Sourdough Discard Sweet Potato Waffles Using Thanksgiving Leftovers

These waffles are great to make with leftover sweet potato casserole from Thanksgiving or just because! They’re perfect for the day or weekend after Thanksgiving and they’re quick to whip up. You can also use plain sweet potatoes and make them anytime!

I was making these waffles initially as a baby led weaning meal prep recipe. You can can out that post here or check out all my BLW Recipes here:

*Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links while at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.

How to use Thanksgiving Sweet Potato Casserole Leftovers

These waffles are a perfect way to incorporate your leftover sweet potatoes from Thanksgiving. They are so versatile, it really doesn’t matter what recipe was initially used for your sweet potatoes. As long as it isn’t a super savory dish, your waffle will turn out amazing!

Honestly the more ingredients in your initial recipe the better! I would love to try the sweet potatoes with marshmallows! Sadly we never usually have these at our family’s Thanksgiving. But that might just be how I cook my sweet potatoes for this recipe next time!

Easiest way to cook sweet potatoes

If you don’t intend to use leftovers, you will need to cook and mash your sweet potatoes prior to making these waffles.

My favorite way to cook sweet potatoes is in the Instant Pot. If you don’t have one already, it’s time to add it to your Christmas list, now! I end up using my instant pot more to make ingredients for recipes, like this one, than the actual recipes themselves!

Back to the sweet potatoes….

I like to wash them, cut them into 2″ sections, and throw them straight in the pot. Add a cup of water and cook on high pressure for 15 minutes. When done, let the pressure release naturally for 10 minutes and then manually release the rest.

This method leaves me with perfectly cooked sweet potatoes every time. And the skins fall right off in one piece, it is so handy!

Ingredients for sweet potato waffles

Sweet Potatoes or Sweet Potato Casserole – The type of sweet potato casserole used will have a direct impact on the waffles you end up with. This is the best part! Imagine candied sweet potatoes with marshmallows or sweet potato casserole with streusel and pecans on top! The end result will be even more incredible. Although, if you’re making this recipe with regular sweet potatoes, it comes out amazing as well. There’s really no wrong way to make your sweet potatoes and it makes it very flexible with leftovers.

Brown Sugar – Brown sugar will be completely optional. Depending on what kind of sweet potatoes or casserole leftovers you’re using, they may already have added sugar or sweets. In this case, you won’t need any brown sugar.

If you also don’t want very sweet waffles, you can add more or less depending on taste.

Eggs – Eggs help keep our ingredients together and give them a little fluff.

Sourdough Discard – Sourdough discard is sourdough starter that is left over from feeding or using to make a different recipe.   Discard normally refers to sourdough starter that “has not been fed” which just means it’s already eaten all of the food available to it.  It has a more sour flavor that offers baked goods a wonderful complexity and added moisture.

You can use any time of starter for this, active or not.  There is still baking powder in this recipe, so we don’t need it to help leaven.  Alternatively, you can make these without sourdough discard all together.  Just replace with equal parts flour and milk or water by weight to replace the 120g

Flour – Flour helps the waffle keep its shape. This recipe uses unbleached all purpose flour. Other flours can probably be substituted just fine, they are just untested for this recipe. Follow conversion instructions.

Baking Powder – The little bit of baking powder helps add a little bit of fluff to our waffles.

Salt – Salt enhances the flavor of our final product. I love using Redmond’s Real Salt because it makes everything taste so much better.

Cinnamon – Optional. If the leftover sweet potatoes or casserole already has plenty of cinnamon in it, you can leave this out.

A Note On Waffle makers

Waffle makers come in so many different sizes and shapes.  There are mini waffle makers, square waffle makers, heart waffle makers, etc.  The list goes on!  Obviously, the amount of batter that will go into each recipe will be determined by your specific type of waffle maker.  I used a normal belgian waffle maker for this recipe for reference.

Can you Replace the flour with gluten free options?

Yes! Although I have not tested this recipe with any other flours, I believe it would work just as well to substitute pretty much any flour you wish. I think oat flour would work pretty well! I will update the post if I try them with an alternative. Please let me know in the comments if you have tried a flour alternative as well!

Can I leave the Sourdough discard out?

You can forego the sourdough discard, but it will have a different flavor profile. Sourdough discard helps with moisture retention so we have to make up for its composition. Just replace it with another 60g of flour and 60g of milk. This is roughly 1/2 cup flour and 1/4 cup milk.