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.”
Yum! I think the sugar helps the natural sugars to caramelize well. I also like it with a little cayenne and chili powder and some lime juice.
I love sweet potato fries and yours look delicious! I need to try the brown sugar.
I like to cut mine into thin chips, spray with oil, and a little salt and pepper. I prefer cutting them into chips because then I can get them thin and crispy.
I like them with a little coconut oil! My boys will only eat them with brown sugar and cinnamon though. These look delicious! Enjoy your weekend Jessica!
I have never done that with the rack, thanks for the tip!
I always say once you have a sweet potato fry, you’ll never go back to a regular potato fry!!
I adore sweet potato fries! I usually just sprinkle them with a little kosher salt and then drown them in ketchup, but if I wanna change it up a bit I shake them up in a ziplock bag filled with chili powder and a dash of cinnamon before popping them in the oven. YUM :)
Yum!!! I love me some sweet potato fries! Your recipe looks delicious – I love the addition of the brown sugar!
I seriously think I could eat sweet potato fries every day and not get sick of them. Maybe twice a day.
OMG I love sweet potato fries!
Never made them before. I NEED to, ASAP!
These look great, we just had some sweet potato fries last night for dinner. I love how this recipe includes brown sugar – definitly trying it next time!
I’ll have to give the wire rack a whirl – I’m notorious for burning one edge of sweet potato fries while the other side are still half-cooked. :(
I think I’m going to classify sweet potato fries in the “cooking” category while the “baking” category tends to be my stronger area…though they both need some help! ;)
Thanks for the idea about baking them on a rack! Makes perfect sense. I’ll try it that way next time.
I love the way you season your SP fries! I need to try that out!!
have you sharpened your knives lately?
i used to hate cutting sweet potatoes sooo much so i’d make josh do it, but then we got a better knife and the cutting doesn’t make my hands hurt anymore.
sometimes i make them as rounds instead, because my husband is 5, and different shapes amuse him.
I have not! I will try that and see if it helps. Thanks!
That looks good, I’ll have to give it a try. The husband is usually in charge of the sweet potato fries and he just dumps random spice blends on them – sometimes it works, sometimes not.
These look great and I love the simplicity! I would simply add some steak spice to these and they’d be gone in no time!
Definitely one of my favorite things to make!!! Yours look fabulous! I like adding some spices to mine; like chipotle or chili powder. SO good!
yum :) i like mine with taco seasoning or seasoned salt!
These look awesome! I love sweet potato fries, and can hardly ever find them in Canada. Guess I need to make more!
Here is a MUST try sweet potato fry recipe:
http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/02/spicy-sweet-potato-wedges-plus-five-etceteras/
I have made these..oh, about six zillion times. Sometimes I make them when my husband isn’t home just so I can have more of them and not share. Not proud of that, but it’s true.
Also, here’s a cousin to the sweet potato fries that is also worth a try:
http://nuttykitchen.com/2010/07/19/spiced-butternut-squash-fries/
I am currently crazy for these too.
Can’t wait to try your angle on one of my favorite foods!
mmm I always spray my fries (with PAM or an EVOO mister) then liberally season with chili powder, kosher salt, cinnamon and garlic powder. Such amazing seasonings!
I haven’t tried using the rack either, so I will do that next time for sure. Sometimes they don’t all get as crispy as I would like.
Sweet potato fries are my absolute favorite!
Sweet potato fries make a regular appearance at our dinner table, too. Thanks for the tip about the wire rack… I definitely have to try that!
While I love your blog, we seem to enjoy completely opposite foods. Everything you like, I don’t, and everything you don’t like, I do.
Opposites attract! :)
I have a giant sweet potato that is begging to be made into these fries. I’m thinking fries will be the star of the dinner show tonight
I recently tried a Food Network recipe in which you sprinkle the roasted SP fries with basil (chiffonade) then dip into garlic-lemon mayo. Tasty.
Try marinating it with olive oil, peanut butter, and cinnamon :-) SOOO good!
believe it or not, I have NEVER made these. Hmm. Jason isn’t a fan, but there is a out of town work week on his schedule… then I have girlfriends come stay for slumber party fun –
I shall make these then!
and making them in rounds sounds good too!
I love sweet potato fries. LOVE! I usually get the pre cut sweet potatoes from Trader Joe’s because they are such a pain to cut. I love seasoning them with cajun spices, chili powder and/or cumin. So good!
We love those too! If my TJ’s was closer, that’s probably the only way I’d eat them.
Mmmm. I LOVE sweet potato fries. I swear they are just as delicious every time. My favorite way is just plain-ole EVOO spray, sea salt, pepper, and oobers of ketchup. Why mess with a good thing right??? ;) Or I’m just boring! heh
Have a great holiday weekend!!!
Laur
I like to make mine just the way you did! It’s a no fail recipe and a yummy end result!
These look awesome and Ive tried to make sweet tater fries using my spiralizer, basically spiralized curly fries. DONT try that. The sweet tater is so rock hard when raw and the spiralizer is so cheapie plastic, it can’t take it and i almost broke it!
But I just slice into wedges like you have (have done both peeled and unpeeled), I never soak them (as if i have time!) and drizzle w/ EVOO or coconut oil on a foil lined cookie sheet. Bake 425ish and flip as needed.
Oh and i thought i was the only one who literally had to Work It to saw thru a raw sweet tater…my hand strength is bad!
:)
We put cajun seasoning on ours when we made them last…yummy! Except I’m bugged they turned out so limp. Maybe I need to try the wire rack and that will help!
I’d also like to try Angela’s parsnip nut butter recipe with sweet potatoes to see if it would make the outsides crispier…
mine are similar to yours, but I use cinnamon instead of the paprika and regular sugar instead of brown sugar. I never thought to use the rack, though – genius!
I looove sweet potato fries. I always have a hard time cutting them in perfect wedges…too complicated for this novice cook. And I usually just cook them in olive oil and pepper, but next time I think I’ll definitely add brown sugar. Yumm!
brown suga!!! mmmmm i bet these were sweet and delicious!! I say you make a killer honey mustard dipping sauce to go with them…just sayin…
I’m with you. Sweet potatoes are orange… even though the potatoes marked ‘sweet potato’ is white on the inside…? ;)
Great idea to use a little brown sugar. Def going to have to try that!
I love sweet potato wedges. Unfortunately, my hubs does not. I wish he did, but I cook them anyways ;)
I think you are right, that they are sweet potatoes…
I get yams here in Korea and they are not the same bright orange colour, they are more muted and white on the inside.
My fav. way is with cumin, chili powder, and lime…roasted in the oven.
SWEET POTATO!! NOT yam! Yam is something different, and not sweet. It just doesn’t taste as good.
Favorite way to eat sweet potato fries…is just simply sliced and roasted the shit out of it. I like it slightly burnt on the edges. And I don’t even really like to dip them in anything. I just LOVE their charred, intensely concentrated flavor! >__<
These look great! A nice, healthy rendition of the deep fried version. This gets my vote!
Sweet Potato Fries are my husbands favorite, in fact we had them for dinner tonight. :) I never thought of using Paprika until now, so thanks for the tip.
I love sweet potatoes and prefer them over regular ones. Never thought to add paprika to them!
Love sweet potato fries! I roast mine in the oven too. :-)
Mmmm. Sweet potato! :) My comments for you are always so short, but trust me, they are enthusiastic.
I need to get a wire rack!
Lovely way of using sweet potatoes! Over here, we dip the strips in batter and fry them till crispy. Btw, love your blog…so pretty!
Thank you so much!
aha! I did not know about the wire rack method. And the squishy ones, too. I’ll eat ’em all.