A recipe for mashed sweet potatoes, featuring easy, roasted sweet potatoes, goat cheese, chopped sage and honey walnuts.
If you are looking for a fun, new fall side dish to feed a crowd, surely these mashed sweet potatoes are speaking your love language right now. I was hosting a pre-Thanksgiving party, and I was in need of a side dish to go alongside my roasted turkey that didn’t require too much hands-on time, yet still prove worthy of an addition to a Thanksgiving spread.
Now, I know traditionally we would be rocking a sweet potato casserole next to the turkey, and if you’re in the market for one of those, I’ve got a stellar recipe for you right here.
ROAST THE SWEET POTATOES
But, for this meal, in particular, I was in need of a side dish a little less hands-on, and this recipe is exactly that. It begins with whole, roasted sweet potatoes. Roasting whole sweet potatoes could literally not get any easier: Scrub ’em down, put them on a sheet pan, drizzle with a little canola oil and the preparation takes a whopping 5 minutes out of your day. Doesn’t get much easier than that friends. Throw them in the oven at 400° and let them go for about an hour.
While those potatoes are roasting and you’ve got all this free time on your hands, let’s talk about all the ah-mazing and scrumptious flavor components that go into this recipe, and pair perfectly with our sweet potatoes. We will begin with goat cheese.
SWEET POTATOES WITH GOAT CHEESE
Sweet potatoes are pretty one-dimensional in flavor. They’re sweet. End of story. That story was so boring, right? Add a little goat cheese to the party, and boredom is officially a non-issue. Goat cheese is loud, tangy, and vibrant. Just what those potatoes needed — a little wakeup call.
The goat cheese is whipped together with heavy whipping cream, and one by one, the sweet potatoes go in to join in on all fun. The butteriness from the cream alongside the sharp notes of the goat cheese in combination with those roasted sweet potatoes — goodness gracious, y’all — I can already tell this is going to be one heck of a party.
On to the spices. To make these mashed sweet potatoes sing fall, we add in a few beloved spices that give us all those warm and cozy feels we love so much. Cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg go in. And, keeping in line of spices, let’s talk fresh herbs.
The next ingredient added to our mashed sweet potatoes is freshly chopped sage. I love sage. It’s so pretty with its velvety feel and beautiful greenish-grey color. Fresh sage is extremely fragrant, loud in flavor and you’ll find just a little bit can go quite a long way.
Next, the honey walnuts. Everybody loves the honey walnuts. This one is a no-brainer. Now, I’m going to make mine from scratch, cause it takes like 10 minutes and I can control the salt this way. I like salty things, don’t you? However, if you don’t have it in you to sugar up some nuts on any given day, feel free to pick up a bag of candied walnuts from the grocery store, and if you can’t find walnuts, pecans will sub in just fine. You could also skip the sugary stuff completely, and use plain chopped walnuts instead.
In the end, this recipe for mashed sweet potatoes with goat cheese, sage, and honey walnuts was everything I needed it to be and more. Simple to assemble, only a small amount of hands-on time required, beautifully flavored and the perfectly suitable substitute for sweet potato casserole on Thanksgiving day.
Whether you are hosting a fall dinner party, creating a Thanksgiving menu of your own, or just looking for an exciting change of pace in the side dish department, this recipe is guaranteed to be a sweet potato crowd-pleaser. Please, enjoy.
A recipe for mashed sweet potatoes, featuring easy, roasted sweet potatoes, goat cheese, chopped sage and honey walnuts.
- 8 medium-sized sweet potatoes scrubbed clean and patted dry
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- 6 ounces goat cheese room temperature
- 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream room temperature
- 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon allspice
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 cup honey walnuts chopped
- 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh minced sage separated
- 2 ounces cold goat cheese crumbled
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Preheat the oven to 400° and have ready a large rimmed sheet pan lined with aluminum foil.
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Place the scrubbed sweet potatoes on the sheet pan and drizzle with canola oil. Bake for 1 hour. Remove from the oven and set aside until cool enough to handle.
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In the meantime, in a large mixing bowl, add 6 ounces room temperature goat cheese, and the cream. Using a handheld mixer, beat on medium-high until well-blended.
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Peel the potatoes out of the skins and add each potato one at a time to the goat cheese mixture, mixing on medium-low speed.
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Once the potatoes have been incorporated, add the salt, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, cayenne, 1 tablespoon of sage, and mix once more until incorporated. Stir in about 2/3 of the honey walnuts.
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Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with the remaining walnuts, crumbled goat cheese and remaining sage. Serve and enjoy.
A quick and easy recipe for stovetop honey walnuts.
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 cup walnut pieces
- Heavy pinch Kosher salt
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Have ready a silicone baking mat or a sheet of parchment paper.
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Add butter to a sauté pan over medium heat and allow to melt. As soon as the butter has melted, whisk in the honey.
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Add the walnuts, and increase the heat to medium-high. Stir often until the honey coating thickens and darkens in color slightly, about 2-3 minutes. Sprinkle with a generous pinch of Kosher salt.
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Transfer the nuts to the silicone mat and allow to cool completely, about 10 minutes.
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