This Old-School Southern Breakfast Food Makes Sweet Potatoes The Star

Sweet potatoes make a delicious savory side when cubed and roasted with dried herbs and seasonings, the prettiest ochre-colored topping on a gratin, or a nutrient-dense carb in a batch of golden hash browns. That said, the naturally sweet flavor of these hardy tubers means they moonlight as a key element in several dessert recipes too, such as sweet potato pie. In the South, sweet potatoes are candied with brown sugar and traditionally served at Easter and Thanksgiving too, but there's one old-school Southern breakfast food that makes these guys the star on the daily; sweet potato pancakes.

Soft, fluffy, and aromatic with warming spices, sweet potato pancakes are a common sight on breakfast and brunch tables in the South where sweet potato harvests thrive in areas like North Carolina and Louisiana. In one recipe for maple-cinnamon sweet potato pancakes, the taters are cooked in the microwave first before they're mashed. However, the best thing about making this classic Southern dish is that you don't need to cook your sweet potatoes at the crack of dawn to get breakfast ready. Simply transform your leftover mashed sweet potatoes from last night's dinner into sweet fluffy pancakes by combining them with flour, eggs, baking powder, and cozy fall spices, such as cinnamon or nutmeg. Once combined, cook them on a hot griddle in the same way as you'd make a batch of all-American pancakes (flip over once bubbles appear on the surface).

As sweet potatoes have a naturally sweet flavor, you don't need to add a lot of sugar to your pancake batter. In fact, you can omit it altogether or substitute it for a liquid sweetener, like maple syrup, which has the added benefit of imbuing your final dish with a caramel-like taste and earthiness. If you find the flavor is too rich and cloying, consider adding a dash of tangy buttermilk or sour cream to the batter to lend both balance and body. Serve your pancakes for brunch with the Southern addition of slices of pork belly to create a filling dish with a sweet and savory vibe, or dollop on some apple butter or pecans to truly lean into their nutty and candied flavor. Any leftovers can be refrigerated for up to five days when stored in an airtight container so you could make a bunch in advance and reheat in the mornings.

Hoecakes are one of the other classic Southern breakfasts everyone should enjoy once in their lives. Made with cornmeal, water, and salt, this variety of pancake isn't as fluffy as the classic buttermilk variety, and neither does it share the russet color of a stack of sweet potato pancakes.