Sweet Potato Pie

Editor’s Note: If you’ve cooked this beloved recipe before, it might look a little different these days! We recently improved it to make it even easier to follow and more delicious.

“Southern as sweet potato pie” is a saying I didn’t learn until I moved to Georgia over 10 years ago, but long before I ever came to the South I had fallen in love with sweet potato pie. When I was 10, my mom dated a man from Athens, Georgia, who introduced us all to Southern cooking. Sunday supper became a feast of collard greens, skillet cornbread, and sweet potatoes, and he introduced my family to sweet potato pie. It became a staple of our Thanksgiving table, and my sister still requests sweet potato pie instead of cake on her birthday.

Never a fan of pumpkin pie, this sweet potato pie was a revelation. It was lighter yet creamier than its pumpkin cousin, with a heavy dose of vanilla and subtle spices. Beyond tasting better, sweet potato pie is easier to bake. It doesn’t require cooking the filling, as the sweet potatoes are fully baked in advance, and the pie crust doesn’t require blind baking.

• The best sweet potato pie is made with baked sweet potatoes. Many sweet potato pie recipes call for boiling the sweet potatoes on the stovetop until tender, but I firlmy believe that the best sweet potato pie is made from baked sweet potatoes.
• Perfectly creamy. Baking sweet potatoes softens them without adding extra moisture, concentrates their flavor and sweetness, and makes sweet potato pie-making easier. Less moisture in the sweet potatoes also means a creamier pie.

• Pie crust: For a homemade pie crust, use half the recipe of our deep dish pie crust, chilled (or you can use a store-bought deep-dish pie crust, thawed if frozen).
• Sweet potatoes: Whole sweet potatoes take about an hour to bake in the oven, but that cook time is completely hands-off. There’s no peeling, no dicing, and no tending to a boiling pot on the stove, which is the last thing you want to be doing while making three or four other side dishes for Thanksgiving.
• Eggs: You’ll need 4 large eggs for the custard filling.
• Evaporated milk: Like a lot of recipes with a Southern heritage, sweet potato pie relies on canned milk. In our recipe we use evaporated milk, which makes for a custard pie with a lighter and creamier texture.
• Spices: Use a combination of ground cinnamon, ground ginger, and ground nutmeg.

1. Bake the potatoes: Prick the sweet potatoes a few times with a fork. Bake at 375°F until the sweet potatoes are knife tender.
2. Roll the pie dough and transfer it to a deep-dish pie plate. Use it to line the bottom and sides of the pan. Roll the extra dough on the edges underneath itself, then crimp the edges if desired. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
3. Make the filling. Scoop out the sweet potato flesh into a food processor and process until very smooth. Add the eggs, evaporated milk, brown sugar, vanilla extract, spices, and kosher salt. Pulse, scraping down the sides of the bowl halfway through, until combined.
4. Bake the pie. Place the pie crust on a baking sheet. Pour the filling into the crust. Bake until the top appears dry, the outer third of the pie is set, and the center barely jiggles when nudged. Let cool to room temperature before serving.

Sweet potato and pumpkin pie are both members of the custard pie family. Custard pies are based on a mixture of eggs, dairy, and sugar. Technically you could swap the pumpkin for sweet potato purée in any pumpkin pie recipe and make a sweet potato pie. However, traditional sweet potato pie has a higher purée-to-custard ratio, fewer spices, and more vanilla.

The conversation of sweet potato pie versus pumpkin pie usually brings into focus the regional preferences associated with these dishes, with the typical split presented as the North preferring pumpkin and the South choosing sweet potato.

If we trace the trail of how sweet potato pie came to hold such a prominent place on southern Thanksgiving tables, we find a multilayered story — one that includes a sweet vegetable brought to the Americas from Peru, a tradition of dessert imported from Europe, agriculture (historically, edible pumpkins grew better in the North and sweet potatoes better in the South), and the history of slavery and emancipation in America. Together, these factors give us the pie we enjoy today.

• Sweet potatoes: The sweet potatoes can be baked and the flesh scooped out up to 3 days ahead. Refrigerate in an airtight container.
• Pie: The pie can be baked up to 2 days ahead; wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to serve. Serve cold or let sit at room temperature before serving.
• Storage: Cover leftover pie and refrigerate for up to 3 days.

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