Sweet Potatoes

You should be eating this healthy vegetable year-round.

In the United States, sweet potatoes make their appearance for my favorite cooking holiday and seem to disappear. But sweet potatoes are sweet vegetables that don’t need to be loaded with more sugar to enjoy them. Many spicy and savory seasonings complement their natural sweetness, that will make this vegetable part of your plate all winter.

Sweet Potatoes are native to the Americas. Their flesh can come in colors including, white, yellow, orange, and purple, with brown, red, or purple skin.

Yams are a common name in the United States for orange-fleshed sweet potatoes. These are usually the Jewel and Garnet varieties that we are used to seeing at Thanksgiving.

Sweet Potato Season

Sweet potatoes are planted in late spring and grow through the hot summer months. The harvest starts in August and September. Large scale farmers keep sweet potatoes in storage through the year, making them available year-round.

Sweet Potatoes don’t need a lot of fertilizer and pesticides, and there is often little difference between organic and non-organic ones. But in the farmers’ markets, you will find countless varieties that you can’t find in the store.

Once you bring them home, don’t refrigerate sweet potatoes. Keep them in a cool dark location and use them within two weeks. If you need to store them longer, cook them, and then freeze the sweet potato flesh.

Preparation

Bake sweet potatoes whole 400 °F for 45–60 minutes, after piercing with a knife. Make sure to set them on a baking sheet or dish lined with parchment paper, as the sugars will start to ooze out when cooking. The sugar will caramelize into a little chef treat.

To cook faster and caramelize the sweet potato, you can peel, dice, and roast sweet potato cubes at 400 °F for 25-30 minutes until browned.

The Simplest Recipes

Sweet potatoes go well with spicy peppers and curry, as in the roasted sweet potato recipe here. Following in the same flavor combinations, add sweet potatoes to your chili or an Asian inspired soup with curry and coconut milk.

Spicy Roasted Sweet Potatoes

• 4–5 cups sweet potatoes in 1-inch cubes
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground chili powder or curry powder
• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 °F. In a large bowl toss the sweet potato cubes with the oil, chili powder, salt, and pepper. Lay the seasoned sweet potatoes out in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Roast for 25–30 minutes in the oven or until tender. Take sweet potatoes out of the oven and transfer to a serving platter.

This sweet potato dish is kid-friendly and a great alternative to the sticky-sweet dishes served on Thanksgiving.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey and Cinnamon

• 4–5 cups sweet potatoes in 1-inch cubes
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• A sprinkle of salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 °F. In a large bowl toss the sweet potato cubes with the oil, honey, cinnamon, salt, and pepper. Lay the seasoned sweet potatoes out in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Roast for 30–35 minutes in the oven or until tender. Take sweet potatoes out of the oven and transfer to a serving platter.

Sweet potatoes make an alternative to garbanzo beans in hummus. This substitution is perfect if you can’t eat beans.

Sweet Potato Hummus

• ¼ cup of tahini
• 2–3 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, mashed and roughly chopped
• 1 large sweet potato, cooked
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• ½ teaspoon of salt
• ¼ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

In a food processor, combine the tahini and olive oil and pulse until smooth. Add the garlic, cooked sweet potato, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne pepper and process until smooth. Add more salt or lemon juice to taste and spoon into a serving dish. Serve with crackers, vegetable sticks such as carrots or celery, or with toasted pita bread.

Yams Versus Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes are in the morning glory family of vegetables, unrelated to potatoes. The term, yam, that the even the USDA uses to differentiate the two main cultivars, white and orange flesh, that we are used to seeing in the store is incorrect.

A true yam is a different root vegetable in the botanical family Dioscoreaceae, native to Africa. When African slaves were brought to the U.S., they called the local variety of sweet potatoes “yams” because they look similar to what they knew from home.

Make sweet potatoes part of your plate.

Sweet potatoes are a nutritious and delicious vegetable that you need to be eating throughout the year. Try one of the different varieties if you can find them. Each cultivar has different flavors and textures that are worth exploring. Most important, sweet potatoes make a healthy part of your plate through the winter months. Enjoy them with different seasonings and spices, taking the edge off the sweet Thanksgiving dishes, with their heavy and rich flavors.