These candied yams are sweet potatoes tossed in brown sugar, butter and spices, then baked until caramelized. Add a sprinkle of marshmallows and you’ve got the perfect holiday side dish with minimal effort!
Every holiday meal must include sweet potatoes. When I’m in charge of Thanksgiving dinner, I often make side dish recipes such as Hasselback sweet potatoes, Ruth’s Chris sweet potato casserole, mashed sweet potatoes, or this sweet and decadent candied yams recipe.
Candied yams are a holiday staple for good reason – they’re elegant, easy to make and taste absolutely delicious. This dish is the perfect way to showcase sweet potatoes, whether it’s for a special occasion or a simple weeknight dinner.
Pair your yams with an Instant Pot turkey breast, baked ham, Cajun turkey or smoked turkey breast for a memorable meal. Don’t forget the Thanksgiving salad on the side!
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Classic: Candied yams is a classic dish for Thanksgiving and the holidays. My husband’s cousins in the South love this dish and enjoy it for the holidays or for a Southern Sunday dinner.
- Candied: What makes candied yams so special is that they are coated and baked in a in a brown sugar and butter sauce. The sauce brings out the flavor of the potatoes and makes for a sweet and delicious dish.
Candied Yams Ingredients
This candied yams recipe contains yams (also known as sweet potatoes!), brown sugar, butter, ground cinnamon, salt, ground nutmeg and miniature marshmallows. Amounts and details are in the recipe card below.
- Yams: Look for sweet potatoes with orange or red flesh. Jewel and garnet sweet potatoes work great! Don’t use canned yams.
- Butter: Butter helps turn the sugar and spices into a sauce that coats the yams to make them delicious.
- Brown Sugar: Look for dark brown sugar, not light brown sugar, to give your yams the best flavor.
- Nutmeg: This recipe uses a little ground nutmeg to give the yams a good spiced flavor. You can buy ground nutmeg or grind your own nutmeg with a box grater or microplane grater.
How Do You Make Candied Yams?
To make candied yams you want to find some fresh yams with a nice, orange interior. Peel the yams, then dice them up into small slices or chunks and place them in a baking pan or casserole dish that has been coated in cooking spray. Make the delicious brown sugar glaze that “candies” the yams by whisking together brown sugar, butter, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl. Be sure to add the secret ingredient, a pinch of nutmeg.
Pour the sauce over the yams and toss gently to coat. Bake everything up until the yams are fork tender and caramelized. The finishing touch is a handful of miniature marshmallows. Sprinkle them on the yams and put the dish back in the oven for a few minutes to toast the marshmallows. Take the dish out of the oven and enjoy!
Tips For The Perfect Candied Yams
- I like to choose long, thinner sweet potatoes at the grocery store because they are easier to cut into similar size pieces.
- Make sure you cut your yams into even sized pieces so they cook at the same rate. You also want your sweet potato chunks to fit on a fork and be bite sized.
- This dish is best served immediately upon coming out of the oven when the marshmallows are nice and hot and the yams are fork tender.
- If you need to feed a larger crowd, you can double or even triple the recipe.
- You do not need to boil your potatoes ahead of time. They will cook to perfection in the sauce in the oven!
- Leftover candied yams will stay fresh in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
- While I often serve these yams around the holidays, they’re really good all year long. Pair them with a roasted chicken, London broil or baked mac and cheese for a dinner that the whole family will love.
Quick Tip
Watch your dish carefully after you add the marshmallows because they can go from melted to burned in just seconds!
Recipe FAQ
Yams in the grocery store are sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes come in different colors and shapes. Sometimes grocery stores label the orange fleshed sweet potatoes as yams. However, there is a difference between sweet potatoes and true yams. A true yam is a root vegetable from Africa and Asia with a rough, brown skin. You do not want to use a true yam for this recipe, you will not get the same results. Feel free use any orange or red fleshed sweet potato for this recipe. I like to use the jewel or garnet varieties of sweet potatoes for this dish.
While this dish tends to be sweet in nature, candied yams are most commonly served as a side dish rather than a dessert.
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Make Ahead Instructions
You can partially prepare this candied yams recipe in advance to make things go a little easier when you’re entertaining. You can coat the uncooked yams in the butter and brown sugar mixture, then store them in a bowl covered with aluminum foil in the refrigerator for up to 8 hours. Pour the yams into the baking dish and proceed with the rest of the recipe as directed. The butter mixture may solidify in the fridge, but that’s totally fine.
The other option is to coat the potatoes in the brown sugar and butter, then bake them as directed, cool and reheat later. You’ll want to add the marshmallows when you reheat them, not during the initial baking. The yams may have a softer texture if they’re baked then reheated since they’re essentially being cooked twice.
Candied Sweet Potatoes Variations
You can make these yams a number of ways for any holiday or dinner. Here are some fun variations.
- Sauce only: You can omit the marshmallows and just enjoy the flavor of the brown sugar sauce.
- Nuts: Feel free to add chopped nuts like pecans or walnuts. You can sprinkle the nuts on top of the yams or mix them into the dish.
