Most classic mashed sweet potato recipes are loaded with extra sugar or high-fat, high-calorie ingredients like butter, whole milk, cream, half-and-half, or sour cream. Usually both.
These low-calorie mashed sweet potatoes are different. With a few simple ingredient tweaks, you can keep the sweetness, rich flavor, and creamy texture while cutting the calories almost in half compared to traditional recipes.
Compare The Calories In My Healthy Mashed Sweet Potatoes To The Traditional Sugary, Fatty Recipe:
One popular recipe from a famous cookbook author called for 6 tablespoons of butter plus 1/2 cup of full-fat cream or sour cream along with whole milk. Plus the sugar. I analyzed one of these traditional recipes and the batch came out to 2100 calories total, about 350 calories per serving. Whaaaat???
My version logged in at just 1022 calories for the whole batch (6 servings), only 171 calories per serving. Yep, these Burn The Fat mashed sweet potatoes have half the calories, just like my low calorie mashed potatoes recipe.
Even with my ingredient modifications, you still get a creamy texture and great taste. Plus, in this version of mashed sweet potatoes, I use sugar-free maple syrup to add a touch of sweetness, along with cinnamon for extra flavor. It may not be quite as rich as fattier versions, but the tradeoff is minimal for the huge calorie savings.
How To Make Mashed Sweet Potatoes Low-Calorie And Low Fat
Leaving out the butter is the first key to keeping your mashed potatoes lean. Trust me, you don’t need it at all, but if you insist on splurging, and you have calories to spare, go ahead and use a small amount of butter (maybe 2 tablespoons instead of the typical 6). Be sure to account for the extra calories.
Second, keep the sour cream and milk, but switch to low or non-fat versions. This recipe uses non-fat milk and low-fat sour cream to save calories. To keep a richer flavor, we use low-fat instead of non-fat sour cream, but that’s still saving calories and a good compromise compared to the full-fat variety.
Can You Use NonFat Greek Yogurt Instead Of Sour Cream?
I started out making this recipe with low-fat sour cream. Then one day I was making these mashed potatoes again, I had the sweet potatoes peeled, chopped and already in the water, when I looked in the fridge and realized I had no low fat sour cream! Gasp! What to do?
Well, I had non-fat plain Greek yogurt and I tried that instead. I could not notice any difference at all in flavor. It was still delicious and the calories were a tad lower.
This seems unique to mashed sweet potatoes. I’ve tried nonfat Greek yogurt in the regular mashed white potatoes before and it was okay, but that was definitely better with low fat sour cream. But in these sweet potatoes with the maple and cinnamon flavors and only half the amount of sour cream (or yogurt) required, the yogurt works as a great alternative.
How To Prepare The Sweet Potatoes (Peeling, Chopping And Boiling Method)
Quick shopping and prep hack for before you peel, chop, and boil your potatoes:
When shopping, buy the large sweet potatoes with the smooth surface and uniform shapes. If you buy the small ones with the craggy surface and unusual shapes, they are a pain to peel. This will save you several minutes of prep time with frustrating peeling. Peeling and chopping doesn’t take more than 6 minutes. The combining ingredients and mixing in the bowl takes about 9 minutes for 15 minutes of total prep time.
If you browse enough cookbooks, you’ll see that half the mashed sweet potato recipes suggest baking the potatoes first, then skinning them, then mashing the flesh. I’ve never done that. I use the traditional method of skinning them, chopping them, then starting them in cold water, and bringing them to a full boil. That takes about 10 minutes from cold to boil, maybe 12 to 13 depending if you used a lot of water.
Then you simmer them another 15 minutes with just enough heat so the water still bubbles ( a low boil – that’s medium or just over medium). This method reduces the chances of uneven cooking where the outside of the potato is overcooked and the inside is still not done (too firm).
This is same method I used for our regular mashed white potatoes. Sweet potatoes just take a few minutes less to boil than white potatoes. (About 15 minutes for sweet potatoes, more like 18 to 20 for white potatoes).
The potatoes are ready to remove from the water and mash when you can stick a fork in and they’re soft and easily flake apart. Be sure to poke the largest potato pieces to make sure they are done before dumping the water and mashing.
When you cut your potatoes, if you try to make the pieces approximately even in size, it helps them all cook evenly. About an inch at the widest part seems to work well. If you cut into larger, thicker chunks it might take slightly longer to cook or else big chunks won’t mash as smoothly.
How To Season Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Adding one teaspoon of salt to the cooking water begins the seasoning process because potatoes absorb the water they are boiling in. If you’re healthy and don’t have sodium-sensitive high blood pressure, there’s no need to worry about cooking with a little salt.
The amount in this recipe is not overly salty. Not all the sodium ends up in the potatoes (lots is dumped with the water), and when the batch is split 6 ways, it’s not an excessive amount per serving – nothing like instant potatoes or other processed, packaged foods.
But it tastes a lot better. If you skip the salt completely, you get bland potatoes. You will add a little more salt when you’re mashing the potatoes.
