Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls
Warm and fluffy, these melt-in-your-mouth Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls are a delicious addition to your holiday feast!
Special occasions call for special food, like this recipe for Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls! These soft, moist, lightly sweet rolls are made like traditional white bread (flour, butter, milk, eggs, yeast) but with the genius addition of mashed sweet potato and a little cinnamon sugar! They’re SO good that they’re sure to be the topic of conversation around the dinner table!
Sweet Potato Rolls Don’t Taste Like Sweet Potatoes
Trust me—these delicious dinner rolls do not taste like sweet potatoes! They are so delicate and airy that you can hardly taste the tuber at all!
But mashed sweet potato is the magic ingredient in these delicious dinner rolls! The sweet potato makes them moist and gently sweet. Plus, it gives them a bright, beautiful orange color—perfect for the autumn holidays!
Other Recipes to Serve with Sweet Potato Bread
- Sweet Potato Tots are crispy little clouds of potato goodness that make this veggie more fun!
- Sweet Potato Gnocchi with savory browned butter and fresh sage is so good you’ll want to make it again and again!
Ingredients
Sweet Potato: These rolls feature a soft-cooked, mashed sweet potato as the special ingredient. This is a great way to use up Thanksgiving leftovers.
Dry Ingredients: You’ll need a package of active dry yeast, salt, all-purpose flour (or bread flour), sugar, and cinnamon.
Wet Ingredients: Warm milk, butter, and eggs finish out the dough for this special occasion bread!
How to Make Sweet Potato Rolls
STEP ONE: In a mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast and sugar in the warm milk. Let stand for about 5 minutes. Add the remaining granulated sugar, butter, salt, eggs, and mashed sweet potato. Mix well.
STEP TWO: Slowly stir in the flour, just 1/2 cup at a time. After that’s been mixed in, add the remaining 1/2 cup of flour a spoonful at a time, but only as needed. The dough should be solid and moist but not sticking to the bowl.
STEP THREE: Shape the dough into a large ball and return it to the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise for about one hour (longer if needed) until it doubles.
STEP FOUR: Punch it down and divide it into 10 or 12 dough balls. Place them in a 9×13 baking dish. Cover with plastic wrap a second time and allow the individual rolls to rise until they double in size.
STEP FIVE: Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes until golden. Remove from the oven and brush with melted butter.
STEP SIX: Stir the cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl. Then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar all over the rolls. Serve warm and enjoy!
Tips for Success
- To help the dough rise, “prep” your microwave by heating a cup of water for 2 minutes. This makes the microwave a perfect warm, moist place for the dough to proof. Remove the water, set the covered pan of dough inside, and let it rise for an hour or until it has doubled in size. (Do NOT run the microwave!)
- Instead of cinnamon sugar, these delicious rolls could also be drizzled with honey for a touch of sweetness.
- Use WARM water (not hot) to activate the yeast in the first step.
- The doughy rolls are ready to bake when they have nearly doubled in size and “spring back” gently when poked, leaving only a small indentation.
How Do You Make Sweet Potato Bread?
Great sweet potato bread or rolls start with a soft-roasted sweet potato. Once cooked and cooled, the potato’s skin is removed, and the fleshy inside is mashed until smooth. The mashed sweet potato is added to a classic white bread recipe during dough-making. Adding sweet potato to dinner rolls and white bread makes it moist, lightly sweet, slightly orange in color, and absolutely delicious!
Are Sweet Potato Rolls Gluten-Free?
You have to be super careful with food these days. There are so many allergies to accommodate…so be aware that sweet potato rolls are just regular dinner rolls with the addition of mashed sweet potatoes. This means they DO have flour and, as such, are NOT gluten-free.
However, this recipe could be made with a gluten-free 1:1, also known as cup-for-cup flour, which can be used in place of all-purpose flour in almost any recipe. While the gluten-free flour won’t be as light and airy as regular wheat flour, it will still taste great!
Other Heavenly Orange Holiday Recipes!
- Pumpkin Cheesecake Balls
- Cinnamon Honey Butter Candied Yam Rounds
- Cheesecake Filled Pumpkin Bundt Cake
- Sweet Potato Stacks
- Pumpkin Pie Truffles
- Drunken Pumpkin Mocha
*This post originally posted on 02/19/2015.
Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls
Ingredients
- ¼ ounce active dry yeast (1 envelope)
- 4 tablespoons granulated sugar divided
- ½ cup mashed sweet potato (about 1 medium potato)
- ½ cup warm milk (105 to 110 degrees F)
- 3 tablespoons butter softened
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 3 cups all-purpose flour (plus 1/2 cup more as needed)
Topping
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ cup butter melted
Instructions
- Dissolve the yeast and 1 tablespoon of sugar in the warm milk in a medium mixing bowl. Let stand for 5 minutes.
- To the bowl with the milk, add the rest of the sugar, mashed sweet potato, butter, salt, and eggs. Mix until well combined.
- Mix in 3 cups of flour, adding 1/2 cup at a time and mixing until just combined. Once the flour is mixed in, continue mixing in up to another 1/2 cup (1 tablespoon at a time) as needed. The dough shouldn't be sticking to the bowl.
- Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a large mixing bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let rest on the counter for about 1 hour or until doubled in size.
- Punch down the dough and divide it into 10 equal portions (just eyeball this). Roll each portion into a ball and place them in a greased 9-inch x 13-inch baking dish.
- Cover the baking dish with plastic wrap again. Allow the dough to rise again until doubled, about 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bake the rolls for 15 to 20 minutes or until the tops are golden.
- In a small bowl, stir together the sugar and cinnamon for the topping until evenly combined.
- Remove the rolls from the oven and brush the tops with butter. Sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar all over the rolls before servings warm.
This is my first time making Thanksgiving dinner, and first time making a yeast dinner roll from scratch. Just a couple of questions – do you use an electric hand mixer to mix the sugar, sweet potato, butter, salt & eggs in the mixing bowl with the yeast mixture, or just use a wooden spoon to m ix in by hand? Also, do you line your pan with parchment paper to bake these, or do you grease the pan? And there’s no kneading of the dough? Thank you very much! This recipe looks great!