If you love pumpkin pie, you will love this delicious vegan sweet potato pie! Made without coconut cream, it uses silken tofu to create an incredibly velvety sweet potato pie filling that melts in your mouth.
All that in a delicious buttery flaky pie crust. It's made even better when topped with torched eggless Italian meringue (which tastes like marshmallow fluff!).
You can make it in advance, ideal for gatherings around the holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, or just when you want to use up cooked sweet potatoes!
📝 Ingredients Needed
Here's everything you need to make this vegan sweet potato pie recipe from scratch:
Ingredient Notes
Find the complete list of ingredients, quantities, and instructions in the recipe card at the end of this post.
- Orange Sweet Potatoes: Garnet or Jewel work best, for their bright orange color. You could go all out and try purple sweet potatoes for a fun twist!
- Silken Tofu (soft or firm): If you can't find silken tofu, you can leave it out! I've tested the recipe without tofu and it's still delicious.
- Vegan Butter: Adds richness to the filling and a divine buttery flavor.
- Cornstarch: Thickens the filling, you can also use ground arrowroot starch.
- Sugar: A combination of granulated sugar and light brown sugar. The white sugar provides structure, while brown sugar adds a caramelized flavor.
- Warming Spices: Ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg enhance the natural sweet potato flavor. You could also use pumpkin pie spices.
- Homemade Pie Crust: Conveniently, it can be made in advance if you want to prepare ahead a little.
Tip: If you still have leftover sweet potatoes from Thanksgiving, put them to use in this easy vegan sweet potato bread or sweet potato muffins!
🔪 Instructions
Here are step-by-step images showing how to make sweet potato pie vegan. Please refer to the detailed printable recipe card at the end of this page for full measurements and written instructions:
Step 1: Prepare a batch of this vegan homemade crust recipe and blind-bake it until lightly golden brown. This step is crucial to avoid a soggy crust! Par-bake the crust with pie weights.
Step 2: Cook and peel the sweet potatoes. Then blend with the soy milk and silken tofu. Add the remaining filling ingredients (vegan butter, cornstarch, vanilla extract, spices, and salt) until you have a creamy filling.
Step 3: Transfer the sweet potato purée to the par-baked pastry crust.
Step 4: Make a pie crust shield (aka. foil tent). Take a sheet of aluminum foil and cut it into 3-4 pieces to fit around the circumference of the dish, then fold each piece in half. Carefully place it around the pie dish so that you can turn it in to cover the visible pastry.
Step 5: Bake until the pastry is golden brown, and the filling is set with a little bit of jiggle to it. Let the pie cool completely on a wire rack.
Step 6: Whip up a batch of meringue and dollop it on top of the sweet potato pie using a spatula or large spoon. Finish it off by toasting the meringue with a blow torch.
💭 Recipe Tips
Use a high-speed blender or immersion blender for the filling if possible. I tried it with a good food processor, and the level of smoothness just didn't compare.
Don't skip the foil tent. This will prevent the pastry from browning too quickly and cooking before the pie filling is done.
To make a smaller sweet potato pie, use a 9" or 9.5" pie dish. Cut the pie crust recipe down to ¾, and reduce the filling to ⅘ of the original recipe. Keep an eye on the oven for the last 5-10 minutes as both the pastry and filling may need about 5-10 minutes less baking time.
To make this a super easy vegan sweet potato pie, use a store-bought crust, dollop coconut whipped cream, and sprinkle of cinnamon on top.
💬 FAQs
You can leave this pie out at room temp for up to 4 hours. If you're not eating it the same day, place the leftover pie in an airtight container or cover it with foil or plastic wrap and refrigerate it for up to 3-4 days.
Blind-baking the crust until lightly golden is key here. If you don't par-bake, or under-bake it before adding the filling, you run the risk of the crust being raw at the bottom.
The pastry will be golden brown when you lift away the foil tent and the center of the pie will be firm to the touch with a little give to it, aka. it should have a bit of jiggle.
If you can't find silken tofu, just leave it out! The filling won't have as creamy of consistency, but it's still delicious!
If on the other hand, you're concerned about tasting the tofu though, trust me, you won't detect it in this baked sweet potato pie!
Yes, you can freeze it in an airtight container but only without the meringue topping.
Defrost it in the fridge overnight, blot off any moisture on the surface of the pie with some paper towels, and top with meringue before serving.
🥧 More Vegan Pies
📖 Recipe
Description
Ingredients
- 1 batch vegan pie crust
- 600 g (21 oz) sweet potatoes
- 125 ml (½ cup) soy milk, or other non-dairy milk
- 125 g (½ cup) silken tofu, soft or firm *see note 1
- 125 g (4.4 oz) vegan butter, *see note 2
- 100 g (½ cup) granulated sugar, *see note 3
- 100 g (½ cup) soft brown sugar
- 5 tablespoons cornstarch (cornflour)
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- 1 batch vegan italian meringue, optional, for topping
Instructions
- Make the pie crust: Prepare the pie crust recipe through to step 6.
- Preheat your oven to 210°C (410°F). Remove the dough from the fridge and allow it to sit at room temperature for 5 minutes before rolling it out. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a circumference wider than your pie dish. Carefully lift the pastry into the tart tin using your rolling pin.
- Very lightly grease the base and sides of a 10.5" (26cm) pie dish with a little oil or vegan butter. Gently press the dough into the base and sides of the tin, being careful not to stretch it. Use scissors to trim off the excess pastry around the edges of the pan. To crimp the edges of the dough by pinching it with your fingers. You can also crimp the edges using a fork. Pierce several holes into the base of the pastry using a fork.
- Blind bake the crust: Take a sheet of parchment paper and cut it into a circle slightly larger than the pie. Rest it on top of the pastry and fill the base with baking beads (or dried beans, rice, or lentils). Blind bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove the baking beads/dried beans, turn down the oven temperature to 175°C (347°F) and bake for another 15-20 minutes, until the pastry is lightly golden. Place the pie dish on a cooling rack and cool to room temperature.
- Make the filling: Cook the sweet potatoes in boiling salted water for 25-30 minutes, until tender. Transfer the potatoes to a colander and run the cold tap over them. Once cool enough to touch, carefully remove the skins.
- To a high-speed blender, add the cooked sweet potatoes, soy milk, and silken tofu and blend until smooth. Add in the butter, granulated and brown sugar, cornstarch, vanilla extract, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt, and blend again until completely smooth and creamy. Pour the filling into the par-baked pie crust.
- Create a pie crust shield (foil tent): To prevent the pastry from baking too fast. Take a sheet of foil that's as long as the circumference of the dish and fold it in half. Carefully place it around the pie dish so that you can turn it in to cover the visible pastry. (image in blog post)
- Bake at 175°C (347°F) for another 45-55 minutes, until the pastry has browned and the top of the pie has set with a little jiggle.
- Allow the pie to cool to room temperature for at least an hour. Meanwhile, prepare the topping.
- Make the topping: Make a batch of Italian meringue, and use a spatula to scoop it on top of the pie once it has cooled completely.
Notes
- Silken tofu: If you can't find this, you can leave it out or replace with vegan Greek-style yogurt/sour cream.
- Vegan butter: Take this out of the fridge to sit at room temperature for 30 mins to 1 hour. Make sure you use vegan block butter NOT spreadable butter from a tub. I use flora plant butter which is nut-free, coconut-free, and gluten-free.
- Some sugar in the US is not vegan, if in doubt use organic sugar.
Nutrition
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