Our Favorite Sweet Potato Fries.
Sweet potato fries make an appearance in our house at least 3 times a week.
They are one of those foods that I love trying different ways – similar to pizza crusts, chocolate chip cookies and cakes. While they are one of my favorite foods, I love trying different recipes just to see if I can find the best one.
This is our go-to recipe when we are in a pinch, or just don’t want to bother with doing something different.
In all honestly, I don’t know if these are sweet potatoes or yams, but oh well. They are orange. Orange equals sweet potatoes in my eyes.
I peel away most of the skin, because I can be picky and I want to make sure nothing is rotting deep down inside there. You can’t blame me – I have a penchant for allowing vegetables to rot in this house. It just happens.
Good thing I peeled, because the whole upper 1/4 of one was rotting away.
Then I cut them into wedges. I also scream and shout because this hurts my tiny, grubby hands.
Here comes our favorite way to season them: olive oil, salt, pepper, brown sugar and smoked paprika.
I have done the whole soaking-the-sweet-potatoes-in-water-to-release-the-starch thing, but it really makes no difference to me. I couldn’t tell one way or another. Plus, it adds on even more time to make these. While I love them, I roast them for almost 45 minutes which is a long time when you have my attention span.
The key is setting the wedges on a wire rack.
This allows the sweet potatoes to get brown and crispy on all sides.
So while I don’t soak the wedges in water first, they still come out great. Of course, they don’t taste like deep-fried sweet potato fries that you get in restaurants, but they are pretty darn good. Occasionally you may get a mushy one, but that usually depends on the size of the wedges cut. If you attempt to make them all uniform in size, that will help. It will also determine your cooking time. It’s all trial and error friends!
Sweet Potato Fries
serves 2-3
2 large sweet potatos (or yams… whatever)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Preheat oven to 425.
If desired, peel sweet potatoes. Begin cutting potatoes into wedges – I just cut them in half and continue cutting in half until I get the wedge size that I want.
Add potatoes to a bowl, and combine with olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika, and brown sugar. Mix thoroughly with your hands so every wedge is covered.
Set a wire rack on a baking sheet and spray with non-stick spray. Lay wedges on the wire rack. Bake for 25 minutes, then check to see if the potatoes are close to where you’d like them. I usually rotate the pan at this time and put them back in for 15 minutes. They may also need an additional 5-10 after that.
So tell me – what is your favorite way to make sweet potato fries?
94 Comments on “Our Favorite Sweet Potato Fries.”
I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU! (Incidentally, I’m lying like the rug under my feet)
Sweet potatoes, and anything/everything that can be made from them, simply rock my world. Of course, as my luck would have it, I went grocery shopping last night and bought a ginormous bag of plain ol’ boring Idaho russets. Don’t think for one minute that I won’t run down to the grocery store again today….because I will….I have to….it’s written into my personal mission statement that I will bake sweet potatoes at every given opportunity! (OK…so I’m lying again…but who cares….it was a good lie, dontcha think?) :-)
I will take some of those Idaho russets off your hands! We can exchange potatoes for potatoes. :)
AHHHHH, I LOVE sweet potato fries!! Once I finally get the gas hooked up at my new apartment and can COOK again, I’m definitely making some SPF with brown sugar! Usually I just slice them, toss ’em with olive oil & salt (sometimes chili powder) and bake them in the oven – but I’m thinking brown sugar would take them to the next level! Thanks for sharing!
I love sweet potato fries! I love the brown sugar, smoked paprika combo…how clever! I can’t wait to try them! :-)
Yum, brown sugar & smoked paprika sound so great and fall-like… I’ll have to try that.
I like to make my SP fries with some cumin and sea salt, topped with ketchup…
Sweet potato fries are amazing. I bet the brown sugar is a great addition. Salty & sweet…mmm. Hope you’re enjoying the weekend!
I looooove sweet potato fries. So yummy. Salty and sweet and just the perfect combo. I haven’t made them with brown sugar before, even though I’ve had them made that way. So delicious!
usually i just roll with garlic, sea salt, pepper and cayenne, but i LOVE that you added brown sugar. sweet and spicy. must try this asap.
hope you’re having a wonderful weekend! <3
I could eat sweet potatoes every day, and making them into fries is one of my favorite ways to eat ’em! I’ve never heard of the trick of putting them on the rack… thanks for the tip!
