Lately we’ve been eating a healthy, tasty alternative to French fries — Sweet Potato Fries! We do, after all, have about 100 pounds of sweet potatoes still sitting in the pantry and I’m always looking for ways to slide these miracle tubers into our menu. (Are you remembering that sweet potatoes are LOADED with vitamin A and anti-oxidents?)
Well, for years, we’ve been making home fries with regular potatoes, but this year we’ve started using our sweet potatoes. YUM!
This is a great, easy vegetable side dish that goes well with almost everything.
Start by scrubbing about 4 large sweet potatoes. We leave the skins on and like the end result. If you don’t like the idea of the sweet potato skins, you can peel them first. Be warned, sweet potatoes take a little more effort to peel than regular white potatoes. Once the sweet spuds are scrubbed, slice into long, narrow 1/2 inch strips.
Toss the sweet potato slices in a drizzle of olive oil and a teaspoon or so of sea salt. Spread the sweet potato strips on a cookie sheet and bake at 400° for about 40 minutes. This is the tricky part. The sugar in the sweet potatoes burns MUCH more quickly than a regular potato. You’ll need to keep a close eye on the fries or they will blacken pretty quickly.
Once they’re black, they really aren’t any good to eat…unlike a really crisp, dark regular potato that gets a little overdone.
The great thing about these sweet potato fries is that you can take them in several flavor directions. Using garlic salt, for instance, instead of plain sea salt is a different take on flavor. Adding some rosemary is a tasty variation to the potatoes. Tossing in some Italian seasoning or some fennel gives them an entirely different set of flavors. Adding some cayenne pepper and some cilantro after the sweet potatoes come out of the oven creates a great flavor sensation. I love to open my spice cupboard and try new variations. So far, they’ve all been delicious!
Barb
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I love sweet taters…we grow them and make lots of sweet tater fries…We mostly use butter and sea salt and brown sugar on our fries, but your combination’s sound good too. I will have to try them.
A splash of lime juice is yummy too.
We LOVE sweet potato fries too!! Another way I make them is to dice them up (in cubes), parboil them (10-15 min max), drain them, toss them in olive oil and emeril’s essence (I looked up recipe online and made my own), and roasted for 20-25 min or so in oven. SO GOOD!!
Oooooh, I’ll have to try this! Thanks for sharing, Denise!
I have sweet potatoes in the pantry, so I am trying this one!
Oh yum! I dished up some sweet potatoes recently to the hubby and he told me he didn’t like carrots!
last week when i was sick and wanted to eat something besides chicken soup i baked a sweet potato and sprinkled it liberally with chinese five spice and cinnamon. it was yummy. these would taste good on the fries, too.
When we were in Hawaii, the only oil I could find in the cupboard of our rental house was toasted sesame oil. I cut up the sweet potatoes, tossed them in the oil and shook some coarse sea salt over them..baked until tender. They were delicious.
I LOVE sesame oil so this sounds simply delicious!