Chunky Sweet Potato Casserole with Pecans
Ginny McMeans
Published:
September 15, 2019
Last Modified:
July 28, 2025
Chunkily cut sweet potatoes are mixed with a cinnamon sugar crumble, crunchy pecans, and red raisins–then baked until tender and caramelized. This simple sweet potato casserole is as beautiful as it is tasty.
When it comes to sweet potato casseroles, I march to the beat of my own drum. The classic casserole–you know the one made with mashed sweet potatoes that are drowning in candy-sweet syrup and topped with marshmallows–never appealed to me much. And once I got into cooking and eating vegan, definitely did not hit the mark.
Instead, I wanted to create an easy sweet potato casserole recipe that would celebrate this little tuber in all its glory!
I decided to take a simple approach and combine diced sweet potatoes with just a few complimentary ingredients before baking until tender and moist. If I’m feeling indulgent, I’ll top this with a scoop of vegan vanilla ice cream for a treat, but on its own it makes a great side dish or meal base.
Sweet Potato Casserole Ingredients
- Chickpea flour – Helps to create the crumble mixture. I like the flavor and texture of chickpea flour, but almond flour would work just fine too.
- Coconut sugar – I used coconut sugar as it has a nice dark coloring and high moisture content, but other sugars switch as organic cane sugar or organic dark brown sugar would work well too. I try to use only organic sugars as some non-organic refined sugars are made using animal products.
- Ground cinnamon – Goes hand in hand with the flavor of sweet potato, giving this dish a rather autumnal flavor profile.
- Vegan butter – You can use your own preferred brand of vegan butter or check out our Vegan Butter Taste Test and Review for a few recommendations.
- Pecans – Pecans pair so well with sweet potatoes and cinnamon! Walnuts or almonds would likely work nicely here too.
- Raisins – I like the color contrast that red or black raisins give to this casserole, but golden raisins would be just as delicious.
- Sweet potatoes – Though canned sweet potatoes are ultra convenient, using fresh sweet potatoes in this recipe produces a far superior result. Canned sweet potatoes tend to seep extra liquid as they cook, which would dramatically alter the texture of the final dish. Â
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Make the crumble. First things first, preheat your oven to 350℉, then start making your crumble mixture. In a small food processor or blender, combine the chickpea flour, coconut sugar, ground cinnamon, and vegan butter. Blend until well-combined and paste-like.
- Transfer. Place the crumble mixture in a large bowl.
- Combine remaining ingredients. To the crumble mixture, add the chopped pecans, raisins, and peeled & diced sweet potato.
- Mix. Stir until well-mixed, making sure that the crumble is evenly distributed.
- Arrange the casserole. Pour the sweet potato mixture in a lightly greased 8×10 casserole or baking dish. Smooth the sweet potatoes into an even layer.
- Bake. Place the casserole in your preheated oven and bake for 50 minutes–the cooked sweet potatoes should be tender and lightly caramelized on top.
- Serve! Serve your sweet potato casserole piping hot. I love mine with a scoop of vegan vanilla ice cream for an extra sweet treat.
Watch Us Make Chunky Sweet Potato Casserole with Pecans
Tips From Ligia
If your pecans start to burn:Â
Cover the sweet potato casserole with a sheet of aluminum foil while it finished cooking. I recommend checking on your casserole about 20 minutes into the cooking time to see how everything is doing.
To help your casserole cook evenly:
Cut the sweet potato in uniformly sized pieces as best you can. If some are very large while others are much smaller, the large ones may be crunchy while the smaller sized pieces are turning to mush. Consistency is key!
How To Store
Refrigerating Allow leftover sweet potato casserole to cool down, then pack it into an airtight container. If you’d like to make the entire sweet potato casserole ahead of a holiday or big event, simply let it cool in the casserole dish, then wrap tightly in plastic wrap or foil before refrigerating. The casserole will keep this way for up to 3 days.
