How to make healthy oven baked sweet potato fries. Crispy around the edges, soft in the middle and loved by all the family.

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We’ve had a bit of a breakthrough in my house over the past few weeks and that’s switching from regular potatoes to sweet potato fries (although we do still have regular ones too).

Last year I watched a program on Channel 4 about whether the nutritional claims about certain “superfoods” stacked up. The case for sweet potatoes was so compelling (malnutrition levels in a village in Africa were reduced significantly simply by the introduction of a sweet potato that could grow in their soil) that I knew it was something I wanted to be eating more of at home. On my next trip to the shops I stocked up on sweet potatoes and got to work making some fries. I excitedly served them up to the boys only to be told “I only like yellow chips, not these orange ones”. I tried again – no luck, left it a bit… tried again – no luck. The ridiculous thing was that they’d happily eat sweet potato in other things such as my chicken and sweet potato curry.

Then a few weeks ago I decided to try again, I left it long enough that they couldn’t remember the last time (so had no memory of the fact they didn’t like them) and…

THEY LOVED THEM! 🙂

How to get crispy sweet potato fries

One flaw in the sweet potato is that is doesn’t go lovely and crispy when you bake it so it lacks some of the lovely texture of fries made from regular potatoes.

The solution to this is to soak the potatoes. Apparently this removes some of the starch – the water certainly looks a little cloudy afterwards. I’ve no idea about the science behind it but after soaking the fries you definitely end up with a little crunch around the edges and a beautifully soft chip inside. It’s not super crunchy – just enough to add a bit of texture.

Sweet Potato Fries

Active Time:10 minutes

Total Time:1 hour

Serves 4 (easily adapted to serve any number)

Ingredients

• 4 medium sweet potatoes (about 700g)
• 2 tbsp oil (I’ve used olive, rapeseed and vegetable and they all work well – my personal favourite is rapeseed)
• Salt

Method

1. Peel the sweet potatoes (4 medium) and cut them into chip shapes (about 1cm wide).
2. Put the sweet potato fries into a large bowl and cover in cold water. Cover the bowl with cling film and leave the fries to soak for about half an hour (you can easily leave them for longer, overnight if you want).
3. While the fries are soaking, pre-heat the oven to 220ºC/200ºC fan.
4. Once the fries have soaked, drain them and put them onto some kitchen paper. Pat them with the paper to remove any excess water.
5. Put the fries into a baking tray (make sure they’re in a single layer, not piled on top on one another. Use a 2nd tray if necessary) and drizzle over the oil (2 tbsp). Toss the fries in the oil and ensure they’re all coated.
6. Put the fries into the oven and bake for 10 minutes, use a fish slice to turn the fries and then pop back into the oven for a further 10 minutes.
7. Remove from the oven, sprinkle over some salt (to taste) and serve.

This is the estimated nutritional information per serving (exclude additional salt sprinkled over the fries). Please refer to my guide to Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen nutritional information if you want to learn more about how this is calculated.

Free From/Suitable For…

• Suitable for Vegetarians and Vegans
• Gluten-Free
• Dairy-Free
• Egg-Free
• Nut-Free
• Corn-Free
• Soy-Free

The ingredients for this recipe are commonly available free from all these allergens. However, please ensure you double-check allergen information for all ingredients.