Baked Sweet Potatoes With Cinnamon Crunch Topping
Breakfast For Dinner
Brown sugar, cinnamon, garlic salt, and pepper plus the butter crunch of baked cereal squares on top make this Baked Sweet Potatoes with Cinnamon Crunch Topping the end all, be all of sweet potato recipes.
When I first made the recipe for this sweet potato side dish years ago, Mister looked at me like I was crazy when he saw the ingredients. It wasn’t long, however, before he was swayed into loving them after one bite.
Let Me, Help You
There is a printable recipe card at the end of this post. Before the recipe card, I share a few quick paragraphs that a cook who needs more clarification may find useful.
When you scroll to the recipe card, there is a print button under the photo of the recipe. If you don’t want to print this, you can still hit it so that the recipe card appears on one page, with no ads, so you can screen shot this.
There is also a Pinterest button at the top of the card that you can use to pin this recipe to your Pinterest page. Very handy, very demure.
Not Weird, Delicious
Now cereal may seem like a odd thing to use in a savory recipe to some, but I love using unexpected ingredients to add some flavor and crunch.
In fact, I have another savory recipe using cereal. It is for my Rice Krispie Chicken.
The cereal gives such a nice crunch and flavor. The same concept is true here for the Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal in this recipe.
Also, it is a whole grain cereal, so it is almost like it is good for you!
Butter Makes It Better
There is a lot of butter in this recipe, I agree with you. But this is a dish I would usually serve around the holidays and I feel like butter amounts do not count on holidays.
The butter and sugar plus all the herbs bake up in the potatoes and caramelize them. It makes the sweet potatoes taste so good.
Adding some of the same butter mixture to the crushed cereal helps it to toast up crunchy and delicious.
Peeling The Potatoes
The steps have you boiling the potatoes with the skin on. I have this step this way because it keeps the potatoes from absorbing too much water in the boiling process.
If you peel them and cut them and boil them, they absorb a ton of water and they do not “get candied” as they bake up.
Use caution when peeling the hot potatoes as you can easily get burned. I use paper towels on my hands to carefully peel them.
In The Can
If you are in a time crunch, you CAN use CANNED potatoes. In this instance I really do think the fresh option is best, but if you really need to save time or effort, go ahead with your canned self.
Prep Ahead To Save Time
If you want to, you can prep this dish ahead of time and bake it all up when your turkey is out of the oven and resting. You can also bake this all up the day before and warm it in the oven on low, or even the microwave in a pinch.
Will it be AS good this way? NO! But will it be good? YES!
Baked Sweet Potatoes with Cinnamon Crunch Topping Recipe
The side dish you're missing this holiday season are these baked sweet potatoes with a cinnamon crunch topping. These take a few extra steps to make, but the end result is fantastic.
Ingredients
- 4 to 5 medium sized sweet potatoes
- 8 tablespoons of butter
- 3 tablespoons of brown sugar
- 2 tabelspoons of heavy cream
- 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 1 to 2 teaspoons of garlic salt (or to taste)
- 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (or to taste)
- 1/4 teaspoon of chili powder (or to taste)
- 1 teaspoon of onion powder (or to taste)
- 2 teaspoons of dried parsley
- Couple of shakes of black pepper
- Pinch of Salt
- 3 cups of Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal (generic varieties are fine)
Instructions
- Place your sweet potatoes in a very large pot, cover with water, add some salt and boil for about 20 minutes or until the potatoes are soft enough to poke a fork into them.
- Drain the potatoes and let them cool slightly. Then you will want to careful peel the skins off the potatoes while the potatoes are whole. Be very careful when you do this, as they will still be hot. I use paper towels to sort of rub the skin off the potatoes.
- Discard the skins and cut your potatoes into larger than bite sized chunks. Mine are usually about 2 to 3 inches big.
- Spray a 9 x 12 inch casserole dish with non stick spray or use butter. Heat your oven to 375 degrees.
- Add your sweet potatoes in one layer to the casserole.
- In a sauce pan, add your butter, and all the seasonings and herbs, plus the brown sugar, vanilla and cream. *if you are feeling feisty you can add a couple tablespoons of whiskey to this as well.
- Warm this until all the butter is melted and the ingredients are combined.
- Reserve approximately 2 tablespoons of the butter mixture and then pour the rest over the potatoes making sure to get them all drenched in the butter mix. You can use a pastry brush to brush the butter on them all over if you wish.
- Cover the pan with one single layer of foil and bake for 35 minutes.
- While this bakes, crush up your Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal, add to a bowl and add the butter mixture. If the butter has cooled, heat this again so you can cover the cereal. If you need to, you can add a little more butter to this if you think it needs it.
- After the potatoes bake for 35 minutes, uncover, sprinkle the cereal mix all over the top of the potatoes and bake for another 20 minutes, uncovered.
- Remove from oven and let this sit for about 5 to 10 minutes before serving.