Maple Walnut Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

Take twice baked sweet potatoes to the next level with this delicious brown sugar maple walnut topping. Perfect as a Thanksgiving side dish!

Sweet potatoes are one of my favorite on the Thanksgiving dinner table – and excuse the 5 year old within me, but I live for marshmallow topped sweet potato casserole.

But I know not everyone is into that, and some years we may have a smaller celebration that doesn’t warrant an entire casserole. Which is when these Maple Walnut Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes come in handy! They are easy to make and taste absolutely delicious. Each is like a marshmallow-free mini sweet potato casserole 😉

I decided to make these with Greek yogurt instead of sour cream, because that’s what I usually have on hand and I wanted to keep this recipe on the sweeter side. If you prefer sour cream, feel free to swap that in!

Ingredients you’ll need

Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post for quantities!

Ingredient Notes:

• Sweet Potatoes: Try to find smaller sweet potatoes, so that half a potato will be just right for one serving. It’s easier to cut them in half lengthwise if they’re somewhat evenly shaped.
• Greek yogurt: Like I menitoned in the introduction, you can use sour cream in place of the yogurt for more savory and a little more decadent sweet potatoes.
• Pumpkin pie spice: If you have strong feelings against this, just use ground cinnamon instead.
• Maple syrup: You can subsitute pancake syrup, honey, or brown sugar.
• Brown sugar: I would go with 3-4 tablespoons first, and then adjust from there to taste (just taste-test the filling and add more sugar if you feel it needs to be sweeter).
• Nuts: I have readers who have successfully made this recipe nut-free by using rolled oats in place of the walnuts/pecans.
• Butter: Real butter works best here. If you need to use margarine for any kind of reason, please use stick margarine intended for baking and NOT a soft margarine spread.

How to make twice baked sweet potatoes

You start by baking the sweet potatoes in their skins. Prick them a few times with a fork so they don’t explode, then bake them until tender.

Once they’re done, let htem cool slightly, then cut them in half and carefully scoop out the flesh (1). Make sure you don’t damage the skins – set them aside to fill them later (2).

Then, mash the flesh (3) and add the remaining filling ingredients (4). Fill the sweet potato skins (5).

Finally, add the topping ingredients to a small bowl (6) and stir to combine (7). Spoon a little over each sweet potato skin (8), then finish baking the skins in the oven.

You can drizzle some extra syrup over them to serve, if you like. The sweet potato skins taste best hot! Check further below for make ahead instructions if you need to prepare these ahead.

Recipe tips

Don’t overbake the sweet potatoes the first time around: You want them to be very soft, but not blackened. Not only will they start to taste bitter, but your skins will get paper-thin and have holes in them. Not ideal for filling them later on!

Sweeten to taste: Since I feed all of the recipe you see on this blog to my family, and I have a 3 year old and a 1 year old, I try to limit sugar in dishes a lot of the time.

I didn’t sweeten these sweet potatoes too much, so if you’re looking for a really sweet dish, just add a few tablespoons of brown sugar to the mashed sweet potatoes.

Make ahead instructions

If you need to bring them to a party (instead of serving them to guests in your own home), I suggest assembling them fully, but skipping the second bake. Refrigerate them covered with plastic wrap for up to a day.

Just bring the filled skins and the topping to wherever you’re going and then put them in the oven right before serving.

You can also do this if you’re the host and need to make a few appetizers ahead of time to lessen your stress – a great holiday party hack.

More easy holiday side dishes

PS If you try this recipe, please leave a review in the comment section and add a star rating in the recipe card – I appreciate your feedback! Follow along on Pinterest, Facebook or Instagram.

These are perfect for any celebration during the fall and winter months – like Thanksgiving or Christmas Dinner, but they also work great as a football snack for a cozy game day.