Roasted Garlic Sweet Potato Mash

Roasted Garlic Sweet Potato Mash is the ultimate way to serve mashed sweet potato. A soul-hugging balance of flavours which couldn’t be easier to make!

I think it’s safe to say if you’ve been following along with my recipes for a while now, you’ve realised my love for sweet potatoes is absolutely bonkers. In this instance however it’s not the sweet potatoes themselves that send my taste buds into a frenzy, but more the addition of roasted garlic and how they complement each other so beautifully.

Roasted Garlic

The key to delicious garlic sweet potatoes is roasting the garlic. When you roast garlic, you not only completely change the flavour, but you also change the texture. Flavourwise it goes from being quite pungent to being sweet and nutty. The texture turns soft, buttery and sticky.

Low ‘n’ Slow

To achieve that sweet, soft, buttery goodness you’ll need to roast the garlic low and slow. This will draw out the natural sugars in the garlic and help them caramelize.

Rosemary

A sneaky tip to enhancing not only your roasted garlic, but the flavour of the whole dish, is to roast the garlic with fresh rosemary. Sweet potatoes and rosemary go together beautiful, so that added flavour infused into the garlic goes down beautifully.

To roast the garlic with rosemary just slice the bulb through the centre and stuff in the rosemary – almost like a mini garlic-rosemary burger (see below)

Roasted Sweet Potato Mash

When it comes to making the mashed potatoes, I HIGHLY recommend roasting the potatoes, as opposed to boiling or steaming them. Just like the garlic, when you roast sweet potatoes you draw out the natural sugars to caramelize. This adds a huge amount of flavour you simply can’t achieve by boiling. Also, when you boil potatoes you essentially add in water. Sweet potatoes are already packed with moisture, so adding more on top of that just increases the chance of sloppy mashed potatoes. Which is never ideal ☹️

To roast the sweet potatoes just keep them whole, prod a few times with a fork and roast away. No need for seasoning or oil, you don’t want the skin, only the yummy potato in the centre!

Process shots: drizzle garlic with oil then stuff with rosemary (photo 1), wrap in foil (photo 2), stab potatoes with fork (photo 3), add garlic to tray and roast (photo 4).

Roasted Garlic Sweet Potato Mash

Once the sweet potatoes are knife tender and the garlic is soft & sticky, it’s time to throw it all in a bowl with some extra goodies.

Garlic Sweet Potato Mash Ingredients

• Roasted Sweet Potato – Scoop it from the skins (be careful not to take any skin with you!)
• Roasted Garlic – Squeeze the garlic from the skins and save the rosemary.
• Butter – Adds a rich undertone to the mash. And, mashed potato of any variety without butter, is a crime.
• Sour Cream – Turns the potato nice and creamy and the slight ‘tang’ helps cut through the sweetness of the potato & garlic.
• Salt & Pepper – Season generously the helps balance the sweet flavours.

The importance of a potato masher!

Although it takes a bit more elbow grease, I recommend using a potato masher to mash the potatoes. Using a hand blender or mixer will cause the starch in the potatoes to go gloopy/gluey!

Process shots: slices sweet potatoes (photo 1), scoop out potato (photo 2), unwrap garlic (photo 3), squeeze into potato and add butter, sour cream and s&p (photo 4).

Serving Garlic Sweet Potato Mash

Once you’ve made the mash, plonk it in a serving dish. From there, I like to crumble bacon and sprinkle over the leftover rosemary. Although optional, I do recommend drizzling over some melted butter too. If you want to take things even further you can roast up 3 bulbs of garlic and use the third to dot over the top at the end.

Can I make this ahead of time?

Yup! Just leave off the toppings and allow to cool, then tightly cover in the fridge. You can reheat in the microwave, oven or on the stove (more in the recipe card).

If you’re after more mash recipes check out my Mustard Mash, Cheesy Roasted Garlic Mash and Butternut Squash Mash!

