Slow Cooker Sweet Potatoes are super sweet, tender and creamy. Making sweet potatoes in your slow cooker is so easy to do, and it frees up your oven on holidays. Top with lots of butter and salt and pepper or brown sugar and a drizzle of honey.
Why You’ll Love Making Slow Cooker Sweet Potatoes
Of course it’s pretty easy to throw a few sweet potatoes in the oven for an hour or so, we’re not going to debate that. However, these Slow Cooker Sweet Potatoes are on our menu for a lot of other reasons.
- Easy To Make: All you need to do is place the sweet potatoes in a slow cooker and turn it on. Walk away, nothing to monitor or turn over.
- Free Up Oven Space: Often during parties or holidays, your oven is jam packed with a large turkey or holiday ham. Using your slow cooker to make a side dish like these sweet potatoes is a great way to get around that.
- Affordable: Sweet potatoes are very affordable, so you can feed a crowd for pennies.
- Versatile: You can top these potatoes with a variety of toppings, form sweet to savory. So versatile that they can also be served as a vegetarian main course.
How To Make Slow Cooker Sweet Potatoes
Making this recipe is as easy as placing the sweet potatoes into your slow cooker and turning it on!
- STEP 1 – Add The Sweet Potatoes: You can add 1 or as many sweet potatoes as you need. Stack the sweet potatoes on top of each other if they don’t fit in a single layer.
- STEP 2 – Cook: Set the slow cooker on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 3-4. The time will vary depending on how large or small the sweet potatoes are.
- STEP 3 – Test and Serve: Insert a knife into the largest potato to see if it slides in and out easily. Keep on the warm setting until you’re ready to serve and then top with desired toppings.
Toppings For Sweet Potatoes
There’s a lot of ways that you can top sweet potatoes, whether they are the main course or a side dish. Sweet or savory, however you like them.
Sweet Toppings:
Along with the sweet toppings, we typically do add butter as well. After adding butter (or not), you can also try:
- Brown sugar
- Honey
- Maple syrup
- Marshmallows
- Ground cinnamon and nutmeg
- Sweetened whipped cream
- Nuts like pecans or walnuts
Savory Toppings:
Savory toppings for these sweet potatoes don’t just have to mean salt and pepper, although we do love simply seasoned sides. With or without butter you can also try:
- Sour cream
- Greek yogurt
- Cooked bacon
- Pulled pork
- Buffalo Chicken
- Cheese
- Nuts like pecans or walnuts (also on our sweet toppings list)
Are Sweet Potatoes The Same As Yams?
No. Sweet potatoes and yams are different. Yams are dry and starchy like a regular potato and have a rough dark skin. Sweet potatoes have a smooth, red skin and a soft, tender, sweet flesh.
The two shouldn’t be used interchangeably in recipes as the end result after cooking yields different textures and flavors.
Ways To Use Cooked Sweet Potatoes
If you have leftover potatoes or you’re making this recipe to meal prep for the week, there’s many different ways to use them!
- Add them to bowls, like this Salmon Bowl which can also be swapped out with chicken, turkey or kept vegetarian.
- Use them in breads, muffins or other baked goods.
- Add to a smoothie
- Make a Sweet Potato Casserole
- Use to make pancakes
Tips For Success
Even though this is a really easy recipe to make, we do have a few tips and tricks to help make these the best tasting sweet potatoes ever!
- Size: Try choosing potatoes that are roughly the same size so that they cook at the same time.
- Don’t Overcook: Some slow cookers cook faster than others so try and check the potatoes around the 6-7 hour mark on low or the 2-3 hour mark on high to see how much longer they have to go.
- No Poking: Unlike a baked potato recipe, there’s no need to poke holes in these slow cooker potatoes to release the steam.
Love Sweet Potatoes? We’ve Got More Recipes!
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Slow Cooker Sweet Potatoes
- Prep Time: 2 minutes
- Cook Time: 8 hours
- Total Time: 8 hours 2 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeSlow Cooker Sweet Potatoes turn out super sweet and caramelized. Free up your oven space during parties or holidays, or have a delicious side dish or meal waiting for you when you get home!
Ingredients
- 1 – 8 sweet potatoes (as many as you need and your slow cooker will fit)
Instructions
- Spray the slow cooker insert with non-stick cooking spray.
- Wash and dry the potatoes and place into your slow cooker. If you’re cooking just 1 or 2 sweet potatoes, place them in the center of the slow cooker. You can cook as many potatoes as your slow cooker will fit, just stack them on top of each other, but do leave some room at the top of the slow cooker for the steam to rise.
- Set your slow cooker on high for 3-4 hours or on low for 7-8 hours. The timing will vary depending on how large or small the sweet potatoes are. When buying sweet potatoes for this recipe, try to get them roughly the same size so they are finished at the same time.
- Insert a knife into the flesh of a large potato. If it goes in and comes out easily the potatoes are done.
- Use cooked sweet potatoes in recipe like casseroles or mashed sweet potatoes, or cut and serve with butter or desired toppings.
Recipe Notes
Store: Cooked sweet potatoes will stay good in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Reheat: Warm up in the microwave or oven.
Freeze: Scoop out the flesh and let it cool completely. Freeze in air tight containers or freezer bags for up to 6 months.
- Category: Side Dish
- Method: Slow Cooker
- Cuisine: American
