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Cooking sweet potatoes in the Crockpot is one of the easiest ways to get perfectly cooked sweet potatoes for the holidays – or any time, really! This method is totally hands-off, and gives you tender, fluffy sweet potatoes with unbelievably soft skins.

Overhead view of a row of cut-open sweet potatoes angling from the top left corner of the image to the bottom right corner.

🍠 What Makes This Recipe So Good

Sweet potatoes are just flat delicious, and oh-so-versatile. They’re a staple of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, yes, but they’re great every other time of year, too, and you can do almost anything with them. We pair them with BBQ chicken, buffalo chicken, and Mexican chicken. We turn them into fries and hashbrowns and soufflé and rice. Cook them in the Instant Pot or the microwave or the air fryer or the slow cooker. Seriously, these babies are the MVPs of the root veggie world.
This method is totally hands-off. It’s a slow cooker, so cooking the sweet potatoes in the Crockpot will take a little while, but you can truly “set it and forget it” because there’s absolutely nothing you need to after turning on the Crockpot. Just come back later to absolutely perfect potatoes!
There’s essentially zero prepwork. A quick rinse and scrub, then a few jabs with a fork, and you’re ready to get cooking. I don’t know about you, but a holiday side dish I don’t have to spend a lot of time prepping is an instant winner in my book.

💭 Chef’s Tips

Be sure to prick the entire surface of each sweet potato with a fork. These holes help the potatoes cook evenly, but they also act as vents to allow the steam that builds up inside the potatoes to escape. Trust me, if you don’t want to have to clean up exploded sweet potatoes, you need to create those vent holes.
Once you’ve cooked your sweet potatoes, you can dress them up any way you like. Visit the recipes I linked above for buffalo chicken or Mexican chicken stuffed sweet potatoes, or keep things classic and go with a little butter, cinnamon, and even a touch of brown sugar.

Overhead view of a vertical row of cut-open sweet potatoes on a sheet of parchment paper.

🥘 A Few of Our Favorite Holiday Recipes

Recipe By: Cheryl Malik

Crockpot Sweet Potatoes

Prep 15

Cook 4

Total 4 15

Fluffy and tender sweet potatoes and a totally hands-off cooking method. Everything you need for your holiday meals!

4 sweet potatoes

Equipment

running water
vegetable scrub brush optional
Fork
large Crockpot with lid or similar large slow cooker

Ingredients

▢ 4 large sweet potatoes approximately 8 ounces each

Instructions

Wash sweet potatoes under running water, making sure to scrub away any surface dirt from skins.
Once sweet potatoes are washed, use fork to prick holes at least ¼-inch deep into skin of each sweet potato. Cover all sides of sweet potatoes with holes.
Place sweet potatoes in bottom of slow cooker. Note: no need to dry sweet potatoes first, but be sure sweet potatoes are not dripping wet.
Cover slow cooker with lid. Set slow cooker to low for 5 to 8 hours or high for 3 to 4 hours (see Notes). Cook sweet potatoes, undisturbed, until vegetables are tender and fork tines can be easily inserted through skin to center of potatoes.
Carefully transfer cooked sweet potatoes from slow cooker to serving plates. Slice sweet potatoes open or cut sweet potatoes in half, then dress as desired and serve. Alternately, transfer cooked sweet potatoes to meal prep containers and let cool completely before refrigerating until ready to eat.

Cook times will vary depending on size of potatoes and size of slow cooker.

Approximate Information for One Serving

Serving Size: 1sweet potatoCalories: 195calProtein: 4gFat: 0.1gSaturated Fat: 0.04gSodium: 125mgPotassium: 764mgTotal Carbs: 46gFiber: 7gSugar: 9gNet Carbs: 39gVitamin A: 32176IUVitamin C: 5mgCalcium: 68mgIron: 1mg