Ooh, paprika brings a little somethin’ somethin’ to the table! I’ll try this soon:)
I am a big fan of sweet potato in all shapes and preparation variates. I love that more restaurants are starting to serve sweet potato fries as an option to the regular potato fries! i will be sure to try your recipe very soon :)
droooooooooooooool
Love doing mine with spicy grill seasoning! I am totally stealing your wire wrack idea! Genius!
In other news, I made a How Sweet inspired bacon & caramelized onion quesadilla yesterday. Life changing. There may or may not have been 9 pieces of bacon between the 2 . . . I know you won’t judge. :)
YUM!
I love sweet potato fries and have been looking for a good recipe to adopt. Giving this one a try…the paprika sounds like an amazing addition! Thank you!
Olive oil, salt, pepper, cumin, paprika, bake and enjoy!
I don’t know the difference between yams and sweet potatoes either- they are all the same to me and taste delicious.
I don’t know the difference between yams and sweet taters either. I can eat either one everyday though!
I’ve never thought to put them on a wire cooling rack before…duh! What a simply brilliant idea. I like to put chili powder on mine, but other than that, we have pretty much the same method.
Long live the sweet potato!
WOW! I’ve never been a fan of sweet potato’s but I love sweet potato fries. This is a great idea! Can’t wait to try it!
-Larinna
iheartspandex.com
perfect recipe!
A wire rack is a great idea – stops them getting soggy! I just spray them with spray oil, then salt & pepper them. perhaps some rosemary as well. nothing too creative, but very yum!
I like to serve them with garlic and lime aioli, which is a delicious addition :)
Heidi xo
I love sweet potatoes in all ways! I have a special fondness for Sweet Potato Fries but can’t be trusted around them. I eat way too many!!
There is seriously nothing better than a good sweet potato fries. I am always looking for new recipes and will be trying this one very soon.
I can’t believe I’ve never made sweet potato fries, because I’ve certainly considered it enough times . . . thanks for the tip about roasting them on a rack for uniform cooking. Now that the fall is coming, I’ll have to make these happen.
Sit them on a rack, you say? You are a brilliant girl! Mine always stick to the pan and don’t get done evenly on both sides. Now I know why! I always love mine with a mixture of sweet and spicy (brown sugar and cayenne or some other combination of chili)!
Great recipe and tip about using the rack. We bake “fried” chicken that way but I hadn’t thought about doing it with fries. I love mine with cayenne, but I’m going to try it your way next time. Thanks for sharing!
Love baking sweet potatoes. I have not tried adding sugar but I guess I will and oh I can never resist adding red chilly powder, it totally works. and you have a lovely site!
I made these tonight for dinner and they were soo good!! I never know what to do with my sweet potatoes and usually they just end up going bad but this is a perfect way to use them up! Im a college student and live with 3 other girls and weve already decided this recipe is being made again…tomorrow : ) I didnt have paprika on hand so I used cinnamon instead and still loved them!! Cant wait to try with paprika!
p.s. I really enjoy your blog and all the delicious recipes you post!
Thank you! I am so glad you guys enjoyed them.
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even though this an old post (that i came across while looking for something to make for dinner tonight), i had to share how i make my sp fries bc it seems no one else is using cinnamon! toss wedges in evoo, salt, pepper, chili powder and cinnamon. sprinkle with sugar as soon as they come out of the oven. so delish!!
OMG, roast them on a wire rack!! That’s brilliant!
You have NO idea how long I have wondered why my potatoes always come out mushy…
LOL…yeah, I don’t get out much.
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I don’t know if I’m loving you or hating you right now. I make sweet potato fries probably every other day. They are my favorite. I already have your garlic butter fries with creamy feta dip on my to make list, but I’m afraid I will never go back to eating sweet potato fries without creamy feta dip which is why I did not make them the day you posted them. But tonight I added brown sugar on top and it might have to be my new go to recipe. YUMM! Not that I need more sugar in my diet as I’m still trying to get off the sugar high from your peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough cups which are better than any candy out there in this world.
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Just found your blog via stumbleupon and these look totally decadent. Super simple way to make sweet potato fries, I can’t wait to try it!
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I like to roast the sweet potato wedges coated with vegetable oil, honey and cinnamon.