Sweet potato casserole bites turn everyone’s favorite Thanksgiving side dish into a sweet holiday appetizer or side dish. These sweet potato bites have all the flavor of sweet potato casserole in cute individual servings. Perfect for entertaining.

Sweet potato casserole is one of my favorite holiday side dishes. But you know what? I think it gets overshadowed by all of the other yummy holiday sides.

Sausage and sage stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin & olive oil dinner rolls. The table is just so full of good stuff that can get covered in gravy. It can make it hard to really stand out in such a yummy crowd.

Why Make Sweet Potato Bites Instead of Sweet Potato Casserole?

The sweet potato casserole though? It’s sort of an anomaly. You could cover it in gravy, if you really wanted too I guess, but gravy would definitely not be my choice on them. So it doesn’t quite go.

However, if you make sweet potato casserole bites instead of a traditional casserole, then you have more options!

You could serve them as a side dish along with your main course. But serving the flavors of a classic sweet potato casserole up in sweet bite sized portions makes it possible for these sweet potatoes to be an appropriate appetizer or even a dessert.

All the Classic Goodness of Sweet Potato Casserole in a Bite Sized Treat

These adorable sweet potato bites have the same flavors you know and love from sweet potato casserole.

My sweet potato casserole bites need sweet potatoes (obviously), butter, maple syrup, marshmallows, and pecans. Simple and easy!

How to Make This Adorable Handheld Holiday Dish

Making this handheld dish is also easier than making sweet potato casserole because it cuts a step out of it.

When you make sweet potato casserole, you need to first peel and cut the potatoes. Then you would mash them and mix the butter and sugar in before you top it with marshmallows and bake the casserole.

While traditional sweet potato casserole isn’t hard to make, it definitely requires steps that these don’t need.

When you make the sweet potato casserole bites, you still need to peel the potatoes. Then you are going to cut them into round slices and toss them in a bowl.

Once you’ve sliced the potatoes and put them in a bowl, coat them in maple syrup and melted butter. Then spread them out onto a parchment lined baking sheet.

Now you’re going to pop them in the oven to bake for 20 minutes, flipping them halfway through. Once the potatoes are cooked, remove them from the oven and top each one with a large marshmallow.

When they all have marshmallows on them, pop them back into the oven under the broiler. Broil them just until the marshmallows puff up.

Haven’t seen a marhsmallow ‘puff’ before? No worries, you’ll know it when you see it! Then take them out of the oven and place a pecan half on each one. That’s it!

Take them out of the oven, transfer them to a serving dish or decorative platter, and they’re ready to go.

I love that there’s a little bit of everything in each bite, it’s perfectly portioned. With a traditional sweet potato casserole, I feel like I always get ‘more’ of one thing or another in my serving throwing the whole thing off.

I also love the finger-food ness of these. No mess to made scooping, serving, or savoring. Nice, clean, and easy from start to finish. Speaking of hand held Holiday finger foods, they really are a common theme on our family’s table. We routinely enjoy several others.

Other Handheld Holiday Treats You Might Enjoy

While these bites are one of my favorite bite sized holiday treats, I love making miniature versions of classics to make for fun holiday entertaining. These are a few of my favorites:

TIPS & TRICKS For Making These Sweet Potato Bites:

Want to add another short cut to make this recipe even easier? You don’t have to peel the potatoes. This is personal preference. Plus, the skins contain additional nutrients. So do whatever you feel is best, or whatever the clock says you have time for that day.
Don’t have pecans? You can swap halved walnuts out easily for the pecans. However, I would recommend lightly toasting them in a skillet to really bring out their nutty flavor.
Looking for an alternative to maple syrup? Honey makes a perfect substitution!
Need to make as much as possible the day before hand? You can get half the recipe ready ahead of time by prepping the potatoes, tossing them as instructed, and putting them through their first baking. Let them cool, cover, and refrigerate. Bring them to room temp when ready to bake and then proceed as instructed.

However you choose to serve them, whether it’s for brunch, lunch, or dinner- as an appetizer, a side dish, or even as dessert- These fun hand held holiday sweet potato casserole bites will steal the show this season!

Other Ways To Enjoy Sweet Potatoes This Holiday Season:

If you’ve tried this SWEET POTATO CASSEROLE BITES, or any other recipe on my site, let me know in the comment section how it turned out, we love hearing from our readers! You can also follow along with me on PINTEREST, FACEBOOK, and INSTAGRAM to see more amazing recipes and whatever else we’ve got going on!