and complex addition to a basic sweet potato casserole. Once you make your casserole this way, you may never go back to the plain version again.

This addition works because bourbon's rich, complex flavors give more depth to the otherwise pretty one-note casserole. But because bourbon and sweet potatoes boast similar flavors, the whiskey also enhances the flavors that are already naturally there from the root veggies. Just keep in mind that alcohol doesn't actually cook out of food very quickly. If you're trying to avoid having too much alcohol remain in the dish, you'll want to cook the bourbon down for about three hours before adding it to the recipe. Otherwise, though, that small amount of alcohol shouldn't have any effect other than enhancing the dish's natural deliciousness.

Casseroles are sometimes accused of being bland and boring dishes. Although some of them truly aren't seasoned well, oftentimes, this complaint actually comes from a lack of texture in a dish. And sweet potato casserole is one of those dishes that's especially prone to being too one-note in terms of texture. Creamy mashed potatoes combined with gooey marshmallows make for a soft, texturally boring situation, which is why you may want to consider adding some crunch to your casserole.

There are so, so many different ways to add a crunchy element to a sweet potato casserole, but among the most creative toppings for sweet potatoes is chopped nuts. You can keep things classic here and use pecans (candied ones are particularly tasty, regardless of whether you're making a sweet or savory casserole). But even hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, pistachios, and Brazil nuts can work well. Just make sure they're chopped into small enough pieces so that they're not too crunchy — you don't want grandma breaking a tooth on a fully intact Brazil nut, after all.

Sweet potato casserole is one of the most interesting dishes at the dinner table because it can straddle the line between side dish and dessert. When made with sage, black pepper, and salted butter, it can seem like more of a savory side. But at a different dinner table, you could see a sweet potato casserole covered in marshmallows and chock full of sugar. If you tend toward the latter end of the spectrum, then this upgrade is for you. Adding a drizzle of caramel to your sweet potato casserole can elevate it from simply a sweet dish to an unforgettable dessert that will prompt everyone to ask for the recipe.

Caramel, with its rich complexity and sticky texture, gives your sweet potato casserole a depth that is hard to achieve with other ingredients. And if you opt for salted caramel, then the drizzle will work to balance the dish out, adding both sweet and salty elements to the finished casserole. Salted caramel can even work on a more savory-leaning casserole, if you don't mind including a touch of sweetness in the dish.

After adding in sugar, roasted banana, marshmallows, and maybe even chocolate chips, you may taste your sweet potato casserole and realize that there's way, way too much sugar in the dish. Of course, we all love something super sweet from time to time, especially on the holidays, but there's a limit. Once something gets too sweet, it tastes cloying and unbalanced. So what do you do if you realize that your sweet potato casserole is becoming far too sugary?

Well, there are a few different ingredients you can use to cut down on the sweetness of your sweet potato casserole without having to start from scratch. Buttermilk is a great option, if you happen to have some on hand. This acidic dairy product has an unmistakable tang to it. In fact, buttermilk can lessen the intensity of the sugar and add a creamy element to your casserole. Sour cream can play a similar role. Not only does it cut through all that sugar, but it can provide your casserole with a light, creamy element that only makes it that much more delicious. Use whichever ingredient you have on hand, and you'll never have to contend with another over-sweetened sweet potato casserole again.

You know that flavor you get when you roast marshmallows over an open fire? There's that little bit of char that somehow makes them even sweeter, with a richness that you can't get from a raw marshmallow alone. If you're trying to capture that flavor in your sweet potato casserole, then you should use Sunny Anderson's trick and toast your marshmallows before stirring them into your casserole. The easiest way to do this is to simply place the marshmallows on a non-stick baking sheet, turn on the oven to 390 degrees Fahrenheit, and let them cook for about two minutes. Make sure to keep a close eye on them because sugar can burn extremely quickly.

Once the marshmallows are appropriately toasted, with just a bit of char on them, you can actually mix them into your sweet potatoes and other ingredients, instead of using them as a topping. That way, they will melt, mix, and meld with the other ingredients, giving you a rich, sticky casserole that's infused with sweetness in every bite. It may not be quite as pretty as a marshmallow-topped casserole, but we think the upgrade to the flavor really makes it worth it.