Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls
Roasted sweet potato gives Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls a tinge of color and burst of earthy flavor. A classic enriched white bread dough makes the softest sweet potato bread rolls perfect for dipping into with your favorite soups or slathered with butter for Thanksgiving dinner.
So read for all the detailed tips and tricks to making sweet potato dinner rolls with purple sweet potatoes, orange, or white. Or just grab the nearest sweet potato, hit that purple Jump to Recipe button, and let’s make my favorite sweet potato dinner rolls.
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Ingredients
This recipe is an adaptation of my Japanese Milk Bread Rolls with the inclusion of mashed, roasted sweet potato. I prefer purple sweet potatoes because they give a pink purple color to the dinner rolls, but feel free to use orange or white-flesh sweet potatoes.
You’ll find the standard bread ingredients with flour, yeast, and salt. In addition, enriched breads like these bread rolls, my chocolate chip brioche, raisin challah, or Portuguese sweet bread also have eggs, butter or oil, and/or milk.
Looking for more purple sweet potato recipes? Check out my mashed purple sweet potatoes with banana, twice baked purple sweet potatoes loaded with beans and cheese, purple sweet potato latkes, or my sweet potato sourdough discard bread.
Please see the recipe card below for complete information on ingredients and quantities.
Variations and substitutions
- Want to use your sourdough discard in sourdough discard sweet potato dinner rolls? I’ve made these sweet potato bread rolls using 126 grams of 100% hydration discard and 120 milliliters of milk as the roux starter ingredients.
- Shape half of the bread roll dough into rolls and bake in a 9 inch round cake pan and shape the other half into a sandwich loaf.
Recipe tips and tricks
The first step in the recipe is to make the starter, called a tangzhong. This starter makes your sweet potato dinner rolls super soft and keeps them fresher for longer. You can use the tangzhong while still warm or make it ahead of time – move it to a measuring cup to stop cooking, push some plastic wrap to the surface, and refrigerate to cool.
Combine the remaining flour and sugar, yeast, and salt in your mixing bowl. Then add the tangzhong, eggs, and mashed sweet potato.
Mix until you have a shaggy dough (left image, below). Then switch to the dough hook of your mixer and knead until the dough comes together.
Depending on how humid your kitchen and how moist your sweet potato, you may need to adjust the consistency with a teaspoon of water or a tablespoon of flour at a time. The dinner roll dough should be just the tiniest bit tacky, but not sticky, before adding the butter.
Add the softened butter cubes a little at a time, until they are all incorporated in the dough. Then knead the dough until it is soft and smooth and pliant. If the dough sticks, scrape it down and keep kneading, but try to resist the urge to add more flour.
Shape the dough into a ball, and let it rise in a warm place until it has doubled in size. This should take about an hour and half or so.
Tip from the wise quacker: The best ambient temperature for making bread is in the high 70s. If your home is cool, you can create a warm, place in two ways: 1) Turn on your oven (use the proofing function if it has one) and turn it off when it reaches 80 degrees or 2) Heat a microwave-safe cup of water in your microwave for a minute or two. Remove the water and quickly add your bread dough.
Divide the dinner rolls into fifteen equal pieces. If you use a scale (always recommended!), each piece should weigh about 90 grams.
These are pretty hefty-sized bread rolls. For smaller rolls, divide the sweet potato dough into twenty-four rolls (about 56 grams) and just cook for a few minutes less.
Roll them into balls, like in this video how to shape dinner rolls. Place them in a greased 9 by 13 inch pan so they are equally spaced apart, and let them rise until about doubled again and the edges are touching.
My goal is to keep the pink, so I don’t brush these sweet potato dinner rolls with melted butter, and I cover them loosely with foil when they start to brown. Go ahead with the butter and browning if you don’t mind – they’ll still be pretty in pink inside!
Store any leftover sweet potato dinner rolls in a plastic storage bag or other air-tight container at room temperature for about one week.
What to serve with sweet potato dinner rolls
There are so many options, but here are a few of my favorites:
- Soups like my garbanzo bean soup or butternut squash and carrot soup.
- Chicken mole chili.
- BBQ chicken meatballs or pulled chicken.
- As part of Thanksgiving dinner!
Recipe FAQs
Yes! They’re best baked fresh, but you can freeze shaped bread rolls either before or after baking. Defrost before baking.
There’s no right way to roast a sweet potato. If I’m turning on the oven just for this recipe, I’ll wrap a medium sweet potato in foil and bake it at 450 degrees Fahrenheit until the sweet potato is fork tender. Let cool, peel, and mash the sweet potato.
Related bread recipes
Check out other yeasted dinner rolls and breads for sandwiches from the archives, like:
Love this recipe? Please leave a 5-heart 💜💜💜💜💜 rating in the recipe card below. Let me know how much you loved it, or any problems you had, in the comments section further down.
Recipe
Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls
Equipment
- 1 Stand mixer
- 1 9 by 13 inch baking pan
Ingredients
Tangzhong (roux starter)
- ⅓ cup (45 grams) bread flour
- ½ cup (120mL) whole milk
- ½ cup (120mL) water
Dough
- 4 ⅔ cup (600 grams) bread flour plus more as needed
- ¼ cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
- 2 ¼ teaspoons instant yeast
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 cup (240 grams) mashed sweet potato
- 2 large eggs
- roux starter
- 8 tablespoons (113 grams) unsalted butter softened and cut into small cubes, plus more for greasing the pan and brushing, if desired
Instructions
Tangzhong (roux starter)
- In a small pot, combine the flour, milk, and water. Over low heat, whisk until smooth and continue stirring until the whisk leaves a clear, thick track at the bottom of the pot.⅓ cup (45 grams) bread flour, ½ cup (120mL) whole milk, ½ cup (120mL) water
- Remove the roux from the heat and scrape it into a glass measuring cup to stop the cooking. If you are not using it right away, cover the starter with plastic wrap, pressing down the wrap onto the surface of the roux to prevent a skin from forming and let cool.
Sweet Potato Dough
- In the bowl of a mixer, use the paddle to combine the flour, sugar, and yeast and mix on low speed briefly. Add the salt and mix for about 10 seconds.4 ⅔ cup (600 grams) bread flour, ¼ cup (50 grams) granulated sugar, 2 ¼ teaspoons instant yeast, 2 teaspoons salt
- Add the mashed sweet potato, eggs, and the starter. Mix on low speed. When the dough starts to come together, switch to the dough hook. If the dough doesn't come together, add an additional tablespoon of milk at a time.2 large eggs, roux starter, 1 cup (240 grams) mashed sweet potato
- Increase the speed to medium and add the butter, one or two small cubes at a time. It should take a few minutes to finish adding the butter. Knead for about five to seven minutes more, scraping the dough if it sticks to the bottom of the mixer. At the end of kneading, the dough should be soft and tacky but not sticky.8 tablespoons (113 grams) unsalted butter
- Shape the dough into a boule, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about one and a half to two hours.
- Lightly grease a 9 by 13 inch baking pan.
- Divide the remaining dough into 15 equal-sized pieces, and roll each portion into a ball (see the link below and in the main post for how to shape dinner rolls). Place the bread rolls in the pan so they are equally spaced and not touching.
- Cover the pan with plastic wrap, and let the dough rise again in a warm, draft-free location until doubled in size, about 2 hours.
- Thirty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Bake for about 20 to 22 minutes until lightly browned and the internal temperature is 190°F. Check after about 10 minutes and lightly cover with aluminum foil if the rolls are browning quickly.
- Serve warm or at room temperature.
Notes
Nutrition
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