Baked Sweet Potatoes ♥ Recipe & Temperature

Back to Basics: How to roast or bake sweet potatoes in the oven. It's as easy as easy can be: just rub the sweet potatoes with a little oil and bake. (We're baking whole sweet potatoes here, no need for any knife work at all!) This is a great way to cook a lot of sweet potatoes at once, also my favorite way to cook just a couple of sweet potatoes for dinner or for later when the oven is already on. Not just vegan, "Vegan Done Real".

The other day, I needed to cook a pile of sweet potatoes for a recipe calling for cooked sweet potatoes. (The recipe's not ready for posting but shows much promise!) My choices were:

Steaming or boiling – but I thought the sweet potatoes would be too wet.
Cooking the sweet potatoes in the microwave – it's a good technique for one or two sweet potatoes, not so much for a bunch.
Roasting chopped sweet potatoes wouldn't work either, I didn't want the crispy caramelized edges that develop.

So instead, I baked a trayful of whole sweet potatoes, then stripped off the skins to yield beautiful cooked sweet potatoes. Baked Sweet Potatoes were the perfect solution!

RECIPE for BAKED SWEET POTATOES

Hands-on time: 5 minutes
Time to table: 75 minutes
Bakes 1 to many sweet potatoes

Sweet potatoes, scrubbed well
Olive oil

Set the oven to 400F. Place parchment, foil or a silicone mat on a baking sheet. With your hands rub the sweet potatoes with oil, place on the baking sheet, leaving a couple of inches room between the potatoes. Place in the oven (there's no need to wait for the oven to finish preheating) and bake for 60 minutes plus as many minutes left to complete preheating.

To check if done, insert a knife into the center, if it's soft clear through the center, the sweet potatoes are fully cooked. With a knife, cut the length of the sweet potatoes, peel back and discard the skins. At this point, the sweet potatoes are so soft they can be mashed with no more than a fork for something slightly rustic, or use a hand mixer for something that's smoother.

ALANNA's TIPS & KITCHEN NOTES
For easy clean up, do line the baking sheet with something. As you can see in the back left corner of the photo, one sweet potato spewed sugary stuff which burned. The sweet potato itself was fine but cleanup was a bear.

NUTRITION INFORMATION Per 1/4 pound cooked sweet potato: 102 Calories; 0g Tot Fat; 0g Sat Fat; 0mg Cholesterol; 40mg Sodium; 23g Carb; 4g Fiber; 7g Sugar; 2g Protein. WEIGHT WATCHERS WW Old Points 1.5, WW PointsPlus 2

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MORE FAVORITE SWEET POTATO RECIPES
~ My Top Twelve Sweet Potato Recipes ~

~ Savory Stir-Fried Sweet Potatoes ~
~ Sweet Potato & Butternut Squash Tagine ~
~ Savory Sweet Potato Casserole ~
~ more sweet potato recipes ~
from A Veggie Venture

~ Rustic Mashed Sweet Potatoes & Carrots ~
~ Chicken Cider Stew ~
~ Sweet Potato Salad with Roasted Poblano, Roasted Corn & Chipotle ~
~ more sweet potato recipes ~
from Kitchen Parade, my food column

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