Sweet Potato Muffins
Updated Oct 27, 2025
Sweet potato muffins made with mashed sweet potatoes, cinnamon, and vanilla for a soft, lightly sweet muffin thatโs easy to make and freezer-friendly.
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These are the best sweet potato muffins!
I started making these sweet potato muffins as a way to use up leftover mashed sweet potatoes, and now they’ve become a breakfast regular in my house. They’re soft, lightly sweet, and cinnamon-y. They make the kitchen smell amazing while they bake.
What I love about these sweet potato muffins is how simple they are pantry ingredients, no long prep time. Just mash, mix, and bake. They’re great on their own or with a little butter in the morning, and they freeze really well.
Happy Cooking!
– Yumna
Sweet Potato Muffins Ingredients
- Roasted sweet potatoes: I recommend roasting sweet potatoes or making baked sweet potatoes to bake off the extra moisture before mashing. Boiled sweet potatoes may make your muffins gummy and underbaked.
- Dry ingredients: All-purpose flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. You can also add a pinch of nutmeg or pumpkin spice!
- Wet ingredients: Granulated sugar, unsweetened almond milk (or any plant-based milk), and vanilla extract.
How to Make Sweet Potato Muffins
Sweet Potato Muffin Recipe
Video
Ingredients
- Cooking spray as needed
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 ½ cups mashed roasted sweet potatoes
- ¾ cup almond milk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 12-count muffin pan with parchment paper cups, then spray with non-stick cooking spray.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
- In another large bowl, whisk together the mashed sweet potatoes, almond milk, and vanilla extract until smooth.
- Add the dry ingredients to the sweet potato mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon until combined.
- Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin pan, filling each muffin cavity about ¾ full.
- Bake for 25–30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack and serve.
Equipment
Notes
- My Top Tip: Roast the sweet potatoes ahead of time. This is the most time-consuming step, so if you do it in advance, it’ll only take you 30 minutes to make the muffins.
- Storage: Store the sweet potato muffins in an airtight container with a paper towel under them to absorb any moisture. I recommend storing them in a single layer, but if you need to stack them, place a piece of parchment paper between layers so they don’t stick together. The muffins will last for 3–4 days at room temperature and 4–5 days in the fridge.
- Freezing: Wrap each muffin individually in plastic wrap, then place them all in a zip-top freezer bag. They’ll last for up to 3 months in the freezer.
- Replace the almond milk with coconut milk
- Replace the sugar with coconut sugar
Nutrition
Nutrition information provided is an estimate. It will vary based on cooking method and specific ingredients used.
Recipe Variations
- Add nuts or dried fruit. Mix some walnuts, pecans, raisins, or dried cranberries into the batter for sweetness and texture.
- Or, add chocolate. Stir in some chocolate chips, chunks, or nibs. I can confirm that this variation is kid-approved!
- Stir in some seeds. For extra protein, mix in some chia seeds or flaxseeds.
- Make the muffins savory. Add some grated cheese, spinach, or corn to the batter. It balances the sweet well!
Recipe Tips
- Roast the sweet potatoes ahead of time. This is the most time-consuming step, so if you do it in advance, it’ll only take you 30 minutes to make the muffins.
- Use parchment paper muffin cups. This batter is pretty moist, so it might stick to traditional muffin liners. I recommend parchment paper liners for the best results.
- Don’t overmix the batter. Just mix until you don’t see any more flour streaks. If you overmix, the muffins may bake unevenly or become extra chewy and tough.
- Let the muffins cool before you take them out of the pan. It’s tempting, but when you give it time, the steam that condenses around the muffins actually makes it easier to remove from pan. And then don’t forgot to cool them on the wire rack for a total of 15–20 minutes.
FAQs
I don’t recommend it. Yams have more starch than sweet potatoes, so they won’t add as much moisture to the muffins as sweet potatoes do.
You may have overmixed the batter. Remember to stir just to combine the wet and dry ingredients. Another reason might be that the baking powder wasn’t fresh, or that you used too much flour.
You may have used boiled sweet potatoes, which retain more water than roasted sweet potatoes. If you only have boiled sweet potatoes, try reducing the amount of liquid in the recipe, or drain excess moisture by placing them in a sieve or cheesecloth and squeezing out the water.
Even if you used parchment paper muffin liners and sprayed them with cooking spray, they might still stick. It’s a common issue, especially in recipes like this one that do not use added oil, which acts as a natural non-stick agent. Let the muffins cool completely in the pan before you try to remove the liners, and carefully peel away the liners instead of pulling them off quickly.
