These Sweet Potato Waffles Are the Perfect Cozy Family Breakfast

I’ve always preferred waffles to pancakes — mainly because I love how the little pockets capture maple syrup, and that you get crispy outsides and pillowy insides in each bite. While I love standard Belgian waffles, there are so many other ingredients that can be mixed into waffle batter to make it even more delicious.

Enter: sweet potato waffles, which are a great way to use up leftover sweet potato from dinner. Add a few warm spices and a touch of brown sugar, and these waffles will fill your kitchen with the scents of autumn and winter as they cook, luring everyone to the table.

1. Cook the sweet potatoes. If you don’t have leftover mashed sweet potatoes, just cook one either in the microwave or the oven and mash. You can also use canned sweet potato purée, but the final waffle batter will be thinner, so err on filling the waffle iron with a little less batter.
2. Mix the dry ingredients. The standard waffle base of all-purpose flour, leaveners, and salt also gets a dose of brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg (or just add in an equal amount of pumpkin pie spice).
3. Mix the wet ingredients. Whisk together mashed sweet potato, melted butter, eggs, buttermilk, and milk. I like a combination of buttermilk and milk because the buttermilk adds great flavor, and the milk thins it out a bit to make sure the waffles cook up crisp.
4. Waffle away! These waffles brown quickly, so it’s best to start on medium heat and adjust from there. You can make these in a thin or Belgian waffle iron; use the amount of batter recommended in the manufacturer’s instructions.

While the standard butter and maple syrup combo works just fine for sweet potato waffles, you can also have fun with more non-traditional options. Cinnamon honey butter would be lovely, or you could go full on sweet-savory with fried chicken. Or serve them as dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

Yes! A stash of sweet potato waffles in the freezer is the best answer to hectic weekday mornings where you want a quick breakfast that can be warmed up quickly. Freeze the waffles in a single layer, then transfer to a zip-top bag for longer-term storage. Thaw before reheating if you can, but you can also reheat them in the oven from frozen — they’ll just take a few minutes longer.

This post was originally published on Kitchn. Read it there: Sweet Potato Waffles