For more similar recipes check out these beauties too:

Roasted Sweet Potato Recipes

• Roasted Sweet Potato Bites
• Roasted Sweet Potato Curry
• Garlic Rosemary Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Chorizo
• Roasted Sweet Potato Quesadillas

How to make Roasted Garlic Sweet Potato Mash (Full Recipe & Video)

5 from 3 votes

Roasted Garlic Sweet Potato Mash

By: Chris Collins

Roasted Garlic Sweet Potato Mash is the ultimate way to serve mashed sweet potato. A soul-hugging balance of flavours which couldn't be easier to make!

Prep: 10 minutes mins

Cook: 1 hour hr 15 minutes mins

Total: 1 hour hr 25 minutes mins

Servings: 8

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Equipment

• Large Baking Tray
• Large Mixing Bowl & Potato Masher
• Sharp Knife & Chopping Board
• Aluminium Foil
• Serving Spoon

Ingredients 

1x2x3x

• ▢ 4lbs / 1.8kg Sweet Potatoes (5-6 small or 3-4 large)
• ▢ 1/2 cup / 120ml Sour Cream
• ▢ 4 tbsp Butter, plus 1-2 extra melted to top (optional)
• ▢ 4 slices of Bacon, cooked & crumbled (to top)
• ▢ 2 small bulbs of Garlic (see notes)
• ▢ 2 sprigs Fresh Rosemary, halved
• ▢ Salt & Pepper, to taste
• ▢ Olive Oil, as needed

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Instructions 

• Place sweet potatoes on a large baking tray and poke several times with a fork.
• Slice both of your garlic bulbs right through the centre. Drizzle the exposed cloves with a dash of oil, then place rosemary in the centre, to make a kind of garlic-rosemary burger (see photos/video for reference). Wrap in foil then place on the oven tray with the sweet potatoes.
• Place everything in the oven at 180C/356F. Take out the roasted garlic around 45mins, or until soft, sticky and caramelized. Take the sweet potatoes out when they're knife tender right through. Smaller sweet potatoes with take around 60mins, with larger ones taking around 1 hour 30mins.
• Once cool enough to handle, slice open the sweet potatoes and scoop the flesh in a bowl. Squeeze the roasted garlic into the bowl (save rosemary), then add 4 tbsp butter and 1/2cup/120ml sour cream. Give it a good mash until nice and smooth, then season to taste with salt and pepper.
• Scoop into a serving dish, drizzle over melted butter (optional) and crumble over crispy bacon. Finely dice the leftover rosemary and sprinkle that over too. Enjoy!

Video

Notes

a) Roasting Sweet Potatoes - It's important to roast the sweet potatoes as opposed to boiling them. Roasting the potato will caramelize it and develop so much more flavour than boiling. Plus, when you boil you collect unwanted moisture which will turn the potatoes sloppy once they're mashed. Takes a little more time, but 100% worth roasting.

b) Seasoning - Be generous with your salt and taste test throughout. Sweet potatoes as the name suggests are very sweet, so it's good to balance that out with a generous helping of salt. The bacon will help on top also.

c) Can I blend the potatoes? - I don't recommend mashing the potatoes with anything other than a potato masher. Using a hand mixer or blender will cause the starch in the potato to go gloopy/gluey.

d) Extra Garlic/Garnish - If you want to make this extra garlicky, roast another whole bulb of garlic, carefully remove the roasted cloves and top (as I've done in the photos).

e) Make Ahead/Storage - Leave off the toppings, allow to cool and tightly cover in the fridge for 2-3days. Reheat either in short bursts in the microwave (stir in between), on a very low heat on the stove (stirring as you go) or cover with foil and pop in the oven at 175C/350F for 20-30mins (depending on how much is leftover) until hot all the way through. If the potatoes dry out at all I recommend stirring through a splash of cream or half & half.

f) Calories - for one portion (8 in total).

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Nutrition

Calories: 286kcal | Carbohydrates: 53.19g | Protein: 4.93g | Fat: 6.52g | Saturated Fat: 4.061g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.287g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1.722g | Trans Fat: 0.175g | Cholesterol: 18mg | Sodium: 155mg | Potassium: 903mg | Fiber: 7.7g | Sugar: 10.52g | Vitamin A: 76300IU | Vitamin C: 8.3mg | Calcium: 110mg | Iron: 1.6mg

Looking for more?

You’ll find plenty more delicious comfort food like this in my Debut Cookbook ‘Comfy’

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