Sweet Sweetie Sweet Potato Recipes

I generally eat sweet potatoes once a year during Christmas dinner at my Aunt’s house. Although they taste okay, I’m not a huge fan of my Aunt’s sweet potatoes because for some reason they are drenched in oil. So I just feel gross when I eat them because she ads honey so it’s sort of like eating hot mushy candy with the texture of a semi-mashed potato. Mmm...doesn’t that sound good? If you want the recipe for that dish here it is:

Bake sweet potatoes until they are sort of crisp on the skin side. Add a bunch of oil from an unknown source then let it sit there until it is semi-warm and add a whole bottle of honey until the whole dish looks like a glazed mush pumpkin. Finally, serve to your nephew while he pretends to like it. It definitely can't be considered in the group of foods that lower cholesterol in any way.

Ok, so it’s not really fair to criticize my Aunt’s sweet potato recipe and to be fair, everything else she serves at Christmas dinner is absolutely delicious. I decided to fool around with some sweet potatoes to see if I could do any better so here are some of my own easy sweet potato recipes.

Sweet Potato Casserole

Ingredients

2 pounds sweet potatoes

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup granola...yes, granola!!!

Directions

1. Boil the sweet potatoes until they are tender. Turn them into mash, this should be easy because they will be so soft. Your sweet potato mash will be the main component of your dish so make them as creamy as you like. You can also use a convection oven if you like, or a much quicker Nuwave oven if you have one.

2. Add the beaten eggs, vanilla, butter, and milk, and gently mix them with your sweet potato mash. Add salt to taste, but I generally don’t since I hold back on the sugar.

3. Add everything to a casserole dish.

4. In a separate bowl, add sugar and butter. Mix in granola or dry oatmeal – try to find some that isn’t heavily pre-sugared. Another nice touch is almond flakes.

5. Pour the granola on top of the sweet potatoes (not too thick a layer) and bake at 325 degrees until the topping is brown.

You could actually serve this as desert if you want. It’s going to be pretty sweet so if you prefer to have it as a side, don’t add the sugar and granola layer and maybe just use some brown sugar on top.

I don’t generally make regular potato fries at home because I figure I can’t do any better than my favourite which is McDonald’s French fries so why try to make my own. But they are unfortunately one of my top high cholesterol foods to avoid. So I tried making my own sweet potato fries and they came out pretty well so here is one of my favourite sweet potato recipes.

Ingredients

2 pounds sweet potatoes

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. Chilli powder

Salt and pepper to taste

Parsley flakes

Directions

1. You can keep the skin on for these fries, so cut them into whatever size you like. I prefer sweet potato fries that are wide and flat on one side, then thin on the other.

2. Add the cut potatoes with the olive oil and sprinkle with spices. The great thing about SP fries is that their sweet nature really goes well with a bit of heat.

3. Arrange the fries on a baking sheet and bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes. After that you can transfer them to a frying pan to crisp them up a bit. One crispy side works really well on these fries since the rest will be tender.

4. While still hot, sprinkle even more flavouring if desired. Salt will stick well while the fries are still hot.

As long as you get some crispness on the fries you’ll be golden. If not, you end up with long strips of limp sweet potato that aren’t as fun to eat. If that happens just bake them longer or zap them in the fryer for a full effect.

Sweet Potato salad

Ingredients

2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed

2 celery stalks

1 can corn

1 cup fat-free mayonnaise

½ cup Japanese mayo (used for California rolls)

2 tablespoons orange juice

1 tablespoon honey

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cantaloupe – scooped into balls

Directions

1. The great thing about this sweet potato salad is how easy it is to prepare. Can you dump stuff into a bowl and mix it together? Then you can make this. It's as easy as using an ice cream maker. All you have to do is cook the sweet potatoes beforehand. Once they are done and cut, just gradually mix the rest of the ingredients into a large bowl.

2. This flavour profile is going to be towards the sweet (obviously) so if you want to adapt it back towards a traditional potato salad you can cut out the cantaloupe and use half regular potatoes and half sweet. But I’d suggest just going for a full-n sweet salad, and if it’s too sweet you can cut in a bit of acid with some lemon juice.

Those are some of the easiest sweet potato recipes I know. And yes, I’ve tried them all. The only one you might have to adapt to your own tastes a bit more is the sweet potato salad since you might not enjoy cantaloupes as much as I do. But as far as sweet potato recipes go, these are pretty simple and overall delicious.