This sweet potato casserole is to die for! This casserole is practically a dessert, but it somehow still gets classified as a vegetable side dish. There are a lot of variations on this dish, and this one is for everyone who is “Team Marshmallow Topping.” Everyone at your holiday events this year will love this delicious casserole and its buttery, sweet filling and gooey topping.

For more delicious side dishes, try our green bean casserole or our famous dinner rolls.

Why Our Recipe

  • Smooth and buttery sweet potato filling topped with caramelized toasted marshmallows for the perfect indulgent side dish.
  • Easy, make-ahead instructions allow you to prep in advance and simply add marshmallows before baking.
A close up of a spoon lifting a bite of sweet potato casserole with marshmallows from a plate.

Is there really any better way to eat sweet potatoes than with brown sugar, butter, and marshmallows? Not really! This recipe is irresistibly delicious, and it comes together super easily! This recipe even has simple, make-ahead instructions so you can get the filling ready in advance and just add marshmallows before baking.

Ingredient Notes

An overhead view of whole sweet potatoes next to bowls and measuring cups and spoons filled with ingredients to make sweet potato casserole with marshmallows.
  • Sweet Potatoes: You’ll want to peel and cube the sweet potatoes for boiling. If you want to add an additional layer of flavor, you can bake them in the oven at 400 degrees for 1 hour.
  • Milk: Whole, 2%, or 1% milk works well here. You can also substitute
  • Brown Sugar: Light or dark brown sugar both work, and you can replace with granulated sugar. It just won’t have that same darker molasses flavor that comes from brown sugar.
  • Eggs: These add structure to the casserole to create a more custard-like filling.
  • Mini marshmallows: Definitely go for the minis on this one—large marshmallows will make for an extremely thick topping that will be too sweet for this already sweet recipe. If you only have large marshmallows, you can cut those up using kitchen scissors. You can spray the scissors with nonstick cooking spray to prevent the marshmallows from sticking.

Sweet Potatoes vs Yams

In the United States, we tend to use “sweet potato” and “yam” interchangeably to refer to the potato-like vegetable with reddish brown skin and orange flesh. However, you might have also seen something labeled as a sweet potato in the grocery store that has light yellow skin. And sometimes, the orange flesh variety are labeled as yams. It can get confusing, but both are actually sweet potatoes!

Yams are just dark-skinned sweet potatoes. You probably won’t come across actual yams in an American grocery store—tru yams have brown or black skin, and the flesh is either red, purple, or off-white. We usually use garnet sweet potatoes because we love the color and flavor, but you can use orange or white sweet potatoes depending on your preference.

A collage of images showing each step of making sweet potato casserole with marshmallows.

Canned Sweet Potatoes

This recipe calls for raw sweet potatoes, and we highly recommend sticking with that to get the best flavor and texture. But if you only have canned sweet potatoes, we can make that work too! You’ll just skip the first and second steps of the recipe that ask you to chop and then boil the sweet potatoes.

Instead, drain your canned yams thoroughly and then mix them in with the other ingredients before placing them into your casserole dish. You’ll need 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of sweet potatoes, but you can always scale the recipe down to be smaller if you need to.

An overhead view of a pan of sweet potato casserole with marshmallows.

Mashing Options

This recipe calls for using a hand mixer to whip your sweet potatoes until smooth. If you don’t have a hand mixer, you can mash the boiled and drained sweet potatoes by hand with a potato masher or a large fork. You can even try using a ricer or food mill, which makes it easy to get a very fine, lump-free mash without needing a mixer.

Storage and Reheating Instructions

Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container for up to 4 days.

Reheat portions in the microwave on high in 30-second increments. You can also rewarm the casserole in the oven if you want to reheat a large portion at one time. Preheat the oven to 350, then put the casserole in until warmed through.

More sweet potato sides…

Watch the video below where Rachel will walk you through every step of this recipe. Sometimes it helps to have a visual, and we’ve always got you covered with our cooking show. You can find the complete collection of recipes on YouTube, our Facebook Page, or right here on our website with their corresponding recipes.