- Vanilla: You can also add a dash of vanilla extract to the butter and sugar sauce.
- Sweet: Swap out the brown sugar for maple syrup or add a little molasses for a different flavor.
- Streusel Topping: Instead of marshmallows, try a streusel topping. You can make a quick streusel by mixing in a bowl 1/2 cup of packed brown sugar, 1/2 cup of flour, 4 tablespoons of melted butter and 1/4 cup of chopped pecans. Mix everything in the bowl until if forms crumbles. Place crumbles on the yams before they go into the oven and bake according to the recipe.
- Citrus: Add extra flavor with a squeeze of orange juice or fresh orange zest.
- Spices: You can also add more warm spices such as ground allspice, ground cloves or ground ginger.
Candied yams is a classic dish that is great for holidays, special occasions or any time you want a particularly fabulous dinner. If you want to enjoy this dish with soul food favorites try some Southern mac and cheese, collard greens with bacon, slow cooker black eyed peas and Mississippi pot roast. If you love sweet potatoes, you’ll adore this recipe!
More Side Dish Recipes
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1 hr 10 mins
Broccoli Casserole
40 mins
Grilled Mushrooms
20 mins
Roasted Green Beans
30 mins
Candied Yams Video
Love This Recipe?
Please leave a 5-star 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 rating in the recipe card below & a review in the comments section further down the page.
Candied Yams
Ingredients
- 4 pounds sweet potatoes peeled, halved and cut into 1 inch pieces
- 2/3 cup dark brown sugar packed
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter melted
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
- 2 cups miniature marshmallows
- cooking spray
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Coat a 9×13 inch pan or 3 quart baking dish with cooking spray.
- Place the sweet potatoes in an even layer in the dish.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg.
- Pour the brown sugar mixture over the sweet potatoes. Toss to coat them evenly in the sauce.
- Bake the yams for 30-40 minutes, stirring every 15-20 minutes, until tender and caramelized.
- Sprinkle the marshmallows over the top, and bake for another 5 minutes or until marshmallows are melted and browned. Serve immediately.
Notes
- I like to choose long, thinner sweet potatoes because they are easier to cut into similar size pieces.
- Make sure you cut your yams into even sized pieces so they cook at the same rate.
- This dish is best served immediately upon coming out of the oven when the marshmallows are nice and hot.
This is almost the same recipe of mine!! I also add a little crushed pineapple and
walnuts ( which I noticed is on you recipe later!). YUMM
I had to make in advance. Doesnt come out too bad. Just dont over heat it. Thanks sara
Can this be made in advance? And then do marshmallows right before serving? Thanks!
Yes that’s fine!
Can I use light brown sugar if I don’t have dark?
Yes that’s fine.
Can I add fresh carrots to the fresh yams in this recipe to make it add up to 4 lbs. if I don’t have 4 lbs. of fresh yams??
Yes that’s fine!
Super easy recipe! The directions are clear, and the sweet potatoes came out soft and delectable. I added a sliced apple.
I did it a bit differently I first cooked 3 yams at 50 minutes with holes in them with a knife. Then I used the syrup from this recipe and placed in the mashed yams. I placed the marshmallows on top for 15minutes and it was hit. Thank you for this recipe next time I will try the yams whole.
I love the simplicity of your Candied Yams recipe! Simple and delicious! Thank you!
Simple ingredients and easy to make. This is a perfect side dish for the Holidays or a Sunday dinner.
Sweet potatoes with brown sugar and butter—it just doesn’t get any better than this!
Such a classic dish! Perfect for the holidays!
This comes out perfectly every time! Can’t wait to make again over the holidays.
What do you think about canned yams?
I wouldn’t recommend it for this recipe as they’re pre cooked and would get mushy after being baked again!
I tried with canned sweet potatoes. It is so good. Cook for just 22 minutes, make sure that the sweet potatoes are pressed but not mushy to allow all those sauce to enter. I only use half a cup of brown sugar.
Can I use salted butter..?
yes that’s fine!
Do I need to decrease the salt in the recipe if using salted butter..?
I can’t resist a good sweet potato dish around the holidays! Yours was perfectly swete and spiced – and everyone at our dinner table loved it!
Great flavors and so easy to make. The perfect Holiday side dish.
These candied yams are amazing and a must to have during our family get togethers! Love putting alot of marshmellows cause they like it gooey
This is my favorite Thanksiving side dish. I look forward to every year! Can’t wait to make it 🙂
These yams were amazing! The marshmallows totally send them over the top! Thanks for sharing.
Hi Sara,
If I want to try and do the streusel topping would I bake the sweet potatoes with the streusel topping or do I bake the potatoes then add the streusel topping before they are fully baked? Also can the potatoes be cooked ahead?
You could cook the potatoes ahead of time, then add the streusel when you reheat them and bake until the streusel is golden brown.
Always a part of our Thanksgiving dinner table however I always layer in peaches and use some of the peach juice in the brown sugar cinnamon nutmeg and butter mix.