These sweet potato fries are baked with coconut oil and a blend of spices that will tantalize your taste buds.
Health Benefits of Sweet Potatoes
I love sweet potatoes. They are amazing. We should probably all eat more sweet potatoes.
Our digestive tract needs a good amount of fiber to function in a healthy way. Sweet potatoes have both soluble and insoluble fiber in high amounts which help things move in the best way possible.
In addition to the fiber, good doses of beta-carotene, manganese and vitamin C are also found in sweet potatoes.
Growing Your Own
I grew these sweet potatoes in my garden. They are an easy crop to grow, so if you haven’t ever grown anything, this is a good one to try. All you need is a sprouted sweet potato. Buy an organic one and forget about it in your cupboard for a month or so and when you “find” it again, hopefully, it will have little sprouts growing off of it, as you see in the picture below.
Carefully, pull that little sprout off the potato and place the bottom of that sprout in a jar of water. Leave the leaves out of the water. If you have more than one sprout, you can pull them all off and put them all in the same jar.
In a couple weeks, your little leaf will have grown some roots. Get a grow bag. Here are some cheap ones from Amazon. Fill your grow bag with raised bed garden soil and plant your little sprout on top. Water regularly. The grow bags keep the soil from being too moist.
Count out 3-4 months on your calendar, from the day you planted and mark it. Around that day, open your grow bag or dig down into the soil to see if your sweet potatoes are ready. One little plant will grow 3-5 potatoes. Bam!! You’re a farmer.
Simple and Yummy
These sweet potato fries are simple and so very delicious. I could eat them everyday. Unfortunately, half of my kids don’t like sweet potatoes so I don’t get to make these as often as I would like.
Typically, I make these for a delicious lunch and a batch of oven roasted potato fries to go with them, for the sweet potato haters in my family. Both are delicious and fill everyone up.
They are also great as a side dish. Perfectly paired with chicken, a rice dish, hamburgers or even a hearty salad. Yum!
The Process
When you are purchasing your sweet potatoes, look for ones that are straight – ish, they are easier to chop up for the fries. If you grow them yourself and they are wonky, no big deal. I am not great at making them super uniform in size and shape, but they come out great however you chop them.
You do not have to peel sweet potatoes, you can eat the skin, if you like. I prefer them peeled so that’s what I always do but it isn’t necessary and the skin adds a boost of fiber. If you do not peel them, be sure to wash them well.
Once you have everything chopped up, cover the sweet potato wedges in melted coconut oil, sprinkle on the rest of the ingredients, stir well and bake. They come together quickly and are delicious however you serve them.
Easy Sweet Potato Fries
3 lbs sweet potatoes
3 tablespoons melted coconut oil
1 tablespoon honey, coconut sugar or brown sugar
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 tablespoons cornstarch or arrowroot starch
1 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Wash the sweet potatoes well. Peel or not and cut potatoes into rectangles of somewhat equal size. Place the fries into a bowl. Melt coconut oil and pour onto the fries. Stir to coat. Sprinkle on the sweetener, chili powder, cornstarch and salt. Stir well. Place the sweet potatoes on a sheet pan in a single layer and bake for 20 minutes. Turn over with a spatula and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Broil for 2-3 minutes until edges are crispy – optional but delicious. Sprinkle with salt, if desired and serve.
Tweak It Notes
SWEET POTATOES – Sweet potatoes make the “Clean 15” list, meaning they don’t contain high levels of pesticide residue but I still prefer to buy organic. It’s up to you.
COCONUT OIL – If you can’t have coconut, any oil will work in place of the coconut oil.
CORNSTARCH – I like the organic cornstarch from Azure Standard. All conventional cornstarch is made with GMO corn. You can also skip the corn and use arrowroot starch.
GROWING YOUR OWN – The first time I grew sweet potatoes, I forgot to mark on my calendar when I planted. They grew and grew and eventually were bursting out of the ground. The picture below is the amazing one I found underneath!