What Is The Best Way To Mash Sweet Potatoes After Boiling?
Ricers and food mills seem to get high marks among chefs and cooks. I simply used a hand-held potato masher and it worked great. For one batch, I even mashed with a fork and it still worked out fine, just took some thorough stirring and mixing. The way these potatoes were boiled and mixed with skim milk and low-fat sour cream, in just the right amounts, made them easy to mash and turn out mostly smooth.
But if you want your mashed sweet potatoes super smooth and creamy, then use a mixer. Of course you can always use the classic electric hand mixer with the beater attachments.
I use the immersion blender. It’s the same one I use to make our Burn the Fat protein ice cream. It works great and the cleanup is fast and easy. The model I use is the Mueller Austria Ultra Stick.
How To Flavor Maple Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes have natural sweetness, as the name implies, but not quite super sweet. Adding sugar-free maple syrup is the secret ingredient to not only bring it to the perfect sweetness, but also create the maple sweet potato flavor profile.
If you want your maple sweet potatoes dessert-delicious, then also add some of the non-caloric sweetener of your choice. If you’re not sure, taste test it first and then decide if you want even more sweetness.
Also if you’re going to use something like splenda, stevia, Truvia and so on, that works but consider the zero calorie brown sugar (such as Swerve, Truvia Sweet Complete, etc) because that adds even more to the flavor profile.
And of course, adding cinnamon is the perfect flavor-enhancing match for maple in sweet potatoes.
Taste test your potatoes before serving and you can decide if you want the additional sweetener, or a little more cinnamon or salt.
Need a topping? Add your favorite fresh herb.
Tips To Make The Mashed Sweet Potatoes The Perfect Consistency
Some recipes are best followed verbatim. This one you can tweak a lot of ways to make the finished product come out just the way you want it.
If it’s too thick and it’s not soft or creamy enough? Add more milk. Not rich enough? Add a bit more low fat sour cream.
My only caveat is to add liquid ingredients in a little at a time because it’s easier to add in more moisture to dry, thick potatoes than it is to take it out of mashed potatoes that are too liquidy.
One last tip. If you’re cooking for a big feast and there’s a lot of other stuff to cook, you can make this the night before, or the morning of, store in the fridge, and just reheat them in the microwave before serving.
And on the same note, if in doubt, scale up the batch. These make awesome leftovers!
Enjoy!
Tom Venuto,
Author of, Burn the Fat Guide To Meal Prep For Fat Loss
Founder of, Burn the Fat Inner Circle
PS. Also be sure to check out my original low-calorie mashed (white) potatoes and sweet potato protein pancakes
PPS. Looking for a true sweet potato dessert? Check out the healthy sweet potato protein brownies and the high protein sweet potato chocolate pudding
Low calorie maple mashed sweet potatoes
Equipment
- pot, stockpot or Dutch oven
- hand mixer or immersion blender
Ingredients
- 1020 g sweet potatoes, peeled (36 oz)
- 60 g lowfat sour cream (1/4 cup)
- 2-4 Tbsp nonfat milk (to desired smoothness)
- 60 ml ml Sugar free maple syrup (1/4 cup)
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon (or to taste)
- 2-3 tsp calorie-free brown sugar (everythritol, stevia, etc) (or to taste)
- 1.5 tsp salt, divided (1 tsp for cooking water, 1/2 tsp in potatoes)
Instructions
- Peel the sweet potatoes.
- Chop potatoes into even chunks about an inch wide.
- Put potatoes in pot and fill with cold water until covered.
- Add 1 teaspoon salt to the water.
- On stove, turn heat onto high. Bring water and potatoes to a full boil (about 10 - 12 minutes).
- Lower heat to a simmer or low boil (just over medium) for about 15 minutes or up to 20 minutes, until they are fork-tender.
- Drain boiled potatoes in a colander/strainer.
- Put potatoes in a large mixing bowl, add sour cream, milk, maple syrup, cinnamon and salt.
- Mix and mash with a masher (or immersion blender) until creamy. Serve fresh and hot, or refrigerate in airtight container and reheat later.
Nutrition
About Tom Venuto
Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilding and fat loss coach with 35 years of experience. He holds a degree in exercise science and has trained hundreds of clients in person and thousands online. He is also a recipe creator specializing in fat-burning, muscle-building cooking.
A former competitive bodybuilder, Tom is now a full-time evidence-based fitness writer, blogger, and author. His classic book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is an international bestseller, first as an ebook and later as a hardcover and audiobook. He is also the author of Meal Prep For Fat Loss, a practical guide to smart shopping, batch cooking, and kitchen strategies that make healthy eating simple and sustainable.
Tom is also the founder of Burn the Fat Inner Circle, a fitness support community with more than 59,000 members worldwide since 2006.
Tom’s work has been featured in Men’s Fitness, Muscle & Fitness, Oprah Magazine and dozens of other major publications. He is best known for his no-BS, scientific approach to natural fat loss and muscle-building.
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