These Sweet Potato Cakes are soft on the inside, super crispy on the outside and truly appealing to kids and adults alike. They’re a great side for the holiday dinner table, or any time of year, really!
Although Sweet Potatoes in Orange Cups is my favorite, tried and true dish to serve at Thanksgiving, this year I wanted to try making something a little bit different. Sweet Potato Cakes are the perfect solution for the members of my family (basically just my husband) who just can’t deal with yet another year of a sweet potato side dish topped with marshmallows.
Sweet Potatoes are so naturally sweet this entire recipe only calls for one tablespoon of brown sugar, which is a win. It’s a sweet potato for the people who don’t love the super sweet casseroles that typically adorn the Thanksgiving table. I for one, love those, but it’s good to have options!
I love this recipe too because it doesn’t have to be Thanksgiving or Christmas to make these. If you have a bunch of sweet potatoes that you’re not sure what to do with, it’s a great go-to. It’s super easy and requires very little time spent actually cooking. Pop them in the oven for an hour and get some other things done while they bake! Then just mash them up, saute and boom — delicious Sweet Potato Cakes ready to go!
If sweet potatoes aren’t your “thing”, you can make Mashed Potato Pancakes which are similar to this recipe, but made with regular potatoes. My kids love them! But if sweet potatoes are your favorite, you’ve come to the right place. I have so many sweet potato recipes for you to try like Sweet Potato Pancakes, Mini Sweet Potato Muffins or Potato Packets.
Whether you decide to make these Sweet Potato Cakes for Thanksgiving or any time during the fall or winter, they are guaranteed to be a sure fire hit!
Sweet Potato Cakes
Ingredients
- 3 medium sweet potatoes
- 1 large egg, whisked
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 cups panko or bread crumbs, divided
- vegetable or canola oil, as needed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 F.
- Poke a few holes in the sweet potatoes and bake for 1 hour.
- Remove and discard the skins from the potatoes, mash flesh in a bowl and allow to cool.
- Mix the egg, cinnamon, sugar, salt and ½ cup of panko or bread crumbs into the sweet potatoes.
- Place the remaining 1 1/2 cups of panko or bread crumbs in a separate bowl.
- For each cake, coat 2 tablespoons of the mixture with the panko and shape into small patties.
- Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a skillet over medium heat and place the patties into the skillet.
- Pan-fry for 4 minutes on each side until golden.*
- Continue to pan-fry the remaining cakes with oil as needed.
- Serve.
Notes
- Sweet Potato Cakes can be kept warm in a 250 degree oven until ready to serve.
Made these yesterday and they tasted very good but the texture was not of a patty. They fell apart every time i turn them over and i ended up with a lot of small pieces.
I don’t think coconut would get crispy like panko would, but I can suggest using Chex cereal. They have Rice and Corn Chex which are both gluten free. You could crush them up and use to coat the sweet potato cakes.
what would you suggest substituting the bread crumbs/panko for my son can’t have gluten? would shredded coconut work?
[…] SWEET POTATO CAKES […]
Is it possible to boil/pressure cook the sweet potatoes instead of baking them?
Thanks.
Do you think this will work with Butternut Squash???
Mmm, I have a big, yummy purple sweet potato from the farmer’s market that would be beautiful in this dish!
These sound great. I think this will be part of dinner tomorrow. Thanks!
These sound awesome…I think we’ll be trying them for thanksgiving this year 🙂
Too bad, the recipe came after the Canadian Thanksgiving.
Yum! I’ve been looking for something to mix it up differently from the usual sweet potatoes + marshmallows dish. Must try it before Thanksgiving as a practice run!
Yes, you can use yams. Yum!
Would I be able to substitute yams for the sweet potatoes?
This sounds delicious; I can’t wait to try it!
I haven’t tried to freeze them, but you could try breading them, freezing them on baking sheets, putting them in zippper bags and then defrosting before pan searing.
Do you think these would freeze ok?
Never say never. IMO theres a replacer for everything.
Perhaps a little silken tofu would be just the right thing in this recipe? I believe its 1/4 cup tofu per egg.