The perfect Baked Sweet Potatoes with so many dinners. You can serve these straight out of the oven with butter, sea salt, and pepper. Or use them as a base for all sorts of yummy toppings. No matter how you serve these, they’re a kitchen basic that we come back to over and over again. As a bonus, sweet potatoes are healthy, full of fiber and Vitamin A as well.
We make these Baked Sweet Potatoes pretty much every single week throughout the colder months. They’re the perfect base for all kinds of things from taco toppings to curries.
They’re also great as a traditional side dish to all sorts of simple main courses. You can serve these with any protein you’d like from chicken, to beef and pork.
And these are also great along side a bowl of cozy soup for a heartier dinner. You’ll find more suggestions for how to serve these below. But the sky really is the limit, and I could go on way too long about how much I love these with our dinners.
Ingredients & Substitutions
- Sweet Potatoes – white, purple, or orange flesh sweet potatoes all work in this recipe. And that’s all you need for this recipe, the next ingredients are how we like to serve them if we don’t add other toppings.
- Butter, salt, & pepper – once the sweet potatoes are baked, we like to split them open and add a good-sized pat of butter along with sea salt and pepper. If you want to use them as a base for tacos, curries, etc. simply omit the butter.
How to make this recipe step by step
Step 1: Start by thoroughly washing the sweet potatoes and trimming away any rotten bits.
Poke holes in the sweet potatoes with a sharp pairing knife and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet.
Step 2: Bake the sweet potatoes until a knife or fork inserts easily into the thickest part of the potato, and they are completely tender about 1 hour.
Step 3: Split open the baked sweet potatoes and serve with your choice of toppings. We love these with a pat of butter and a sprinkle of sea salt and black pepper. You can also use ghee or olive oil as well.
Ways to serve this
- We love these baked sweet potatoes with taco toppings like my Taco Sweet Potato Bowls.
- Or serve them topped with Spaghetti Sauce or Ground Beef Stroganoff, rather than serving them with the usual pasta.
- These are also great with all kinds of sauces like my Country Sausage Gravy for breakfast, (think biscuits and gravy but with sweet potatoes).
- One of our all-time favorites is to top these sweet potatoes with curry. My Thai Green Curry, Roasted Veggie Curry, or Yellow Thai Curry are all so yummy on these.
- Try these as a base for all sorts of Mexican recipes in place of the usual rice or tortillas. My Shrimp Fajitas or Chicken Fajitas are both great on baked sweet potatoes. And you can use them as a base for burrito bowls like my Carnitas Burrito Bowls or Chipotle Chicken Burrito Bowls.
- They’re also great instead of rice with stir-fries like Ground Beef Stir Fry or my Chicken Stir Fry.
- Go for stuffed sweet potatoes using my Instant Pot BBQ Shredded Chicken, Slow Cooker Salsa Beef, or spoonfuls of my Creamy Taco Soup as a filling.
FAQ’s
425ºF gives you the right amount of heat for tender sweet potatoes and caramelization without burning. It’s also great for roasting sweet potatoes in 1 hour, lower temperatures take much longer to cook.
About 1 hour for whole sweet potatoes, but you can cut them in half, lay them cut side down and they roast in 30 minutes. You can cut the cooking time down to about 20 minutes if you dice them into 1/2″ cubes.
Low and slow all the way is the method I was taught by a Southerner who had cooked sweet potatoes all her life. 200ºF for 2+ hours, until they’re tender, is the traditional method and produces sweet and tender sweet potatoes. However, if you don’t have 2+ hours, read on and cook them faster with my recipe below.
Storing leftovers
- To store – place any leftover sweet potatoes into an airtight container and store them in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
- Make ahead – these reheat perfectly, so you can meal prep them to use throughout the week.
- Reheating – I scoop mine out from the skins and reheat them in a small skillet with whatever sauce I’m putting on them. Or sometimes I sauté the pieces with a bit of butter and top with some over-easy eggs. You can also microwave to reheat these.
- To freeze – scoop the sweet potato out from its skins and freeze it in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
Tips & Tricks
- You can roast sweet potatoes at lower temperatures to go along with whatever else you may be cooking, but they will take a bit longer to cook.
- The skins for sweet potatoes act as the perfect jacket for roasting, so there’s no need for oil or aluminum foil. You don’t need to eat the skins if you don’t want to, but you don’t want to peel sweet potatoes before roasting them whole.
- You’ll know the sweet potatoes are done or close to done when they start to let out a bit of caramelized juices from when you made slits with a pairing knife. This is also why I recommend using parchment paper so cleanup is a breeze.
More side dish recipe inspiration
I really hope you enjoy these Baked Sweet Potatoes! If you get a chance to make this recipe, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Baked Sweet Potato
INGREDIENTS
- 4 sweet potatoes - 8-12 ounces each
Optional:
- butter, sea salt, and pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat the oven to 425ºF and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Thoroughly scrub the sweet potatoes trimming away and rotten spots, (if any).
- Place the sweet potatoes onto the baking sheet and pierce them several times each with a sharp pairing knife.
- Bake until tender and caramelized juices are just beginning to run out of the holes, 50-60 minutes.
- Serve with butter, sea salt, and pepper if desired or your favorite toppings for baked potato. You can also split these baked sweet potatoes and stuff them with your favorite fillings.