The Best Soul Food Candied Yams For Thanksgiving

Hey PBJ’s! It’s Thanksgiving time all over again, and I’m starting it off with a new classic candied yams recipe. My previous candied yams recipe uses the exact same ingredients and measurements. However, we’ll be making these candied yams the more traditional way. 

Here is my other candied yams recipe, Soul Food Candied Sweet Potatoes Recipe. In that recipe, you’ll find a section where I talked about how yams aren’t sweet potatoes and why we started calling them yams. I’ll talk a little more about that in a few as well.

But I wanted to create this recipe because I wanted an option for people who like making them more traditionally and wanted to provide both versions. By traditional, I mean without boiling them first. In this recipe, I chop the potatoes and bake them in the oven.

Some people prefer doing it this way because they feel it has fewer steps. However, you have to do more prepping with all the peeling, dicing, and slicing. It can feel like a workout. But, you won’t have to wash as many dishes because, unlike when you boil them first, you’ll only need a baking dish, not a pot and a baking dish.

The original recipe is definitely the better option if you’re lazy and would rather skip all the peeling, dicing, and slicing. It’s especially a better option if you’re not that strong or don’t like dealing with big, sharp knives, because sweet potatoes are tough when raw.

So not only is cutting them hard, but you need some strength to do it, and since we’re using 4lbs of sweet potatoes, it will require a lot of peeling, dicing, and slicing. Which means, it also takes time! You may ask, “Well, darn, what’s the benefit?”.

Well, once you put them in the oven, there’s nothing more for you to do, and you have more control over the final shape of the yams. When you slice them while raw, you can cut them into your desired shapes without them breaking apart, which is more likely to happen after boiling.

Watch Me Make It

What makes this a good recipe?

• Easy to make: Candied yams are very easy to make! You peel them, slice them, top them with spices and other ingredients, then bake them until tender —that’s it!
• Kid-friendly: These are obviously kid-friendly because they are soft, easy to eat, and most importantly, sweet. Kids love candied yams because they taste like sweet potato pie. It’s the one vegetable you won’t have to force them to eat.
• Fan favorite: Candied yams are a very popular side dish. So you don’t have to worry about bringing these to a social gathering and no one eating them. If made correctly, they’ll be among the first things to go. Lol!

Candied Yams Black History

Let me quickly get into the history of candied yams. Candied yams were a dish created by slaves who referred to candied sweet potatoes as yams because they resembled the yams they grew in Africa, which were different from the regular starchy potatoes.

They not only had a different shape but also a different skin color and flesh color. They were also sweet, but they looked like yams on the outside, so they called them such, even though they were just sweet potatoes, not yams.

Yams, while similar in shape, have a bark-like exterior, typically white flesh, and aren’t sweet or super tender when boiled or baked. Anyway, this is why we still call them candied yams to this day, although they’re candied sweet potatoes. However, for the sake of this recipe and the algorithm, I’m going to be calling them yams. Haha!

Since that’s what most people call them, it’s what they’ll look up and find on Google and Instagram! Haha! They’re not yams, however, and not made using yams. But slaves would bake yams and smother them in sugar, sometimes syrup and/or honey, until tender.

They perfected this dish, and it became part of what we call soul food.

Soul Food Delicacy

Because of THAT VERY MUCH BLACK HISTORY, candied yams are a soul food delicacy because black folks made them popular mainly through how we make them, and nobody makes candied yams like black folks. 

You’ll find candied yams on pretty much every local soul food restaurant’s menu. It’s probably the most black food (soul food) you can think of. I’m not sure if anything is more “SOUL FOOD” than both candied yams and sweet potato pie, which is also made with sweet potatoes and uses many of the same ingredients.

Candied yams, though, are definitely one of the first side dishes you think of when you think of soul food, and probably the most popular soul food vegetable side. Like, it’s that one soul-food dish that 90% of black folks love. Others are hit-or-miss within the community, but everybody loves candied yams.

I say all this to say that candied yams can’t get any more soul food or BLACK than they are! Lol! And our African ancestors, who were slaves and passed amazing candied yams recipes down to their children’s children, children who lived in the south and even moved up north and out to the west coast, are responsible for perfecting this dish.

Family Tradition

Making candied yams, especially around Thanksgiving time, has become a family tradition for many African Americans. It’s something my family and I do year-round, though.

My family was always big on candied yams, so while making them for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner was definitely a “FAMILY TRADITION,” we would often make them throughout the year for Sunday dinner.

Now I don’t remember my mother making candied yams often, but I do remember her making some for dinner here and there throughout the year. It was the one so-called vegetable she didn’t have to worry about us wasting.

