Sweet Potato Frosting

Sweet Potato Frosting is made from baked sweet potatoes, with no powdered sugar or food coloring required. It makes a fun, healthy frosting for your favorite cakes and cupcakes!

Why You’ll Love It

It’s naturally sweetened. Instead of using refined sugar, sweet potato frosting gets its sweetness from baked sweet potatoes and pure maple syrup. Thanks to the addition of vanilla and almond extracts, it doesn’t taste like a “healthy” frosting. 

It’s colorful! Who needs artificial food coloring when sweet potatoes come in such beautiful hues? You can use orange sweet potatoes, purple sweet potatoes, or white sweet potatoes to make different frosting colors with this recipe.

It’s allergy friendly. For those who need a frosting that is gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegan, this one uses coconut oil instead of butter. (Use refined coconut oil if you want to avoid any coconut flavor.)

It’s nourishing. Sweet potatoes are a great source of fiber and vitamin C, and they develop a silky texture when blended, very similar to traditional frosting. 

Ingredients You’ll Need

What’s in sweet potato frosting? 

• Baked sweet potatoes
• Maple syrup
• Coconut oil
• Vanilla extract
• Almond extract
• Salt

That’s all you need to make this simple vegan frosting, but you can also add cocoa powder to make a chocolate version. I’ve included a variation in the printable recipe below, and you can add more or less cacao powder, depending on if you want a milk chocolate or dark chocolate flavor.

If you don’t want a coconut flavor added to your sweet potato frosting, be sure to use refined coconut oil. (It will say expeller pressed on the package label.) This will add zero coconut flavor to the recipe.

How to Make Sweet Potato Frosting

1. Bake the sweet potatoes. 

If you don’t have a baked sweet potato on hand, preheat the oven to 400ºF. Wash and dry the sweet potato, then pierce it several times with knife to help it vent. 

Rub the potato with olive oil, and place it on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake at 400ºF for 45 to 60 minutes, until the center of the potato is tender, and easily pierced with a fork. (If you have an instant read thermometer, the internal temperature should reach at least 207ºF in the thickest part of the potato.)

Let the potato cool until it’s easy enough to handle without burning your hands. 

2. Blend. 

Slice open the baked potato and scoop out enough of the cooked middle to tightly pack a 1-cup measuring cup. (Save any leftover cooked potato for my Sweet Potato Smoothie recipe.)

Add the sweet potato puree to a high-speed blender, along with the maple syrup, melted coconut oil, vanilla extract, almond extract, and a pinch of salt. Blend until smooth, and add a tablespoon of water or almond milk, if needed to help with blending. (This shouldn’t be necessary as long as your ingredients aren’t cold from the fridge.)

Note: You can use a food processor to mix this frosting if you need to, but the results may not turn out quite as smooth.

3. Chill. 

Pour the blended frosting into an airtight container, and let the frosting chill in the fridge for 6 to 8 hours, or overnight. It will thicken up, thanks to the coconut oil!

4. Enjoy!

Once the frosting is thick, give it a stir and it’s ready to use. You can spread it on a chocolate cake with a spatula, or add it to a piping bag and use it on cupcakes.

Sweet potato frosting can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week. Or you can freeze it for up to 3 months.

Common Questions & Substitutions

How much frosting does this recipe make? This batch makes just under 2 cups of frosting, which is enough to frost 12 cupcakes, a single layer 9-inch cake, or the top of a 9 x 13-inch cake. To frost a two-layer cake, as you can see in my Healthy Carrot Cake photos, make a double-batch of frosting.

Can I use a different oil? This recipe works because coconut oil is solid when chilled. To get similar results, you’d need to use another fat that is solid when chilled, such as butter or shortening. I don’t think another vegetable oil (like olive oil) would work quite as well. 

Can I make it without oil? If you require an oil-free recipe you can leave out the oil, but the texture could be significantly different in that case. I would add almond milk, just a tablespoon at a time, and blend until the sweet potato puree is smooth enough to spread like frosting.

Can I use a different sweetener? Feel free to experiment with this recipe, but keep in mind that other sweeteners will add another layer of flavor. Honey is much stronger in flavor than maple syrup, so I would use less if you want to try that. 

Can I make chocolate frosting? Yes, I’ve included a chocolate sweet potato frosting variation in the printable recipe below.

More Healthy Frosting Recipes

If you need some other frosting ideas, try one of the options below.

• Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting. This frosting is made with white sweet potatoes, for a creamy dairy-free alternative.
• Vegan Ganache. This frosting is made with just 2 ingredients: coconut cream & chocolate chips!
• Coconut Whipped Cream. I used this on my son’s first birthday Applesauce Cupcakes.

By the way, you can make this frosting with purple sweet potatoes, too! When you make both orange and purple sweet potato frosting, it looks perfect for a Halloween cupcake.

If you try this sweet potato frosting recipe, please leave a comment below letting me know how you like it. And if you make any modifications, I’d love to hear about those, too!