This Ain’t Grandma’s Sweet Potato Casserole

Last week when I asked you to send in your favourite Thanksgiving recipes that you wanted veganized, a certain email from Julianna spoke to me:

Hey Angela,
This is a famous recipe that has been in our family for generations. Our family calls it the Senator Russell after some Senator in Georgia a long time ago. It’s very Southern and delicious.
As the token vegetarian (and most days vegan except for honey and occasional greek yogurt) in my Southern family I would love a way to make this so that I could enjoy it as well.

I knew that I had to try out my first vegan sweet potato casserole. My mom has been making sweet potato casserole ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper and it is a treat that I always enjoyed! I was determined to make a vegan sweet potato casserole that would taste delicious.

Out of respect for Julianna’s family, I am not going to post their recipe on here, but I will tell you some ingredients that I chose to do without: eggs, white sugar, butter, evaporated milk, brown sugar, white flour.

My first attempt was a huge and utter epic failure. It tasted good, but the texture was not up to par. Too much liquid. But I knew that could be easily resolved.

Last night, I jumped into my car at 10pm and booted it to the grocery store to buy more sweet potatoes. From 10:30-midnight, I was working on attempt #2. How is that for dedication?!

This morning I popped the casserole into the oven…and voila, my friends. Magic happened. Second time is a charm. ;) Not to mention I got to photograph in natural light which is always superior!

This Ain’t Grandma’s Sweet Potato Casserole (Vegan)

adapted from Fat Free Vegan blog.

 
Ingredients:

• 4 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cooked
• 2 tablespoons vegan butter (I used Earth Balance)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 tbsp pure maple syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon fine grain salt
• 3/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Topping:

• 1/4 cup Earth Balance
• 1/2 cup Sucanat (or brown sugar)
• 1/3 cup white or spelt flour (or gluten-free)
• 3/4 cups chopped pecans (I didn’t have- optional)

Directions: Preheat the oven to 350 F and lightly grease a 2 quart casserole dish with canola oil. I wipe a bit on with a paper towel. Peel and then boil sweet potatoes until tender. Mash the sweet potatoes with the margarine until smooth. Add the vanilla, maple syrup, sea salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. Pour into casserole dish. Next, mix the topping ingredients together until well-combined. Sprinkle topping mixture over the casserole and bake for approx. 50 minutes, checking it every so often.

Makes 10 servings at approximately 215 calories per serving (without pecans)

Note:

1) You can add marshmallows if you’d like (Dandie’s brand are vegan). I thought it was fine without any though.

How did it taste?

JACKPOT!!

This sweet potato casserole is a big winner in my books! Both the sweet potato mixture and the sweet spelt topping was utterly divine. I did not miss the marshmallow topping, in fact I liked this one better.

I cut down the sugar by over half. I really DID NOT miss the 1/4 cup of sugar and 2 T of maple syrup that I cut out. It was still very sweet. I actually can’t imagine having it any sweeter than it already was. It was ‘just right’ in my opinion and isn’t going to give you a tummy ache. ;)

I also removed the pecans because I didn’t have any. I actually mixed in some chia seeds into the topping! The best thing about this dish is that you can adapt it to however you’d like it

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson