How To Roast Sweet Potatoes in the Oven Cooking Lessons from The Kitchn

Wash your sweet potatoes well, as the skins contain many nutrients and should be eaten. Plus, they taste good!

In my opinion, sweet potatoes are a superfood on many levels. Not only are they incredibly nutritious (a 1-cup serving offers 65% of our daily requirement for vitamin C and as much as 700% of the recommended daily requirement for vitamin A), they also have a fairly low glycemic index of 17. They're also easy to find, easy to store, easy to cook, and they can function equally in sweet or savory recipes. But most importantly, they're delicious.

I like to roast my sweet potatoes to encourage their dense texture to soften and bring out their sweetness. Having a few already-cooked sweet potatoes in my refrigerator is like money in the bank, so I always roast extras while I'm at it. I also will sneak a few into the oven when I'm cooking something else for a more efficient way to roast them up.

Of course, the inevitable question arises when discussing sweet potatoes: what's the difference between sweet potatoes and yams? Read our post on this subject for more information, but basically most of the tubers you see marked as yams in the supermarket are sweet potatoes.

How to Roast Sweet Potatoes

What You Need

Ingredients
Sweet potatoes
Vegetable oil

Equipment
Aluminium foil
Baking tray
Fork
Small knife

Instructions

1. Preheat oven and wash the sweet potatoes: Preheat oven to 375°F. Scrub the sweet potatoes well and pat them dry with a dish towel.

2. Oil them up: Prepare squares of aluminum foil for as many sweet potatoes as you are roasting. Place each potato on a foil square and drizzle with a small amount of vegetable oil. Using your hands, rub the oil in a thin, even layer all over the potatoes.

3. Prick with a fork, wrap, and roast: Prick each sweet potato several times with a fork and wrap loosely in the foil. Be sure the foil is well-sealed. Place on a baking sheet and put them into the oven to roast.

4. Check for doneness: Depending on the size of your potatoes, it may take between 30 minutes to 1 hour for them to be done. Check at 30 minutes by squeezing one of the potatoes in a oven mitt protected hand and inserting a sharp knife or fork into the center. They should feel quite soft and the knife should easily glide all the way through. If not return to the oven and check again in 10 minutes.

5. Enjoy now or save for later: Enjoy your sweet potatoes in the many ways listed below or store them in the refrigerator for later. For storage, I leave them wrapped in their foil jackets on the counter until cool and then pop them into a plastic bag or glass container and put them into the fridge. They will keep for several days. Reheat in a microwave or toaster oven or use in recipes as needed.

Notes:

Sweet potatoes are very forgiving and can roast at heats lower or higher than 375°F, so the most efficient way to cook them is to include them in the oven while you are cooking something else. If there isn't room for a tray, just tuck them in here and there directly on the rack but be sure to wrap them in foil as they can ooze liquid as they roast.

More on Sweet Potatoes:

• The Great Orange Taters (with recipe roundup)
• What Are Good Recipes for Using Up a Bunch of Sweet Potatoes?
• What's the Safest and Best Way to Cut Sweet Potatoes?
• Helpful Tip: Bake Up Some Sweet Potatoes!
• Comfort Me with Sweet Potatoes

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(Images: Dana Velden)

Comments (14)

You mention that sweet potatoes "have a fairly low glycemic index of 17" but that's raw.

If you bake it for 45 mins, the GI rises to 94.

This is due to the way that the starches gelatinize during cooking. Thought you should at least be aware, since you're recommending baking it in the same post. :)

I'm not hip on the foil business. I find any potatoes, sweet or regular, when wrapped in foil, become sodden.

There is LOTS of water in potatoes. One purpose of roasting is to remove some of that moisture. I say, put them on a pan (because sweet potatoes do tend to "leak") and roast away, pricking them a couple times as they bake.

I don't bother with foil because that's technically steaming the root veggies, not roasting. I will recommend putting foil on the baking sheet though since juices will cook out and start to burn.

Yah, I'm same as the other, I don't bother wrapping up in foil. But I do set my sweet potatoes on a piece of foil (directly on the oven rack, don't see need for a tray) because scraping burnt sweet potato "goo" off the bottom of the oven is not fun!

I roast sweet potatoes at least once a week. It's one of the vegetables my little one likes and I serve it with our dinner, save some for my lunch/snack, etc. I do wrap mine in foil and I don't prick or oil them...they are soft and sometimes sodden but I kind of like them that way. Try roasting firmer varities (less liquid in them) like Japanese yams...they are hardier, denser, and delicious.

Not wild about foil myself. My favorite way of roasting 'taters is to cut them in wedges, blanch them for five minutes, drain them, toss them in just a little oil, then arrange them on a cookie sheet with parchment paper, salting and peppering them liberally, then roasting them at 400º-450º for like a half hour. They should be fork tender by then- crispy on the outside, meltingly tender inside.

Check it out: http://flic.kr/p/dDjzh8

I don't bother wrapping either. I cut the ends off then oil and salt each one, set on foil lined pan, roast at 350 for 1 hour. Perfect mushy insides, and a nice salted skin, mmmmm.

Cook an extra one (or two) and keep them in the fridge, there are so many things you can do with the leftovers! Like make awesome veggie patties / "cakes", delicious for breakfast or as a basis for another meal. This recipe uses leftover sweet potatoes and a coleslaw mix: http://meatified.com/cabbage-cakes/

I roast sweet potatoes once a week. I just washed them, prick them with a knife in several places, then roast on a baking pan with silpat for 1 hour at 400 degrees. No foil needed and no oil needed. It always turn out good, soft and sweet.

I love roasted sweet potatoes, especially in recipes with lots of fresh herbs (like leftover pesto or cilantro chutney) or with black beans. I've also made delicious sweet potato onigiri. Sweet potato congee is another favorite of mine. But I also don't like them in foil. I just put them on a cookie sheet and throw a few white potatoes on the other rack in the oven and then I have plenty of food for a while.

Don't potatoes stored in foil have the potential for food poisoning? I'd remove the foil before storing.

http://openagricola.nal.usda.gov/Record/FNI85007542

Love sweet potatoes! I do wrap mine in foil, oil it a little, and I don't prick. It always turn out just fine.

Arlene from: kitchenapronspantry.blogspot,com

I prefer the Alton Brown method - peel, cut into chunks and steam for about 20 minutes.

High heat (450F), a thin coating of olive oil (good for your hands too), a sprinkling of kosher salt, and a slab of foil on the rack underneath for easy cleanup. Cook until the skin is loose.

You get an amazing, succulent texture with rich caramelized sugary notes; a layer of sweet-potato syrup just inside the skin, which adds even more flavor; and a hint of salt that brings out the flavor like nothing else. Absolutely no brown sugar, butter, or maple syrup necessary-- and the flavor is so rich and intense it will add a meaty richness to any meal.

This is the sweet potato that will convert the non-sweet-potato-eaters.