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
Does anyone actually try these recipes- it’s sort of bizarre to have all the responses (including this one) but not about the final product-its deceiving when one is looking for positive reviews and nobody has made it.
Hi Dee, I recommend looking at the final pages of the comments – those are the most recent ones and often include reviews. Hope this helps!
I’ve made this probably 4 times now and it’s turned out perfectly each time, it’s my favorite vegan casserole recipe. I think all of the recipes on this site are spot on!
I agree that it is sometimes frustrating… I posted a comment below (2 years later) so if you have not tried this I recommend you do because for a person like myself who is the queen of messing up recipes, this was out of this world and sooooooo easy to do… totally worth the effort and you will have others drooling!
I’ve made this many times and LOVE it!! Going to make it for Thanksgiving tomorrow, too. But I thought I’d make them in little individual dishes. Any ideas how to adjust the cooking temp or time (if at all) So they cook the same?
Quick note for anyone wanting to make this ahead – I found this comment on another part of the site: “You can prepare it (without cooking) the day before (and place in the fridge), bring to room temperature, and cook it 45 mins before dinner is served.” I’m assuming that means including putting the topping on it, and refrigerating the whole thing. I’ll be doing that at Christmas. FYI!
I just made this as my contribution to my family’s Christmas dinner and it was a hit! The only thing I changed was sunflower seeds to replace the pecans (my niece has nut allergies). Delicious! I think this will be making regular appearances at family holiday meals. Thank you for the wonderful recipe!
I assume that the Earth Balance called for in the topping is butter?
Yep, you got it, Anne! Earth Balance is a vegan butter.
I stumbled across this recipe while I was looking for something different for breakfast and I had sweet potatoes around. amazing!!!
I love how versatile this recipe is. See below-
I had 4 leftover baked sweet potatoes in the refrigerator that were 2 days old and measuring them it came to the equivalent of tripling the recipe. So I peeled them, mashed them and
bravely triple the recipe. I did put it in a larger pyrex baking dish and had to cook it longer and despite not quite knowing how to use the broiler ( mine does not have a hi low setting and I could not find the serial number to look up how it worked) this was soon delicious. It was softer not so solid but it was soon good! Wow!
I also did not have chia seeds so I used ground flaxseed instead and it still turned out amazing.
I had vanilla bean powder that I used instead of the vanilla extract.
Because I was scrambling around looking for sugar and could only find some old turbinado sugar, I only doubled instead of tripled the brown sugar in the topping but again still sumptuous! Will need to make sure I have some sucanat around for next time.
The main part of the dish, oats and sweet potato part were so tasty even before baking and even without the topping. The topping just added that much more zing! party in my mouth.
Just like the author said this is sooooo good cold or warmed up the next day.
I added frozen unsweetened cranberries and raspberries (1.5 cups) that i briefly heated on the stove and mashed a little and added it to the cold leftovers in a bowl with some soymilk and oh my word… i was in heaven thinking I was eating a fabulous cobbler.
Wow… home run… thank you thank you thank you!!!!
Hi – thank you so much for sharing this recipe. I have tried it multiple times and it was always a hit in my family. Wondering if we can make this recipe in instant pot?