Cooking With Sweet Potatoes: How to Choose, Store, Prep, and Cook Them
Sweet potatoes are naturally sweet, earthy root vegetables that work in everything from breakfast hash and soups to roasted side dishes, curries and baked goods. Their texture changes dramatically depending on how you cook them, which makes them one of the most flexible vegetables to keep in the kitchen.
This guide covers how to choose and store sweet potatoes, when peeling matters, and the cooking methods that bring out different textures and flavors.
How to Choose Sweet Potatoes
Choose sweet potatoes that feel firm and heavy for their size, with sound skin and no large soft, wet or moldy areas. Small and medium sweet potatoes can be convenient for baking whole, but larger ones are perfectly useful when you plan to cut them into cubes, wedges or mash.
How to Store Sweet Potatoes
Store raw sweet potatoes in a cool, dark, dry, well-ventilated place rather than in a sealed plastic bag. A pantry or cupboard away from the stove is usually more practical in a home kitchen than trying to reproduce commercial storage conditions.
Avoid routinely refrigerating raw sweet potatoes. Cold refrigerator temperatures can alter their texture and flavor. Once cooked, refrigerate leftovers promptly in a covered container.
Wash Before Cutting or Cooking
Rinse sweet potatoes under running water and scrub away clinging soil with a clean produce brush. Wash them even when you plan to peel them so dirt from the exterior is not transferred to the flesh as you cut.
Do You Need to Peel Sweet Potatoes?
No. Sweet potato skin is edible, and whether you peel it usually depends on the texture you want in the finished dish. Leaving the skin on adds texture along with some additional fiber and nutrients, and it also saves prep time. Give the potato a thorough scrub first whenever you plan to eat the skin.
For sweet potato fries, wedges, roasted pieces, Hasselback sweet potatoes and whole baked sweet potatoes, leaving the skin on often works especially well. The skin helps a whole baked sweet potato hold its shape, and on roasted pieces it can add a pleasantly rustic contrast to the soft interior. Hasselback Maple Pecan Sweet Potatoes are a good example of a dish where there is no need to peel first.
Peeling makes more sense when the finished texture should be completely smooth. For mashed sweet potatoes, purées, creamy soups and pie fillings, remove the skin before cooking or scoop the cooked flesh from the skin afterward. Sweet potato can also stand in for pumpkin in some pie fillings; in that case, use the smooth cooked flesh rather than the skin. The same idea applies throughout the kitchen: leave the skin on when its texture works with the dish, and remove it when you want a smooth, uniform result.
Roasting Sweet Potatoes
Roasting concentrates sweetness and creates browned edges. Cut the pieces to a similar size, coat them lightly with oil and leave enough room on the pan for hot air to circulate. Crowding traps steam and makes browning more difficult.
Baking Sweet Potatoes Whole
Baking whole gives the interior time to become soft and creamy while concentrating its sweetness. Scrub the potato, pierce it in a few places and bake until a knife slides easily through the thickest part. The exact time depends on size and oven temperature, so tenderness is more useful than a rigid clock time.
A baked sweet potato can become a meal when filled with eggs, beans, vegetables, cheese or leftover meat.
Steaming and Pressure Cooking
Steaming cooks sweet potatoes with moist heat and is useful when you want tender flesh without additional browning. It works well for mash, purées and meal prep. Pressure cooking can accomplish the same general goal quickly, particularly for whole or large pieces.
Pressure cooking is especially convenient when the cooked sweet potato will be mashed, stuffed or incorporated into another dish.
Sweet Potatoes for Breakfast
Diced or shredded sweet potatoes make a hearty breakfast hash. Their sweetness works particularly well with eggs, bacon, sausage, onions, chiles and warm spices.
Sweet Potatoes in Soups, Stews, and Salads
Sweet potatoes soften into soups and stews while contributing body and natural sweetness. In salads, roast or steam them until tender but still firm enough to hold their shape. Acidic dressings, chiles, bitter greens and salty cheeses help balance their sweetness.
Sweet Potatoes Beyond Side Dishes
Sweet potatoes can be spiralized, shredded, mashed into baked goods or cut into small pieces for grain and rice dishes. Their mild sweetness pairs especially well with coconut, peanuts, ginger, cumin, chile peppers, cinnamon, maple, citrus, goat cheese and pecans.
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