A shortcut sweet potato casserole with the unusual addition of banana and finished with rows of marshmallows and brown sugar sweetened cornflake cereal crumbs.

Sweet Potato Banana Crunch

I am all for being about tradition when it comes to holiday meals. Keep the dishes that you know and love on the menu, because everyone will be expecting them, every, single year!

My Mama's holiday table was the same every year, with very little variation between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I miss those times so much, and while we now share our holidays with my son, our daughter-in-law and grandkids, I still find myself missing my Mama tremendously this time of year.

One of my favorite holiday sides happens to be sweet potato casserole. These days, an awful lot of folks just prefer the pecan topping, but me, I'm still nostalgic for those marshmallows. Either way, it's also nice to try something new alongside those every year traditional recipes though and even better when someone else brings it! 

This recipe is also a base sweet potato casserole, though unlike my more traditional recipe, it's a bit of a shortcut, using canned sweet potatoes - Bruce's Yams {affil link} cut sweet potatoes in syrup is a local favorite. This recipe also includes banana.

A reader shared the recipe with me many years ago as something a little different to try. It was an old family favorite actually, and her version included coconut with the sweet potatoes, and 4 bananas mashed and sandwiched between two layers of mashed sweet potatoes. It was finished with a topping of brown sugar sweetened, frosted flake cereal.

Of course as family recipes go, they don't always specify exact measurements, so I wasn't sure what size the large canned sweet potatoes were, or even the volume of what those 4 bananas amounted to. Overall it was good, though quite sweet for my tastes and since my bananas were probably too big, very strong in banana flavor. The next time I made it, I reduced the bananas to three, left out the coconut, added more spices and mixed the banana into the sweet potatoes. Most recently I made it again, but made a few more adjustments and cut back on those spices. The idea of using alternating rows of brown sugar cornflakes and marshmallows came straight from Bruce's Yams from their Instagram page though and I think it looks nice!

As always, full recipe text with measurements and instructions, as well as a printable document, are a little bit further down the page. Just swipe or scroll past the step by step pictures below. Here's how to make it.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 2 quart casserole dish. Combine cornflakes and brown sugar. Stir in melted butter and butter, mix well and set aside. Beat sweet potatoes until creamy. Add banana, sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt and beat until blended well, but don't overbeat. Fold in pecans; transfer to buttered casserole. For the topping, alternate 2 rows of cornflake mixture offset diagonally across the center of the casserole, leaving space for the rows of marshmallows; add another 2 rows along each edge of casserole dish. Fill in rows with the mini marshmallows. Bake uncovered for 25-30 minutes or until marshmallows are golden brown.

Yummy!