Freezing You can freeze sweet potato casserole with good results! Wrap the cooled casserole tightly in several layers of plastic wrap or aluminum foil to prevent freezer burn, or, transfer it to a freezer-safe container with a tight-fitting lid. You can store sweet potato casserole in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Thawing Transfer the casserole to the refrigerator and allow it to thaw overnight.
Reheating To reheat sweet potato casserole (either from refrigerated or frozen & thawed), place it in a 375℉ oven for about 15 minutes.
Chunky Sweet Potato Casserole Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp chickpea flour, (almond flour will work too)
- 1/2 cup coconut sugar, (or use organic cane or organic brown sugar)
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 4 Tbsp vegan butter
- 1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans
- 1/4 cup raisins
- 3 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
- vegan vanilla ice cream, for topping, if desired
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350℉. In a small food processor or blender, combine the chickpea flour, coconut sugar, ground cinnamon, and vegan butter. Blend until well-combined and paste-like.
- Place the crumble mixture in a large bowl.Â
- To the crumble mixture, add the chopped pecans, raisins, and diced sweet potato.Â
- Stir until well-mixed and the crumble is evenly distributed.Â
- Pour the sweet potato mixture in a lightly greased 8×10 casserole or baking dish. Smooth into an even layer.Â
- Place the casserole in your preheated oven and bake for 50 minutes–the cooked sweet potatoes should be tender and lightly caramelized on top.Â
- Serve your sweet potato casserole piping hot. I love mine with a scoop of vegan vanilla ice cream for an extra sweet treat.Â
Video
Nutrition
15 responses to “Chunky Sweet Potato Casserole with Pecans”
-
You are so right. I was trying to hold off but I had some fans that wanted the recipe now. I can not deny. Ha!
-
This was super easy and delicious. My pickey-eating husband and small children loved it too.
-
Haha Katie. I am glad you family loved it. It makes me feel so good.
-
-
this looks gorgeous, I wish I had seen it yesterday as I was looking for sweet potato recipes, I will keep this in mind -
This casserole screams autumn to me and I love it! Sounds so filling and heartwarming. Can’t wait to give it a try. -
Looks lovely! And how cool that you used coconut sugar. I have been addicted to that stuff since i tried it last month.
-
Oh boy, that sounds just heavenly!
-
Ginny! This looks so lovely. I need to bookmark it for Thanksgiving. I’m always on the lookout for killer vegan dishes to bring to the party.
-
Yasss! I just found the perfect recipe to share at Friend’s Giving this year! Awesome post! -
Can I use rice flour or coconut flour instead of chickpea?
-
For the taste, I would use coconut flour Dawn.
-
-
I made this for Christmas dinner a few days ago and everyone loved it! It’s really delicious! It was simple to prepare, no ingredient overpowered any others, and turned out to be a “crowd-pleaser”! It is sometimes difficult to find ingredients for gluten free / vegan meals while traveling away from home, but this recipe is straightforward enough to make it possible! Thank you for sharing!
P.S. I only had almond flour so I used a couple spoons of that, and it worked out just fine.-
You are very welcome Emma! It has become a family favorite for us too. Good to know about the almond flour. I love almond flour and I’m going to add this to the recipe.
-
-
I want to make this for Christmas for my partner and me but we are quarantined – it’s just going to be the two of us – so I think 3 lbs. of sweet potatoes is too much. But to know how much to cut down the other ingredients, I need to know how pounds translates to individual potatoes and I can’t find anything on the web. If I use two average sized sweet potatoes, (large-ish medium), how would I translate the pounds? In other words, would I put in 1/2 of each of the other ingredients? 1/4? Can you give me a clue? Thank you. It sounds absolutely delicious and I’m excited about making it. Thanks again.
-
This isn’t one of those recipes where the coating measurements have to be exact to the sweet potato weight. So I would guess that you have close to 1 1/2 pounds. I would just half all of the other ingredients and go for that. Merry Christmas and a kitchen scale would make a great gift 🙂
-
Leave a Reply