Sweet potato pie is a staple in many households, especially during the holiday season. If you’re not eating pumpkin pie, I can bet that sweet potato pie is on your table.
So whether you’re making this delicious dessert for Thanksgiving or Christmas, we’ll tell you exactly how you can store them in advance, so you can make sure that you can enjoy it for the days to come.
Storing Sweet Potato Pie In Your Fridge
Sweet potato pies contain milk and eggs, so they should definitely be refrigerated. Generally, you should always put any pie containing milk, cream, eggs, or dairy in your fridge.
If you don’t refrigerate a sweet potato pie, then bacteria will grow due to the protein and moisture levels in your dish. So, to prevent that, make sure you put them in your fridge.
Now, you don’t want to refrigerate it as soon as it comes out of the oven. You should let it cool first, which may take a few hours. Once there’s no warmth left at the bottom of your pie pan, cover it loosely with some aluminum foil and refrigerate it.
The good news is that once you refrigerate it, it will keep for up to three days.
By storing your sweet potato pie in your fridge, you can rest assured that it will maintain a firm filling that won’t lose shape after slicing it up.
Storing Sweet Potato Pie In Your Freezer
If you want your sweet potato pie to keep for longer, you can always freeze it. However, if you do freeze it, there’s a chance that the texture may change slightly. So, if that’s a risk you’re happy to take, you can freeze it for up to three months.
To freeze it, you have to wait for it to cool down, just as you would if you were refrigerating it. Once it’s lost all warmth, wrap it securely in plastic wrap, and then again with aluminum foil.
However, if you want to make sure you don’t accidentally crush it, you can also put it in a freezer container. You just have to make sure it’s completely airtight.
When you want to have your pie, all you have to do is take it out of the freezer and put it in your fridge. Once it’s in the refrigerator, you can leave it there overnight as you wait for it to thaw.
Reheating A Sweet Potato Pie
Once you’ve removed your sweet potato pie from the fridge or freezer, you can eat it in two ways. You can leave it for a short while to eat at room temperature (or chilled) or reheat it.
If you reheat it, you can do so either directly from the freezer or if you’ve left it to thaw in your fridge. If you’ve left it to thaw in the refrigerator, you can also just heat it this way as if you’ve refrigerated it normally.
If you want to reheat it from the freezer, you’ll need to do so at 300° for 40 or 50 minutes. Depending on how you made the crust, you may have to keep the pie loosely covered with some aluminum foil until only ten minutes remain and remove the covering.
However, if you’ve stored your sweet potato pie in your fridge, put it at the same temperature of 300° and cook it for less time. You should only need to put it in for half an hour, but keep the edges of your crust covered once again.
To make sure you know when it’s ready, insert the tip of a knife into the center of your pie. Hopefully, the knife will come away warm. However, you don’t want to slice into it straight away.
Even if you’re reheating it, you should leave it for a little while, so you don’t lose the shape of your filling straight away.
Can Sweet Potato Pie Be Left Out Overnight?
Unfortunately, you can’t leave your sweet potato pie out overnight. As I mentioned earlier, too many bacteria will grow on it due to the dairy and the protein.
You can leave it out for a maximum of two hours at room temperature, especially if you intend to eat it that day, but you shouldn’t forget to put it in your fridge if you want to save it for later.
However, this depends on the temperature of the room as well. If the temperature of your household is 90° or higher, then you should eat it, put it in your fridge or freeze it before an hour passes.
What Do You Serve With Sweet Potato Pie?
You can serve sweet potato pie with a variety of different add-ons. While you may find that one of the most popular options is with a dollop of cream, there are other ways you can serve it.
Some cinnamon sugar can work as a wonderful sweetener, but if you don’t want that one, you can also have powdered sugar sprinkled on top too.
Of course, if you’re looking for a more decadent dish, you can serve it with ice cream or marshmallows.
What Happens If You Leave Sweet Potato Pie Out?
If you leave your sweet potato pie out overnight at room temperature, you’re giving yourself a much higher chance of getting food poisoning. Even if you reheat it, you won’t be able to kill off the bacteria that are already growing inside it.
While it may be disappointing to throw away a pie if you forget it, you shouldn’t take the risk and eat it even if your friends say it’s okay.
Final Thoughts
It’s easy to forget about something once you’ve cooked it, especially if you leave it to set. However, you don’t want to risk wasting your food and losing out on some delicious pie.
To prevent that, you should always put it in your fridge or freeze it, or else you’ll be left with the taste of disappointment.
Have you ever made something so delicious that you wished you could savor it forever?
Only to find that the recipe has now mysteriously vanished from your phone and the entirety of the internet. Yep, there’s not much more painful than that.
Hi, my name is Mark Williams and I have been infatuated with cooking since I was young. I would beg my mother to pull a chair up to the counter so I could watch what she was doing.
