As a kid, the only time I ever saw sweet potatoes on the dinner table was at Thanksgiving {Sweet Potato Casserole, anyone?}. But now, I’d say I probably go through at least 25 pounds, if not more a year. I love them. My family loves them. And I use them in all sorts of recipes. Apparently, I’m not alone. America is growing the most sweet potatoes since WWII.
Sweet potatoes are cheap and really easy to grow, so they became a staple to ward off hunger when funds were scarce. Plus, sweet potatoes satisfied a sweet tooth at a discount for Americans strapped for sugar.
“By the end of the war, U.S. farmers were growing more than 3 billion pounds of sweet potatoes. But when soldiers returned home, people went back to work and the economy hummed.”
No more sweet potatoes. Industrialization of farming and the rise of processed foods left sweet potatoes in the dust. U.S. production dropped by a billion pounds within two years after the war and it bottomed out in 1980, with less than 1 billion pounds total, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Sweet potatoes were on their way out, until the recent surge.
The reason? Our obsession with diets, namely the South Beach diet, Paleo diet or Atkins diet. Since those diets were so restrictive, a sweet potato became an allowed sweet treat. Even TV personalities like Dr. Oz highlighted the magic of the vegetable. they are locally grown everywhere, cheap to grow, inexpensive to buy. The perfect storm for a big comeback!
In 2000, Americans ate about 4 pounds of sweet potatoes per person. Today, it’s nearly double that, at 7.5 pounds per person.
So where do you fit in to those stats? Are you sweet potato obsessed or would you prefer a good ol Russet? If you do love your sweet potatoes, what’s your favorite way to eat them?
I love Roasted Purple Sweet Potato Wedges with Rosemary and Thyme or Baked Sweet Potato Fries a lot, but I’ve never met a sweet potato I didn’t like, really! What about you?
~Mavis
Pamela says
I strongly dislike sweet potatoes. Growing up it seemed like I was the only one in the family that didn’t like them. Recently the only time I knowingly ate them was out to lunch with a friend. She ordered sweet potato fries as an appetizer. They came with a couple of flavorful dipping sauces that helped mask the taste! Give me a regular old potato any day of the week.
mullingthingsover says
I love sweet potatoes, especially since I have learned how to grow them. I make 2 20 foot long hills 2 feet high and put sweet potatoes slips on both sides and down the middle and they grow and grow and grow. I’ve had a 9 lb sweet potato from my garden before. I store them in a back room that doesn’t get too hot and they last months.
I like them fried, baked and on the grill. Just butter, salt and pepper for me!
ann in E. oregon says
I love sweet potatoes (fries, please) and your veggie peeler! 🙂 TOO cute.
Catherine says
Yes, I like that peeler, too! is that yours or is it a stock photo?
Erica says
I LOVE sweet potatoes. I feel like my favorite Fred Meyer stocks the sweet potatoes just for me. 🙂 I buy 3-4 lbs every week (and there’s usually about 10 lbs out at any given time.)
Mostly, I love them cubed and roasted. I eat Whole30-ish most of the time, so I use them as a substitute for other starches. They are awesome as a base for taco salad instead of beans and rice. I also have several recipes for chili variations that use sweet potatoes. So yummy; the combo of sweet and spicy is my favorite.
Butternut squash is another big one for me. It tastes awesome with Italian sauces instead of pasta (better than spaghetti squash, imho.)
Mavis Butterfield says
Butternut squash is the best!!! I can’t get enough of it.
Deborah says
I used to totally dislike sweet potatoes. Now, I like sweet potato fries and mashed ones. To make the mashed ones, I just peel them and cut them up in chunks. Place them in a microwaveable bowl with lid, add a tablespoon of water and cook till done. Add butter, a tad of milk, and some cinnamon if desired. No sugar. I love them like this.
Renay says
I julienne sweet potatoes, drizzle with a very small amount of oil and salt, bake at 375 for however long you like crispness (turning once) and voila! Sweet potato fries. SO YUMMY!!!
Norma says
If you have an air fryer, then coat in no more than 2 tablespoons of oil, and cook in the fryer for 10-12 minutes. Remove, add your salt (optional) and enjoy!.
eliz says
I mostly freeze them in cubes and add to smoothies and soup.
Preppy Pink Crocodile says
I love love love sweet potatoes! I use them a million ways. And I think I’ve commented this before but in case I have’t, just a head’s up that sweet potatoe leaves are edible and delicious! I add them in when I sautée greens.
Sweet potatoes are only distantly related to regular potatoes and sweet potato leaves, unlike regular potato leaves, are edible. Making sweet potato plants even more awesome because they give you food above and below ground!
