For The Fluffiest Sweet Potato Casserole, Add This Fridge Staple

Sweet potato casserole is a fall and winter staple, especially on holiday dinner spreads. This ubiquitous dish can be a bit tricky to bake, though, facing common yet opposite problems of tasting either bland and watery or too rich and dense. But just one extra ingredient you likely have can guard against both problems: an egg. And it couldn't be easier to add.

Just lightly beat one large egg and mix it into your casserole before baking. For this tiny bit of effort, you gain a huge boost against a disappointing dish. The egg guarantees the casserole stays moist and flavorful, while also providing an airy, fluffy texture. Said lightness can be especially lifesaving if the casserole is served as dessert for a large holiday feast.

Putting an egg in your casserole is one of the sweet potato hacks that actually work, and a doubly great one because it can also be made vegan. There are plenty of vegan sweet potato casserole recipes out there, but you may not have known that adding common egg substitutes — cornstarch, ground flaxseed, or Just Eggs vegan eggs, to name a few — should produce the same light richness as a chicken egg.

Adding an egg is an important step to the best sweet potato casserole possible, but it's far from the only thing you can do. Start, for instance, by adding one to this recipe for a candied sweet potato casserole, with brown sugar and chopped pecans joining the typical marshmallow topping.

This recipe already includes nuts, which is one of the best ways to upgrade sweet potato casserole in general, especially with a dash of complementary spice like nutmeg. Others include adding caramelized onions, vanilla-flavored marshmallows, or a crunchy texture like granola. You could even double down on savoriness and add bacon; in any and all cases, an egg goes a long way. 

Even though it can be surprising how much lighter this dish feels with an added egg, there's still the chance it won't all be eaten at once. And if you want to save some for more than a few days, you actually can freeze sweet potato casserole, carefully. The potato part should be frozen separately from the topping, which will otherwise absorb moisture from the spuds and ruin the texture of both. Or better yet, use leftover topping for hot chocolate or coffee and just make a fresh one when it's casserole time again.