Sweet Potato Rolls
This soft, tender, sweet potato dinner rolls recipe makes soft and buttery rolls perfect for weeknights or even holiday dinners. These dinner rolls are made without eggs or dairy and can be made year-round and even frozen for homemade heat-and-serve dinner rolls.
Looking for more vegan side dishes? These Vegan Mashed Potatoes and Vegan Gravy are perfect, especially when served with yummy dinner rolls.
Is there anything better than home-baked bread on the family dinner table? I mean, think about it. Of course there’s going to be cranberry sauce. But seriously, is that any competition for dinner rolls? I think not! In fact, I think sweet potato rolls recipes are amazing any time of year!
How to Make Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls
It’s so easy to make these delicious sweet potato yeast rolls. Let’s get started!
Step One: Prepare the Sweet Potato
First, scrub and clean the sweet potato and poke it with a fork or knife several times. Place it in the microwave for two minutes. When it’s cool enough to touch, remove with oven mitts and cut into large chunks.
Step Two: Combine Wet Ingredients
In a food processor combine the roughly chopped sweet potato, water, milk, and brown sugar. Pulse until creamy. You might have small bits of sweet potatoes, but overall it should be creamy.
Transfer to a bowl and let the mixture cool slightly (it should be the same temperature as your finger when you dip it into the mix).
When the temperature is right, add the yeast. Gently stir. Set aside.
Step Three: Combine Dry Ingredients
In a separate bowl combine 3 cups all-purpose flour, salt, and ground flax seeds. Whisk to combine.
Step Four: Make Dough and In-Bowl Knead
Create a well in the middle of the flour and scoop the sweet potato mixture and 3 tablespoons melted vegan butter into the well. Stir to incorporate.
I created this process to make kneading much easier. Rather than transferring the dough to a floured surface, simply knead the dough in the bowl. It makes kneading a lot less messy. So, knead in the bowl for 3 to 5 minutes. Add up to 1/2 cup additional all-purpose flour as needed until the dough pulls slightly away from the sides of the bowl. It will still be sticky.
Step Five: Let the Dough Rise
Spray the dough ball in the bowl with vegetable spray. Cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and place in a warm, dry place to allow the dough to rise until it’s doubled in size, roughly an hour or more.
Step Six: Make Rolls & Second Rise
When the dough has risen, prepare a 9×13″ baking dish by adding a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Spread the oil around the pan.
The dough will be sticky so sprinkle whole wheat pastry flour, over the top and gently work the flour into the dough. The dough should reach the point where it’s still sticky, but will form into a ball.
Next, pinch off sections of the dough a little larger than a golf ball. Dip each ball in the oil from the pan and gently pull the sides down, working the dough until it’s the shape of a ball. It can help you work the dough if you occasionally touch your fingers into the oil in the pan. Place the dough balls about 1″ apart on your prepared pan.
Spray a sheet of plastic wrap with vegetable spray and place that over the rolls (so the plastic won’t stick to the rising rolls). Cover and let rise 30 to 40 minutes until doubled in size.
Step Seven: Bake
When you’re ready to bake, heat your oven to 350°F. When the oven is at the correct temperature, remove the plastic wrap from the rolls, and place the pan in the oven. Bake for 25 minutes, until golden brown on top.
After you remove them from the oven, immediately coat with a thin layer of melted vegan butter. These rolls are best when served warm, but can be made ahead and heated up prior to serving.
Storing Dinner Rolls
To store dinner rolls, make sure they come to room temperature. Then cover and refrigerate up to 5 days. You can also freeze dinner rolls. Put them in freezer bags or in a freezer container and they will keep up to 2 months in the freezer.
I’ve always been a big fan of bread. Big fan!
Vegan Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls
This is not just any sweet potato roll recipe. This is a vegan roll recipe. That means it’s made without eggs or dairy. Besides, it’s homemade bread. Do I really need to say anything else?
Yes?
Well, OK. This sweet potato yeast bread is something special because the sweet potatoes give it a gorgeous, golden hue. It looks downright buttery!
You may not realize this, but hues are important. We eat with our eyes. So, why serve plain, old, white bread when you could spruce it up a little with some sweet potatoes?
And then your sweet potato yeast rolls will look better than everyone else’s. And some days, that can feel so gratifying. You may not be able to control what’s happening at work, or on the commute home, or even in the news. I love this advice from Michelle Obama on how to deal with today’s stressful milieu.
Focus on what you can control. Be a good person every day. Vote. Read. Treat one another kindly. Follow the law. Don’t tweet the nasty stuff.
Michelle Obama
I would add something else, or maybe it falls within the first statement about focusing on what you can control, but I think connecting with yourself as a maker is important.
I read about it in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Big Magic. We are makers. Humans have been making things for millions of years, including food.
When we choose that path, to make food, we are answering an ancestral call to work with our hands, to create, to bond with family.
So make a delicious batch of vegan sweet potato dinner rolls. Then when you’re sitting with family at the dinner or table, or even later when you’re clearing away dishes (hopefully with help), you can think to yourself, “That’ll do, self. That’ll do.”
I added a brushing of melted vegan butter once I removed them from the oven. It adds even more buttery flavor. These vegan sweet potato dinner rolls are soft and pillowy on the inside with a nice, buttery crispy crust.
Exactly what you expect from sweet potato bread rolls.
Make-Ahead Dinner Rolls
This is another thing I love about making homemade dinner rolls. There are at least three points in the process where you can make them ahead.
Because timing is a big part of a family dinner. You want to serve everything at the same time, piping hot and ready to be devoured.
