Sweet Potato Pancakes
These sweet potato pancakes are fluffy, sweet, and loaded with warm fall spices for a delicious breakfast treat. Stack them high, add your favorite toppings, and drizzle them with real maple syrup!
If sweet potato casserole is your favorite Thanksgiving side dish, then these sweet potato pancakes will be your new favorite breakfast! They have all the cozy flavors of sweet potato casserole, but in fluffy pancake form.
While sweet potatoes can go from savory to sweet, this sweet potato pancake recipe leans into that natural sweetness by adding brown sugar, vanilla, and all those warm spices you associate with fall desserts—ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
Just add a pumpkin spice latte (or pumpkin spice hot chocolate for the kiddos) and you’ve got yourself the perfect breakfast for a chilly fall morning!
About this sweet potato pancake recipe
These sweet potato pancakes start with cooked sweet potatoes. While you can cook sweet potatoes in the microwave or even boil them, I highly recommend baking them in the oven for this recipe. When you bake them, the starches turn into sugar, and that’s how you get that deliciously caramelized flavor and soft, tender texture we all love in a baked sweet potato.
Another tip for the sweet potatoes is to use red or orange varieties, not white or purple. Red and orange sweet potatoes are sweeter than their white and purple cousins, and you want the sweet potato puree in this recipe to be as sweet as possible because we’re only adding 1/4 cup of brown sugar.
What you need
- Wet ingredients: Cooked sweet potatoes, milk, eggs, brown sugar, vegetable oil/canola oil/melted butter, pure vanilla extract
- Dry ingredients: All-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ground ginger, grated nutmeg
To bake the sweet potatoes: Scrub the sweet potatoes well and pierce them with a fork. Place them on a foil-lined sheet pan and bake at 425ºF for 40 to 60 minutes, depending on their size and shape. (A one-pound sweet potato that’s long and thin will take less time to bake than a one-pound sweet potato that’s short and fat!)
How to make them
Mix the wet ingredients. Place the peeled sweet potatoes in a large mixing bowl and mash them with a fork.
Whisk in the milk, beaten eggs, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla.
Add the dry ingredients. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg to the bowl. Stir lightly to combine the dry ingredients, then incorporate them into the wet ingredients.
Tip: Mixing the dry ingredients on top of the wet ingredients instead of mixing them separately makes this a one-bowl recipe so you have fewer bowls to wash!
Preheat the griddle. While the batter rests for 5 minutes, preheat your griddle over medium-low heat. If your griddle isn’t nonstick, grease it.
Cook the sweet potato pancakes. Place 1/4 cup of batter onto the griddle for each pancake. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes on the first side, flip, and cook 2 to 3 minutes longer on the other side, or until both sides are golden brown.
Repeat with remaining batter, and serve!
FAQs
While the terms “sweet potato” and “yam” are often used interchangeably, the two are very different vegetables! Yams are starchy, with a rough brown exterior. They grow in tropical regions and can be up to 45 feet long. Sweet potatoes have soft skin, and when cooked, the starchy interior becomes sweet and creamy.
Both sweet potatoes and regular potatoes are healthy, but they bring different nutritional benefits to the table. While similar in calories, carbs, and protein, sweet potatoes have more fiber, vitamin A, and vitamin C, while white potatoes have more potassium.
While you can eat the skin of sweet potatoes, you should remove it when mashing the potatoes for this recipe. Sweet potato skin can be tasty, but it’s not very appetizing in a sweet potato pancake!
How to make these sweet potato pancakes your own
Here are some easy ways to switch up this recipe for sweet potato pancakes:
- Make them whole wheat. Use white whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose flour, or swap half of the all-purpose flour for regular whole wheat flour.
- Add nuts. You can stir chopped pecans or walnuts into the batter to add some nutty flavor and texture.
- Top them. While a drizzle of maple syrup is really all you need, you can top these sweet potato pancakes with toasted or candied pecans, mini marshmallows, fried apples, cinnamon whipped cream, or apple compote.
Make Ahead Ideas
Sweet potato pancakes can be made in advance and stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, or frozen for up to 3 months.
Storage Suggestions
Freeze these sweet potato pancakes in an airtight storage container or a freezer bag with parchment paper between the layers.
Reheating Tips
Microwave the pancakes until they’re warmed through, or place them on a sheet pan, cover it with foil to keep the pancakes from drying out, and heat them in a 350ºF oven for about 10 minutes.
If you’re reheating sweet potato pancakes from frozen, simply add a few more minutes to the cooking time.
More fall-inspired pancake recipes
Get the Recipe: Sweet Potato Pancakes
Ingredients
- 1 cup cooked sweet potatoes (1-2 medium sized sweet potatoes)
- 1 ¾ cup milk
- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
- ¼ cup packed brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil or melted butter
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
Instructions
- Mash sweet potatoes in large bowl with fork until quite smooth. Add milk, beaten eggs, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla. Whisk until blended.
- Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg to the bowl. Stir lightly to combine, then stir dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
- Let batter rest 5 minutes while griddle preheats over medium low heat. Grease griddle if you’re not using a nonstick griddle.
- Drop batter by ¼ cupfuls onto hot griddle. Cook 3-4 minutes on first side, flip, and cook 2-3 minutes longer or until golden brown. Cook time varies depending on how hot your griddle is and how large you make the pancakes.
Notes
- Makes about 16 pancakes.
- To bake the sweet potatoes: Scrub the sweet potatoes well and pierce them with a fork. Place them on a foil-lined sheet pan and bake at 425ºF for 40 to 60 minutes, depending on their size and shape. (A one-pound sweet potato that’s long and thin will take less time to bake than a one-pound sweet potato that’s short and fat!)
- Sweet potato pancakes can be made in advance and stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, or frozen for up to 3 months. Freeze these sweet potato pancakes in an airtight storage container or a freezer bag with parchment paper between the layers.
- To reheat, microwave the pancakes until they’re warmed through, or place them on a sheet pan, cover it with foil to keep the pancakes from drying out, and heat them in a 350ºF oven for about 10 minutes. If you’re reheating sweet potato pancakes from frozen, simply add a few more minutes to the cooking time.
This feels so healthy. I’m trying this right away.
I hope you love them!
These pancakes were delish! My family can’t get enough of it, and I am always looking for ways to use sweet potatoes 😉
So glad you enjoyed them, thank you for leaving a review