XOKK http://www.preppypinkcrocodile.com
Sarina says
I love that peeler!!! Too cute! Sweet potato casserole is the best way to eat these tators.
Gina says
The question of the day: Mavis, where’d you get that ADORABLE peeler??? I love sweet potatoes too!
Jude DeWitt says
I recently discovered that I love savory sweet potatoes. This recipe was shared by Caitin, a local chef here in Cincinnati. Sweet Potato Dauphinois
Yield: 8+ servings , Prep time: 10 minutes , Cook time: about 1 hour
Ingredients
3 large sweet potatoes
1 cup shredded gruyere
½ cup butter
1 tbsp. nutmeg
2 cups heavy whipping cream
salt + pepper , to taste
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Generously grease a dish with butter. Clean and thinly slice the sweet potatoes into rounds (certainly this can be done by hand, but a mandolin is very helpful).
Spread a layer of sweet potatoes onto the bottom of the dish. Pinch small nuggets of butter onto the sweet potatoes, about 1 tbsp. of butter per layer. Sprinkle the finely shredded Gruyere, a pinch of salt, pepper, and nutmeg onto the potatoes next. Continue layering until all the potatoes are used.
Once the layers have been packed firmly, pour the cream around the perimeter of the layered dish until it starts to leak through the top of the potatoes. Cover with aluminum foil and place the dish on a cookie sheet to catch any spills or drips, as this does have a tendency to ooze over the sides.
Bake for an hour. After the hour has passed, set the oven to broil, remove the foil from the dish, and broil for 5 minutes to crisp the potatoes on top.
Let cool for approximately 10 minutes. Scoop and serve.
– See more at: http://www.cookingwithcaitlin.com/recipes/potatodauphinoisrecipe#sthash.51RHwFjt.dpuf
AlysonRR says
Here’s another savory sweet potato dish our family enjoys:
Peel and cube 1/2-1 sweet potato per person
Toss with melted butter (1Tbsp per potato) and mild Madras curry powder (1tsp – 1T per potato, depending on how much you enjoy curry – we use 2T for 4 people)
Bake in a covered casserole at whatever temperature other things are cooking (this a side for us – we’ve done it from 325F-450F) until sweet potatoes are soft.
Deborah says
We ear a lot of sweet potatoes so I tried growing them but they all had black streaks throughout their interior. Does anyone have any idea what might cause that. The plants were beautiful and full, I was looking forward to a good harvest all summer to be so disappointed.
Deborah says
Eat a lot of sweets- and they are my one year old grandson’s favorite food, baked.
Practical Parsimony says
I love sweet potatoes so much I bought 160 lbs. in 40 lb. boxes that cost $10 each. That was $40 worth of sweet potatoes that fed me and my friend for nine months or so. You cannot beat a quarter a pound. I buy them from the farmer, driving out and having a chat while his workers get them down and load them for me. The best variety is Georgia Jet, sweet and needs no butter or sugar. However, they don’t store well at all. Beauregard is the best of the rest and need no butter or sugar, either. Beauregards store for months.
Baked in the skin is my favorite way to eat sweet potatoes. Sometimes, I take my mother’s pumpkin pie recipe and substitute sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are better than pumpkin in any pumpkin bread recipe!
I love sweet potato casserole with the sugar and pecans on top. But, I never make it. Sweet potatoes are horrendous to me when friend. I never eat the casserole with marshmallows on top.
Jill says
What a deal!!
Norma says
I use sweet potatoes instead pumpkin or butternut squash in a lot of recipes too. My favorite way to have one – poke the skin and nuke until done, Add a little butter, some salt, pepper and a tablespoon or two of brown sugar.
I also sub them instead of pumpkin in a pie recipe. I use the same recipe except I use two cups of sweet potatoes.
I buy in season, nuke in their skins, and pull them out of the shells, freeze in 2 cup portions. 2 cups is enough to feed me for 2 meals, or make one pie or put into soup instead of pumpkin or butternut squash. Delicious in any way.
The carbs are very low, great for us diabetics.
Lace Faerie says
I do not think sweet potatoes could possibly be prepared in any way that I would dislike them! They are the cat’s pajamas! Ate them candied as a child, but now I bake them like a russet and enjoy them with butter and salt.
My brother in law never liked them, no matter how they were prepared. He discovered spiralizing them and sautéing with a little olive oil, garlic and a little S&P. Delicious! On the rare occasion when there are leftovers, we topped our green salads with them cold, still delicious! Beets this way are great, too! Taste good together, too.