But in the black community, because of how we make candied yams, we typically serve them alongside a green leafy vegetable. They never serve as a vegetable side dish, even though they are vegetables. That’s because they’re so sweet, so we don’t view them as nutritional as we do collard greens or green beans.

So, I always remember that whenever my mom and grandmom made them for dinner, they would also cook a green leafy vegetable to go along with whatever we were eating. We didn’t just get away with not having to eat a green leafy vegetable. Haha!

Ok, let’s get to the important stuff now. Below are all the cooking utensils I recommend for this dish, along with the ingredients you’ll need. Make sure you have them before you get started.

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Ingredients You’ll Need:

• Vegetable: Sweet Potatoes, we’ll be using 4 lbs
• Sweeteners: White sugar, brown sugar, light corn syrup, and honey
• Condiments: Vanilla extract, use a good brand.
• Fat: Butter

Cooking Utensils You’ll Need:

• Casserole Dish: We’ll need to bake the candied yams in.
• Potato peeler: To peel the potato skin.
• Big Spoon: To combine and stir the candied sauce.
• Knife: To slice and dice the sweet potatoes. Make sure to use a sharp, large knife.
• Measuring Cups: For measuring ingredients such as sugar, honey, and syrup.
• Measuring Spoons: For measuring the spices.

How to make candied yams

1. Peel the skin from the sweet potatoes.
2. Slice and dice them into relatively even-sized shapes of your choice.
3. Add a little salt and lemon juice to a large bowl of cool water.
4. Add the sweet potatoes and soak for 10-15 minutes, then rinse well.
5. Preheat oven to 350°F.
6. Create the candied sauce: Add the syrup, honey, sugar, and half of the spices to the baking dish and stir well.
7. Add the sweet potatoes.
8. Top with the butter and the remaining spices.
9. Cover with aluminum foil and place in the oven.
10. Bake for 1 hr and 30 minutes, then remove the aluminum foil.
11. Stir well.
12. Bake for 30 more minutes, then remove.

Tips for best results:

• Baste and stir: Make sure to baste the candied yams and give everything a nice stir after removing the aluminum foil, to make sure everything is loose and evenly distributed, because sometimes the yams may stick..  

Candied Sweet Potatoes Variations:

• With Orange Juice: Adding a pinch of citrus will add another element of flavor to the candied yams and give it more balance. Just add a small amount though, a tablespoon or two.
• Marshmellows: If you want to decorate and sweeten things up a bit more, you can add a bunch of small marshmellows during the last few minutes of cooking and place the candied yams in the broiler to brown the top of the marshmellows.

Serving suggestions:

Since candied yams are a soul food side dish, let’s keep it soul food. Soul food main dishes that go great with candied yams

• Main dish options: Simple Juicy Oven Roasted Whole Chicken Recipe, Slow Cooker Smothered Turkey Wings, The BEST New Year’s Eve Pig’s Feet Recipe
• Great soul food side dish that tastes great with candied yams: Easy Southern Baked Macaroni & Cheese Recipe (Made With Cheese Sauce), World’s BEST Moist Southern Cornbread Recipe,
• Good soulful vegetables sides are: World’s Best Southern Collard Greens Recipe (Made With Smoked Turkey), The BEST Southern-Style Green Beans Recipe, The Best Southern Stove Top Cabbage (With Tender Smoked Turkey)!!!

Storage and reheating

• How to store the yams: Simply wrap them in aluminum foil, place them in a Tupperware dish, cover with a lid or plastic wrap, and refrigerate.
• Can you freeze them? Most definitely. Just place them in a Ziploc bag, make sure they’re tightly sealed to prevent freezer burn, and store them in the freezer.
• How to reheat in the oven: Place them in the oven and bake, covered, for 20-25 minutes at 350°F. Give them a nice stir and continue baking if needed.
• How to reheat in a skillet: Place them in a skillet and warm them over low heat for about 15 minutes, or until hot. Stir periodically and add a pinch of water if needed.
• How to reheat in a microwave? Place them in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 2-3 minutes, stirring after 1 minute.  

Frequently Asked Questions

• How long do they last? Candied yams can last for 3-4 days. They can last longer if stored in a freezer. 
• How to double the recipe? If you want to double, triple, or quadruple the recipe, simply use 2, 3, or 4 times the amount of ingredients and a much bigger casserole/baking dish.
• Do I have to use both white and brown sugar? No! You can use either or and/or both. Using more brown sugar will give the candied yams a stronger molasses flavor.
• Why is my candied sauce so loose? Because the liquid from the sweet potatoes thinned it out as it baked under the aluminum foil. It thickens as it chills, though.

I hope y’all enjoy these delicious candied yams. Leave a comment below and give me 5 stars if you love these candied yams as much as I do. And subscribe to receive email notifications every time I post a new recipe.

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Enjoy, later!

Pbj~ 

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