Sweet Potato Muffins with Leftover Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Have more mashed sweet potatoes than you know what to do with? Try using some in these easy sweet potato muffins, a great way to use up those leftover sweet potatoes. Bursting with flavor and easy to whip up, these delicious muffins are great both in the morning paired with a cup of coffee, or later on as an afternoon snack.

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Why You'll Love These Muffins:

• Easy Repurposing: Got leftover mashed sweet potatoes? This recipe is a delicious way to transform them into a whole new dish.
• Simple Ingredients: Using kitchen staples like cinnamon and vanilla, we'll create muffins that are rich in flavor.
• Quick and Easy: From mixing to baking, these muffins come together in a snap. Perfect for a spontaneous baking session with munchkins!

Let's Get Started! Here's What You'll Need:

Ingredients:

Flour- Good 'ol all purpose flour, we don't need anything fancy.

Leftover mashed sweet potatoes- you can also use freshly roasted sweet potatoes, canned sweet potatoes, or even microwaved frozen sweet potatoes. We may need to adjust the sugar and oil amounts though, since leftover mashed ones already have some butter and sugar in them that we're leaning on.

Egg- I always buy large, but medium or extra large should be fine too. If you're out or have allergies you can use flax eggs instead.

Brown sugar- You can also swap this for granulated sugar or coconut sugar. If you want a natural sweetener use honey or maple syrup.

Vegetable oil- Oil makes muffins extra moist, and we've already got butter in our mashed sweet potatoes for that rich flavor. You can use any neutral oil like vegetable, canola, or melted coconut oil.

Baking powder & Baking soda- A bit of each gives these muffins the rise we're looking for.

Cinnamon, Vanilla extract, and Salt- These really bring out the flavors in our muffins. If you have them and want to add a pinch you could use nutmeg or pumpkin pie spice as well.

Equipment:

We don't need a ton here, but we do need two mixing bowls. A small and medium one are fine for making 6 muffins, but if you're doubling the recipe you'll want to upsize to a medium and large mixing bowl. You'll also need a whisk, spatula, and of course, a muffin tin to bake them in. You may want paper muffin cups to line the your muffin pan, but if you don't I recommend using cooking spray to help the muffins release easily from the pan after baking. It's best to cool them on a cooling rack, but you can use a regular plate if that's not handy.

How to Make These Sweet Potato Muffins:

Step 1: Preheat Oven

Preheat your oven to either 400°F or 350°F. You'll get a slightly taller, more lifted muffin using a higher temperature for the first 5 minutes and then reducing the temperature. That said, if you know you are someone who will walk away and forget to lower the temperature, just do 350 for the whole baking time.

Step 2: Prepare Dry Ingredients

In a small bowl, combine your flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set it aside while you mix the wet ingredients.

Step 3: Mix Wet Ingredients

In a medium bowl, whisk together the brown sugar and vegetable oil. Add the egg next and whisk until that is well combined. Then add your vanilla and mashed sweet potatoes, and mix until smooth. Last, put the whisk down, because we don't want to use it for the next step.

Step 4: Combine Wet and Dry Ingredients

Switch to a spatula and slowly incorporate the flour mixture into the wet mixture until they are just combined. Overmixing makes sweet breads dense, so don't stir too much- think of it as a treasure hunt for flour with long, slow stirring motions. Once you don't see flour anymore you're done! The batter may be a bit lumpy, which is fine, we just shouldn't have any visible bits of the dry ingredients.

Step 5: Scoop & Bake

Decide if you're going to use muffin liners, and place them in the muffin wells if you are. Divide the sweet potato muffin batter equally into 6 muffin wells. If you're using a 12 muffin tin to make 6 muffins, fill every other space for more even cooking. Each muffin will be about 2-3 large spoonfuls of batter, or if you have an ice cream scoop you can use that to scoop the batter instead.

Once they're even, pop that muffin tray in the preheated oven. After 5 minutes at 400°F, reduce the temperature to 325°F and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. If you prefer, you can instead bake at a constant 350°F for 20-25 minutes.

Step 6: Cool & Enjoy

Once the muffins have cooled for a minute or two so you don't burn your fingers getting them out, transfer the muffins to a wire rack or plate to cool the rest of the way. If you leave them in the muffin pan they'll develop excess moisture around the sides and bottom. Once they're fully cool store them in an airtight container and keep in the fridge for a longer shelf life.

FAQs:

More Sweet Potato Recipes You Might Like:

The mashed sweet potatoes this recipe starts with are one of my favorite side dishes, along with their cousin roasted sweet potato slices.

For a one-pot meal that includes them, try this sausage and sweet potato hash!

Enjoy!

I hope you love this easy muffin recipe, and that it becomes one of your favorite things to make after a holiday meal! If so be sure to come back and leave a review or star rating, I love hearing how it went for you!

📖 Recipe