Trial and Error: Re-Creating Restaurant Sweet Potato Fries

We were blown away with our success at making extra-crispy potatoes the other week simply by parboiling them and tossing them with salt before roasting. Crispy oven-baked sweet potato fries have been another on-going obsession of ours, so we immediately wondered if the same technique could work again.

Really good sweet potato fries are a surprisingly difficult thing to achieve. Even in restaurants, they often arrive limp, soggy, and the exact opposite crispy. We’ve tried high-heat baking, frying, soaking the cut pieces in cold water, starting with a hot baking sheet, and a dozens of other little tweaks and inventions in our pursuit of a better sweet potato fry at home.

With this technique of parboiling and tossing with salt, we feel like we’re getting close. We sliced the sweet potatoes into wedges and boiled them for just two minutes to soften the outsides. A quick shake with kosher salt and olive oil, and into the oven they went.

At first, we were disappointed. The fries didn’t brown as much as we would have liked. The outsides felt dry, but didn't get truly crispy.

The real difference was in the texture. Sweet potato fries often end up with a mushy texture on the inside, but these sweet potatoes felt firm and had a nice bite. We could dunk them in the dipping sauce without worrying that they were going to break off or be too limp to scoop anything up.

These were really the closest to restaurant fries we’ve ever gotten. We can’t wait to try it again and combine the technique with others we’ve tried in the past. We think that pre-heating the baking sheet and possibly adding an egg white (or panko crumbs?!) along with the olive oil and salt during the tossing step could get us even closer to perfection.

Have any of you had success with making crispy sweet potato fries at home?

Close-to-Restaurant Sweet Potato Fries
Serves 4 as an appetizer

2 medium-sized sweet potatoes
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon kosher salt

Pre-heat the oven to 450°.

Cut the sweet potatoes into fry-sized wedges. Place them in a sauce pot with one tablespoon of kosher salt and enough water to cover. Cover and bring to a boil. Once boiling, cook uncovered for two minutes until the potatoes are soft on the outside but still firm in the middle. Drain immediately.

Combine the drained sweet potatoes, one teaspoon of kosher salt, and one tablespoon of olive oil in a mixing bowl. Cover with an inverted dinner plate and shake to roughen up the sides of the sweet potatoes.

Spread the sweet potatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes and then flip the potatoes. Bake for another 5-7 minutes, until the potatoes are dry to the touch and brown in some places.

Eat as soon as they’re cool enough to handle!

(Images: Emma Christensen)

Comments (13)

Nope, never tried making sweet potato fries from scratch and it's true, good ones are hard to find. I salute your dedication!

The thing is, I could swear that the best ones I've ever had were actually fried mashed sweet potato fries. Crisp and salty on the outside, almost custardy on the inside but ethereally soft and light.

Perhaps they were along the lines of chickpea fries (panelle/panisse) but with a whipped sweet potatoes instead of a batter...

I find that flipping them is often what turns them into mush or at least messes with the browning process.

I cut my sweet potatoes into wedges, lightly coat with olive oil or vegetable oil, season with salt and pepper. Roast on middle rack for 20 minutes at 425, then move to top rack for another 10-15 minutes, or until all the visible sides are brown. I let them cool about 5 minutes after coming out of the oven, on a cooling rack, so they don't steam on the sheet tray. Perfectly crisp, tender but firm, delicious sweet potato fries every time.

Emma, I was shocked how well mine turned out. Sliced super thin using a mandolin, unpeeled, deep fried in 375F oil. Not only were they good hot but they didn't go bad after they cooled. I wse the Kyocera ceramic-bladed mandolin and it works like a dream.

you know, I've never in my life had a crispy sweet potato french fry. They are always limp and sort of soggy everywhere I've tried them.

mmmmm- I've had pretty good success with this:

Wedge your potatoes and then toss them in the microwave for 2-4 minutes, just until they soften up a bit.

Mix up a bit of flour and ice cold water (can add s&p, spices if you like too). Dunk the fries into that and then dredge with panko crumbs.

Bake or pan-fry.

They're are a little more like the tempura veggies that you'd get when going out for sushi, but they create some really delicious, crispy sweet potato 'fries'.

I love sweet potato fries! But the combo cooking process might be too much for me (I'm lazy). Maybe when I have friends coming over.

Definitely not as healthy, but I've had good success at just cutting them up and sending them straight into frying with a saucepan full of canola oil. I keep the stove at a 4, which keeps them from burning before they get crispy. But it does take a while.

I like to soak them in ice cold water first to remove some of the starch. Also, a girl I know who went to culinary school said the way to do it is to dehydrate the sweet potatoes. You'd think the trick would be to roast them at a high temp, but in fact cooking them at a very low temp helps to remove the water before the fries have a chance to burn.

The only time I've gotten a sweet potato to be crisp lately was by cutting it thin and frying it fast in peanut oil (which seems to fry hotter than canola or olive).

But my experience with restaurant sweet potato fries is that they're never crisp, too.

The trick to AMAZING sweet potato fries in the oven...cooking them on the perforated pizza pan. Crisps them up beautifully without having to turn them!

I made sweet potato fries once and they turned out pretty good. I sliced them into shoestring fries and used peanut oil.

I don't know if this would work with sweet potatoes, but the perfect oven fries are made by first covering the pan with foil and baking for 10-15 mins or so. Then you remove the foil, and bake until they're done. With regular potatoes, you should turn them a few times during the baking.

Oh, and of course you coat them in olive oil, salt, and pepper before baking.

I too am in the process of trial and error with sweet potato fries. Got two bushels last week from a local farm for fifty cents a pound! I bought a big restaurant style french fry cutter but have been unable to muscle the sweet potatoes through it. Also tried an OXO mandolin slicer, no luck there either (and nearly lost a finger!). My best success with cutting them so far has been to bake the sweet potatoes (whole) for 20 minutes at 400 BEFORE attempting to cut them--softens them just enough to push through the fry cutter without turning them completely to mush. The edges do tend to mush a bit because they are softer (I just plopped all the mushy bits in a bowl for baby food, although the little one attached to my pant leg gobbled it as fast as I could make it (and kept bringing me raw potatoes from the basket saying "Mmm!! Mmm!!")
I haven't yet perfected how to cook them, I appreciate you sharing your results and I'm stalking the comments for any additional tips. I love the dehydrator suggestion, as soon as my batch of apple 'fries' finish drying I'm going to give a batch of sweet potato fries a try, will post back with the results!
(I am loving the french fry cutter btw, you wouldn't believe all the things you can cut with it besides potatoes, and it doesn't mangle everything like a food processor...$40 at a local restaurant supply store)