Comments
I am thinking of making these but would like to substitute sugar for maple syrup. Would you know the ratio to use with this recipe? Thanks!
I recommend using 1/4 cup maple syrup and reducing the almond milk to 1/2 cup instead of 3/4 cup to account for the extra liquid. Hope that helps!
So sorry your muffins didn’t bake all the way through, Elizabeth. I do think that using imperial measuring units would make a difference since that’s what we use in the U.S. Did you change anything else about the recipe (ingredients used, etc.)? And what conversion tool did you use to convert the measurements? I would like to look into this further and possibly retest since others have also had this issue in the past.
This looks delicious and I’m shopping for the recipe. This might be a silly question, but do I peel the skin or roast and mash it with skin on?
Thank you!
Hi Esther, I like to roast them whole with the skin on, wrapped in tinfoil. Then I cut them open, scoop out the sweet potato with a spoon, and discard the skin. Nice and easy!
Can I use oat flour? And can I use half cup of date paste instead of sugar?
Hi Patricia, I recommend a gluten-free flour mix that’s meant for a 1:1 substitute for all-purpose flour instead of oat flour (or just almond, just coconut, etc.). I haven’t tried the recipe with date paste but I think it could taste amazing! I’d love to hear how it turns out if you end up trying it!
Hi Yumna! I’m wondering if canned sweet potato puree would work?? I have some to use up and found this recipe. We are vegan, so it works.
Look forward to reply ๐
Shelly
Hi Shelly! I’ve tested this a few times with canned puree and the texture is not as great since it has more moisture than the roasted sweet potato. You could experiment by using just a little less canned puree, or I have this great sweet potato pancake recipe I think the canned puree would work well in!
Thank you for reply Yumna!!! I kinda figured you were gonna say that-but I appreciate the suggestion(s)! Definitely will do the muffins AND the pancakes.
Take care ๐
I love that these muffins are vegan and not loaded with fat. Itโs hard to find a good tasting muffin that doesnโt have oil or coconut milk. Iโve made lots of muffins with bananas and applesauce and beans to help with the moisture but this was a great alternative. I made it exactly how the recipe is wrote. I roasted my potatoes in the oven and I blended them in the blender and I put mine in a silicone mixing muffin pan and once they cool, they just pop right out. The muffins have a texture of a little bit more like cake, or kind of spongy with a simple flavor. You could definitely put in additions like the writer says, but I prefer to keep mine low-fat and just eat them how the recipe states. Thank you for a great recipe!
Thanks for this kind feedback!
I never leave comments on recipes but I tried these muffins to get my four year old to eat more vegetables and they are AMAZING!!! I even tried them in a loaf pan and that turned out even better. I will be making this recipes many more times. ๐
Yay!! Always a win when the littles eat new veggies happily!
I followed the recipe exactly, roasted the sweet potatoes and everything. The muffins have come out flat and a gooey texture inside. I was surprised because it’s such a high rated recipe. I don’t know why mine turned out so poorly, but they aren’t edible unfortunately.
I’m so sorry to hear these didn’t come out as expected. I have two tips for this recipe, first, just mix the batter until you donโt see any more flour streaks. If you overmix the batter, the muffins may bake unevenly or become extra chewy and tough. Also, this might be a silly question, but are you sure you used sweet potatoes and not yams? Yams have much more starch and can cause these to be gummy and dense.
My 2-year old recently got picky with the breakfast menu and I needed a quick muffin idea for breakfast. I stumbled on your recipe and surprisingly have all the ingredients at hand. Needless to say, everything came out perfect! My 2-year old devoured it and had energy for the whole day. Thank you so much. I appreciate that there’s no egg called for in this recipe, which allows me to cook omelette to accompany his muffin for breakfast. I used silicone muffin cups to cook these and they slid right out, although I had to bake it slightly longer to get the bottom firmer.
So happy to hear that it was a hit with your little one!
My end result was tasty. I tweaked the ingredients a bit, I added an egg and used two cups of mashed sweet potato. I also used a blender for the mashed sweet potato and wet ingredients. If you grease a muffin pan, they come out nicely. If you use muffin liners, it does stick a bit to the liner but if you let it cool it sticks less.
Thanks for your feedback and letting me know about the substitutions you made! Glad they came out well for you.
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