- Make-ahead Tip #1: There is a point in the process of making these rolls where the dough must set in a bowl and raise for about an hour, so it can double in size. You can cover the bowl in plastic wrap or some other cover and place it in the fridge at this point. You can even wrap the dough ball and freeze it too. Just be sure to allow plenty of time for the dough to return to room temperature and to resume the rising process.
- Make-ahead Tip #2: There’s another point in the process of making these rolls, where you can freeze the uncooked dough. Right after you’ve rolled the dough into balls, instead of placing them in a pan to rise, you can place the formed dough balls on a tray and put them in the freezer. Then, once they’re frozen, transfer them to a freezer bag. Then when you’re ready to bake them, resume the next step by placing the frozen dough balls in a greased 9X13 pan. Be sure to allow ample time for the frozen dough balls to return to room temperature and then resume rising.
- Make-Ahead Tip #3: You can make these sweet potato dinner rolls, all the way through to completion! Then when they’re done and cooled enough to handle, remove them as a block from the pan, wrap tightly in foil or plastic wrap and refrigerate or freeze. Then when you’re ready to serve, simply reheat in the oven.
There you have it! That’s it for this recipe for sweet potato rolls just in time for the holidays.
That’s it for this sweet potato bun recipe!
Subscribe and get a free Easy Vegan Recipes eBook
Plus our latest vegan recipes, delivered right to your inbox!
Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls
Ingredients
- 1 medium sweet potato (see note)
- ½ cup water
- ¾ cup plant-based milk , plain (not vanilla flavored)
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 2 ½ teaspoons active-dry yeast (1 packet)
- 3 to 3 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoons ground flaxseed
- 3 tablespoons vegan butter melted
- 1 to 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons vegan butter , melted, for brushing
Instructions
- Scrub and clean the sweet potato and poke it with a fork or knife several times. Place it in the microwave for two minutes. Remove with oven mitts and cut into large chunks.
- In a food processor combine the roughly chopped sweet potato, water, milk, and brown sugar. Pulse until creamy. You might have small bits of sweet potatoes, but overall it should be creamy.
- Transfer to a bowl and let the mixture cool slightly (it should be the same temperature as your finger when you dip it into the mix).
- When the temperature is right, add the yeast. Gently stir. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl combine 3 cups of all-purpose flour, salt, and ground flax seeds. Whisk to combine.
- Create a well in the middle of the flour and scoop the sweet potato mixture and 3 tablespoons melted vegan butter into the well. Stir to incorporate. Knead the dough in the bowl (3 to 5 minutes). Add up to 1/2 cup additional all-purpose flour as needed until the dough pulls slightly away from the sides of the bowl. It will still be sticky.
- Spray the dough ball in the bowl with vegetable spray. Cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and place in a warm, dry place to allow the dough to rise until it's doubled in size, roughly an hour or more.
- When the dough has risen, prepare a 9×13 baking dish by adding a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Spread the oil around the pan.
- The dough will be sticky so sprinkle whole wheat pastry flour, over the top and gently work the flour into the dough. The dough should reach the point where it's still sticky but will form into a ball.
- Next, pinch off sections of the dough a little larger than a golf ball. Dip each ball in the oil from the pan and gently pull the sides down, working the dough until it's the shape of a ball. It can help you work the dough if you occasionally touch your fingers into the oil in the pan. Place the dough balls about 1" apart on your prepared pan.
- Spray a sheet of plastic wrap with vegetable spray and place that over the rolls (so the plastic won't stick to the rising rolls). Cover and let rise 30 to 40 minutes until doubled in size.
- When you're ready to bake, heat your oven to 350°F/175°C. When the oven is at the correct temperature, remove the plastic wrap from the rolls, and place the pan in the oven. Bake for 25 minutes, until golden brown on top.
- After you remove them from the oven, immediately coat with a thin layer of melted vegan butter. These rolls are best when served warm, but can be made ahead and heated up prior to serving.
(The products above contain sponsored links to products we use and recommend)
Notes
The nutrition information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator and should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
If you’d like to try another one of my bread recipes, you might think about this Vegan Naan Recipe. It’s sooooooo good! Or you might try these delicious Garlic Bread Sticks.
Enjoy!
Looks great. Can I use whole wheat flour and bread machine
Hi Wyn. I have not tried using a bread machine with this recipe. To use whole wheat, I have used whole wheat pastry flour or a mixture of all-purpose and whole wheat flour (50/50). I hope this is helpful!
Thanks! That was the size I had and it worked out well, though I cooked it longer in the microwave (until soft). Rolls were a big hit at Thanksgiving.
Just wondering: how big is a “medium” sweet potato? Some kind of measurement would be really helpful, whether it’s weight, length/width, volume when mashed,, or something else. Thank you so much!
Hi Ruthie! Thanks for your comment. One medium sweet potato is typically 5 inches long by 2 inches wide. I’ll add that to the recipe notes in case someone else has the same question.
These look outstanding. Think I could swap the flour with GF 1-1 flour?
Hi Sheri! They may not rise as much, but I think if you use something like Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 gluten-free baking flour it should create a tasty roll. I would probably add a teaspoon of xanthan gum too. You can usually find that in the gluten free section. It is pricey, but used in a lot of GF baking and it lasts a long time!
Soooooo Very Good! I made these larger for hamburger buns. They were perfect and so good. This recipe is a definite keeper;-). Did I mention theses are really good?
Hey Marly…! your vegan sweet potato dinner rolls looks so good and delicious. Thanks for sharing…….!
Thanks!! I confess, they are perfect for the holidays and we will be having some today with our dinner! ❤️ Happy holidays to you!