Grandma Old Fashioned Sweet Potato Pie Recipe

If you’re looking for an easy and delicious dessert recipe, this grandma old fashioned sweet potato pie recipe is what you need. The addition of pralines in this particular recipe adds a fun and tasty twist. The flavors of this pie are guaranteed to please your taste buds.

This recipe is somewhat famous in my family. Every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and most family gatherings my Aunt is expected to bring this pie. This pie is super easy to make since you get a head start using a store-bought pie crust. However, feel free to make your own pie dough and crust if you want. But isn’t it nice to have options?

Psst… When you’re done with this recipe, check out our list of delicious desserts in our top celebrity recipes post. Because, you know, celebrities are just like us 😉

What Is Grandma Old Fashioned Sweet Potato Pie Recipe?

Sweet potato pie is a traditional Southern dessert with roots in African and European cuisine. The dish likely originated in the southern United States during the 19th century, where sweet potatoes were a staple crop. It became famous as a way to use up leftover sweet potatoes and as a cheaper alternative to pumpkin pie.

Over time, the recipe for sweet potato pie has evolved and now includes a variety of ingredients such as sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla extract (or a vanilla extract substitute). 

Nowadays, sweet potato pie is a dessert enjoyed by many Americans during the holiday season.

Why You’ll Love Grandma’s Old Fashioned Sweet Potato Pie

• This recipe uses brown sugar as opposed to white sugar. It gives it a deeper caramel, almost toffee-like flavor.
• There is no need for a homemade pie crust. In my humble opinion, using a pre-made pie crust and adding finely-chopped pralines taste better than making your own crust.
• This recipe is excellent as-is, but if you want to play around with adding additional spices or flavors, such as ground ginger, it’s a great recipe to start with.
• You don’t need an electric mixer! Good old-fashioned elbow grease will do just fine.

Is it better to bake or boil sweet potatoes for pies?

Like many orange foods, sweet potatoes are delicious and good for you. To cook your sweet potatoes, I recommend you bake them instead of boiling them. Baking them allows the sweet potato to be a little sweeter and prevents the sweet potatoes from becoming waterlogged (resulting in a watery pie and/or a soggy crust).

Which method is healthier (boiling or baking)?

If you’re looking to maximize the Vitamin A in your pie, you should boil your sweet potatoes. Baking sweet potatoes can reduce the Vitamin A in sweet potatoes by 80% (twice as much as boiling).

Whether you bake or boil, make sure to separate the skin from the sweet potato flesh before mashing.

What If I Don’t Have Allspice?

If you don’t have Allspice in your pantry, that’s OK. Regardless of its name, Allspice is a single spice ground from the dried berries of an Allspice tree. However, Allspice’s flavor is a mix of ground nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, and pepper. It’s a warm and earthy flavor. 

Because of its flavor profile, it’s relatively easy to put together an Allspice mixture from what you have on hand. See below for a few substitutions:

• Nutmeg – for every 1/2 teaspoon of Allspice, use a 1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg.
• Pumpkin Pie Spice – You can use this as a 1:1 ratio.
• Cinnamon – You can use this as a 1:1 ratio.

Easy Sweet Potato Pie (with Pralines)

Get ready to impress your family and friends with this delicious and easy sweet potato pie recipe, topped with crunchy pralines. This classic southern dessert is perfect for any occasion and is sure to be a hit.

Ingredients

Crust / Pie Shell

• Pre-made pie shell (about a 9-inch pie plate)
• 3 tbsp butter (softened)
• 1/3 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
• 1/3 cup toasted pecans (finely chopped)

Sweet Potato Filling

• 2 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes 
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1 cup whole milk (you can also use evaporated milk or a whole milk substitute)
• 1/2 cup butter (melted)
• 2 eggs (beaten)
• 6-8 tbsp bourbon (optional)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Instructions

Crust / Pie Shell

• Preheat oven to 450°F
• Cream butter and sugar
• Blend in Pecans
• Press the pecan mixture into the bottom of the crust of the pie shell
• Bake pie shell for 10 mins and let cook on a wire rack

Pie Filling

• In a large mixing bowl, blend all filling ingredients until the mixture is smooth

Bake Pie

• Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F.
• Pour the pie filling into the crust
• Place the pie in the oven and bake the pie for 50 minutes
• Cool for at least 2 hours before serving at room temperature. 
• Top with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream

Freezing Grandma’s Old Fashioned Sweet Potato Pie

If you’re looking to store leftover sweet potato pie, you can definitely freeze it. Just follow the below instructions:

1. Make sure your pie is completely cool. (You don’t want to freeze a warm pie.)
2. If your pie is in a glass pie dish, remove it from the glass plate. Then, tightly wrap your pie using plastic wrap before placing it in the freezer. To protect against freezer burn, wrap a layer of aluminum foil around the plastic wrap. (Freezer burn is a yummy pie’s worst nightmare. Because freezer burn on any food can drastically affect the food’s texture.)

One pro baking tip for freezing pie is to cut your pie into slices before freezing. That way, you don’t need to defrost an entire pie if you’re looking for one tasty slice.

Not familiar with how to cook sweet potatoes?

Learn some easy cooking with sweet potatoes tips:

• How to tell if a sweet potato is bad?
• How to boil a sweet potato?

If you like this post, you might like our new recipe for Million Dollar Pie!