Healthier Crispier “Baked” Sweet Potato Fries

I published this post last year, and I think it is worth reposting. Sweet potatoes are great to plant for yourself and also for your deer. The best time to plant sweet potatoes is 3-4 weeks after the last spring frost, once nighttime temperatures have reached at least 55°F. Below is our experience planting and harvesting them last year. If nothing else, try the recipe for baked sweet potato fries. They are healthy and absolutely delicious!


Yes! It is finally harvest time for our sweet potatoes. This weekend we harvested a slew of sweet potatoes from our hunting property. Our family loves planting great food for our deer and wild life and then harvesting some of it for us to eat as well. Last year we planted a ton of these sweet babies and the wild life loved it! We were able to get a few five-gallon buckets full. Thankfully, they will keep well in a cool dry place for up to six months. Actually I have found that they will last longer than that.

Healthier Crispy "Baked" Sweet Potato Fries
Healthier Crispy “Baked” Sweet Potato Fries

Like pumpkin, there are myriads of recipes rolling around in my mind to use for these sweet, colorful beauties. I usually choose to use some form of the sweet potato when I entertain to add color to the plate. Also, I like to teach the kids the helpful tip of adding as much color to your plate as possible to ensure an array of vitamins and minerals.

One of my favorite ways to serve this recipe is to place a great big pile of the fries underneath sliced venison loin or organic beef. You have never tasted anything quite this good. Plan on making it this weekend and get double the ingredients because you will want to make it again!

I am always searching for new ways to make food taste excellent while maintaining the purity and health that it naturally contains. These “Baked” Sweet Potatoes give you the crispy outside, soft inside texture that we all look for. I usually make three times the recipe, but inevitably, there are still not enough! They fly off the table, usually before we even sit down to eat!

One of my favorite “desserts” for the family is Cinnamon Sugar Sweet Potato Fries. See instructions for this alternate sweet version in the recipe below. Surprisingly, both the savory and sweet fries are delicious with the Chipotle Dipping Sauce that my son—who LOVES hot dishes—asked me to prepare. He always has to help me in the kitchen when cooking any kind of pepper. (You can wash and wash and still the hot pepper juice seems to linger on your hands.) I have found it is best to use gloves when handling hot peppers.

Baked Sweet Potato Fries - Healthier and Crispier

5 from 1 vote
Course Side Dish
Cuisine American

Ingredients
  

Sweet Potato Fries

  • 2 pounds potatoes cut into ½ inch strips (fries)
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon cumin
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Chipotle Dipping Sauce

  • 1 cup mayonnaise - I prefer homemade
  • 1 ripe red jalapeno
  • ½ lemon, juiced
  • 1 pinch of salt

Instructions
 

Sweet Potato Fries

  • Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
  • Bring a large stockpot of water to a boil.  Place potatoes in pot and boil for about 6-8 minutes or until al dente.  Don't let them go too long here or they won't be firm enough to hold their shape.
  • Drain potatoes and then dry with paper towels. Make sure that they are very dry or they won't crisp up.
  • Mix remaining ingredients in medium-sized bowl.  Place potatoes in the mixture and coat evenly.
  • Spread sweet potatoes on a cookie sheet.  Use two cookie sheets if necessary to prevent potatoes from touching. (If the fries touch, the potatoes will steam instead of roast.)
  • Place potatoes in oven for 30 minutes or until golden and crispy, turning them occasionally.
  • Remove and serve with Chipotle Dipping Sauce.

For Cinnamon Sugar Sweet Potato Fries

  • Replace the dry ingredients with ¼ cup sugar, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, and ¼ teaspoon nutmeg and continue with recipe instructions.

Chipotle Dipping Sauce

  • Heat a cast iron skillet to smoking hot.  Place jalapeno on skillet and cover with lid or pan to create roasting effect.  Rotate pepper occasionally (once a minute) until all sides are charred.  Remove stem and skin from pepper.
  • Place pepper along with the rest of the ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth.  Check seasoning and serve.

Notes

You may be tempted to skip boiling the potatoes, but this step helps the potatoes to be crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.  It is well worth it!
If you want to cheat on the homemade mayonnaise for the chipotle sauce, use Hellman’s mayonnaise.
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Chipotle Sauce
Chipotle Sauce

Click here to learn more about harvesting sweet potatoes.

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5 Comments

  1. Jody Frank says:

    Yum! I needed some healthy comfort food today, so I baked up these fries for lunch. So good. I made the sweet version, substituting allulose baking mix for the sugar. Boiling the potatoes ahead of time definitely improved the texture from my previous attempts at sweet potato fries.

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