Fondant Sweet Potatoes (with Brown Sugar Bourbon Pecan Sauce)

Fondant (aka melting) sweet potatoes are seared then roasted with herbs, garlic and broth to create a super soft, custard-like interior that melts in your mouth. A brown sugar pecan caramel sauce adds a touch of sweetness and crunch. This is an amazing holiday side dish!

Our classic Fondant Potatoes recipe is always a hit with our family on special occasions, but we wanted to make a more fall-appropriate version with sweet potatoes for the holidays! It just took some minor tweaks to get there – we were surprised at how well this method works for creamy, custardy sweet potatoes.

In this version, we borrowed from our Bourbon Pecan Christmas Crack to create a runny, bourbon-infused pecan caramel to spoon over the top. It's also infused with rosemary to tie in the savory flavors.

The end result is a delicious combination of fork-tender potatoes and a sweet and savory pecan caramel sauce that's easily poured over the top of the potatoes.

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Jump to:

• What You'll Need for This Recipe
• How to Make This Recipe
• Storage
• Lexi's Best Tips and Tricks
• More holiday sides to try this year
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Reviews

What You'll Need for This Recipe

For the Sweet Potatoes:

• Sweet potatoes: Try to find sweet potatoes that have a relatively even thickness, so that all of your rounds are roughly the same. You'll want to have enough to fill up a 9 or 10 inch pan, which will probably be around 10-12 total sweet potato rounds.
• Butter, garlic, thyme and rosemary: Melted butter becomes infused with garlic, thyme and rosemary for extra flavor.
• Vegetable broth: The potatoes are roasted at a relatively high heat (425˚F), and the vegetable broth prevents the potatoes from burning and sticking to the bottom of the pan while steaming the potatoes. You could also use chicken stock if that's what you have on hand.

For the Glaze:

• Butter, brown sugar, heavy cream: These form the basis of a brown sugar caramel, we want ours to be fairly runny so there's a bit extra sugar and cream. You can also replace the butter and brown sugar with maple syrup or honey, though we haven't tested that variation.
• Pecans: We chop these ourselves to make sure they're in small pieces. This helps to ensure the glaze is easily pourable. You can also use other nuts like walnuts if you don't like pecans.
• Bourbon: This is totally optional, but it adds a great note of flavor to the glaze. Most of the alcohol cooks off, so it doesn't end up tasting boozy at all.
• Rosemary: Helps to reinforce the savory flavor in an otherwise sweet glaze.
• Salt: a must in any caramel!

How to Make This Recipe

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 425˚F (220˚C). Slice potatoes into 1" (2.5cm) thick rounds. Add oil to a pan over medium heat. Once the oil is warmed, add in the sweet potato rounds and cook for 3-5 minutes, until browned, then flip and cook for another 3-5 minutes.

Step 2: Lower the heat slightly, and add in the butter. Once melted, add in the garlic, rosemary, and thyme. Cook until the butter is foamy and aromatic, and then use a spoon to splash the infused butter over each of the sweet potato rounds.

Step 3: Pour in the vegetable broth, then move to the hot oven and roast for roughly 40 minutes (give or take 5 minutes). The potatoes are done when a knife or fork inserted into one of the potatoes meets no resistance on the way in ("fork tender"). The liquid in the bottom of the pan will also have reduced to almost nothing.

Step 4: Add butter to another pan over medium low heat. Once melted, add in the brown sugar and stir continuously, until the brown sugar is dissolved. Pour in the heavy cream and stir until well incorporated.

Add in the pecans, rosemary, and a pinch of salt, and cook until the mixture thickens slightly, but still runs off a spatula easily. Remove from heat, then add in the bourbon carefully (it will bubble aggressively as the alcohol boils off) and stir well.

Step 5: Transfer the sweet potatoes to a serving platter, cover with sauce, and enjoy!

Storage

Store the potatoes and the glaze separately in airtight containers and refrigerate for 2-3 days.

To reheat, place the potatoes back into a 425˚F (220˚C) oven with a splash of vegetable broth for 5-10 minutes, until warmed through.

Lexi's Best Tips and Tricks

• Cut the potatoes evenly: We laid a ruler along side each potato and then scored them at every 1" (2.5cm) interval as a guide. Then we cut the potatoes into rounds. An even thickness will ensure the sweet potatoes cook evenly in the oven! Some of the ends will probably be too small, so set those aside to freeze and use later in stocks or sweet potato mash.
• Baste the potatoes before putting them in the oven: This covers the potatoes in a layer of garlic, thyme, and rosemary infused butter, which will really improve their flavor.
• Don't skip the broth: It may seem odd to add broth to something you've just seared, but crispiness isn't the goal. We want to ensure the potatoes get nice and soft without burning and the broth helps to prevent the bottoms from burning while steaming them in the pan.
• Keep the sauce runny: You want the glaze to have a runny, sauce-like consistency so it's easily pourable. If it gets too thick, add a touch of cream back to the glaze.
• No need to soak: One advantage sweet potatoes have over regular potatoes is that you don't need to soak them in cold water to remove extra starch.

More holiday sides to try this year

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