These Melting Sweet Potatoes Are the Side Dish You Need
You might have heard of melting sweet potatoes before, or seen them on Pinterest. The concept is simple: You roast sweet potato rounds in butter until they are meltingly tender. Now, I know what you’re thinking: Why roast in butter when I can roast in oil? Isn’t roasting in butter indulgent? Yes, it is indulgent, but you can’t achieve the melt-in-your-mouth results without using butter. Maybe this isn’t the side dish you make every night, but it’s totally one you should pull out every now and then.
You might have heard of melting sweet potatoes before, or seen them on Pinterest. The concept is simple: You roast sweet potato rounds in butter until they are meltingly tender. Now, I know what you’re thinking: Why roast in butter when I can roast in oil? Isn’t roasting in butter indulgent? Yes, it is indulgent, but you can’t achieve the melt-in-your-mouth results without using butter. Maybe this isn’t the side dish you make every night, but it’s totally one you should pull out every now and then.
Christina Lane, the author, recounts a harrowing tale of making these sweet potatoes for the first time from a classic recipe. The recipe had her roast the potatoes in a glass baking dish in a 500°F oven, which resulted in the fire department showing up at her home. Learning from that experience, she suggests using a trusty roasting pan and roasting the potatoes at 425°F for 20 minutes on each side instead.
If you’re just serving the potatoes as is, you only need sweet potatoes, butter, and salt. But Christina also offers an optional (two-ingredient!) pecan sauce to drizzle on the potatoes once they come out of the oven. All you need is maple syrup and chopped pecans to make it happen!
The next time you’re making plain ol’ chicken breast, serve these melting sweet potatoes on the side to give your dinner a little pizzazz. Add a simple green salad to round everything out, and voila! You have a complete meal.
→ Get the Recipe: Melting Sweet Potatoes from Dessert for Two