My hubby hates sweet potatoes but recently was so hungry that he tried my sweet potato fries with dipping sauce and ended up eating most of my snack!
Karin says
I had never tried a sweet potato until a few years ago and I’m totally hooked now! I love them so many ways, but my favorite is peeled, cubed, roasted with salt, pepper, and olive oil until they’re beautifully crisp on the outside and creamy inside. I always try to make extra to puree with chicken stock until smooth, add a pinch of cumin and chili powder, and just a splash of cream or evaporated milk and it makes an amazing soup. I could eat it every day!
Trish Slussar says
My family loves them in every form. Hubby and I have sweet potato hash for breakfast almost every day. Thinly sliced and pan fried just like white potatoes but with chili powder, cumin and coriander added. Top with a fried egg. Yum! I bet our family goes through 10 lbs every week or two.
Laura Z. says
I live in NC, which is the epicenter of sweet potato farming, so I am able to get good ones at a good price most of the year. They are always part of my holiday meals, but we eat them all the time. I buy them as much as regular potatoes. My favorite way is to wrap them in foil and roast them whole in the oven. This concentrates the sweetness, you can eat them with butter and cinnamon, but I honestly like them plain with a tiny bit of salt.
Have you made sweet potato pie? So much better than pumpkin, in my opinion. Again, roasting the potatoes rather than boiling concentrates the sweetness and flavor. Then, you just puree them and swap out for the pumpkin in your favorite pie recipe.
Marcia says
I’ll eat them, but not generally a fan of the sweetness. I like savory.
They don’t grow well here, so we don’t get them in our produce box. So I don’t eat them often.
Robyn says
I love sweet potatoes, roasted,mashed with oj and ginger, in soupsand curries-but not with sweet toppings. But I LOVE ❤️ regular old spuds most- any way you cook em!
Jill says
Love, love, love them!! wish we could grow them here in the PNW.
Practical Parsimony says
Jill,
I mail them to my daughter from here in AL to NYC.
Cynthia Platon says
I hate sweet potatoes and yams. I do love to make parsnip fries.
Serina says
I feel like there is confusion (or maybe I am just confused) between sweet potatoes and yams. In my experience the two taste completely different! A sweet potato is very similar to a regular potato but slighty sweeter. A yam is sweet but also a dark orange color and mushier when cooked. It makes me confused when recipes tell you to buy sweet potatoes but it is obviously a orange yam???!
Practical Parsimony says
Serina,
Unless you are buying from an African market here in the states or a specialty market, you are not eating yams at all. Sweet potatoes vary in color from very light to a dark orange color. The slightly sweeter sweet potatoes are gross to me. The darker sweet potato is always sweeter to me. Here is a link saying our sweet potatoes are called yams in error.
https://www.thespruce.com/sweet-potato-facts-selection-and-storage-1802486
Trish Slussar says
I was just coming to say the same thing.
Serina says
That makes me even more irked! Haha! Thanks for clearing it up for me! Since they do vary so much they really do need different names.
Practical Parsimony says
Roasting does make sweet potatoes sweeter. Here is how my 94-yr-old neighbor taught me to bake sweet potatoes. She always had a skillet of bacon grease on the back eye of her stove. She showed me how to just dip my fingers in the grease and spread onto the raw potato. First, wash and cut off anything you wish to cut off. I just use a Tbsp of canola oil in a saucer and rub that onto any amount of sweet potatoes I wish to bake. Poke the potato three times with a fork. She put the greased sweet potatoes in several iron skillets in the oven. I use a pizza pan or cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. I hate washing the stuck-on and sticky “juice” that runs out of the sweet potato. I bake the sweet potatoes at 350 degrees for about 45 min, more for larger ones.
She showed me how to test for doneness–slightly squeeze a sweet potato with a pot holder to see if it is done. Of course, the smaller ones will be done first, so take those out. When there has been a great disparity in the sizes, I start taking sweet potatoes out, smaller first, next size in 15-30 minutes.
I can no longer lift an iron skillet or anything with sweet potatoes from the oven, so I can no longer take them all out one at a time. At 94 she could lift an iron skillet of sweet potatoes!
These store well in the refrigerator and can be removed and microwaved as needed. They can be frozen in the skin in a freezer bag or scooped from the skin and frozen in a freezer bag. I am going to dehydrate some, make sweet potato powder and reconstitute when needed.
Since I often bake two dozen sweet potatoes at once, I just rub in the oil and get it all over my hands up to the wrist. Usually, I have a mixing bowl of warm, soapy water in the sink so I can degrease rather than wipe it on a dish towel or use paper towels.
Do not use olive oil since it has a low smoke point.