16 Amazing Sweet Potato Recipes (2024)

FAQs

Is it okay to eat sweet potatoes every day? ›

Sweet potatoes are full of antioxidants, vitamins and fiber to support your eye, digestive and heart health. They're generally safe to eat daily, especially if you eat them with calcium to prevent calcium oxalate kidney stones. There are so many fun and tasty ways to eat sweet potatoes.

Despite their sweet taste, these potatoes have an intermediate glycemic index (GI) level, meaning they are digested and absorbed fairly slowly, leading to a more gradual increase in blood sugar levels. But, a lot of these benefits, including nutrients and taste, can be lost by boiling sweet potatoes.

“A general guideline to estimating how many sweet potatoes you need when hosting friends or family for a meal is one medium sweet potato per person,” Burgess says, as if she's done this many times before.

The healthiest ways to prepare sweet potatoes are to steam or boil them. You can also bake, roast, or fry sweet potatoes, but you should take care to limit these preparation methods, which will cause the sugars to break down in different ways and often include extra recipe ingredients like oil, butter, or sugar.

How to tell if sweet potatoes have gone bad. If your sweet potato is soft in spots, smells rotten, or oozes a mysterious liquid, that potato should be discarded. Another sign that sweet potatoes have taken a turn for the worse is if they start growing stalky purplish sprouts.

Interestingly, when boiled or baked, sweet potatoes are virtually fat-free. Root vegetables might be rich in carbs but contribute fewer calories than the equivalent portion of pasta or rice. What's more, unlike pasta and rice, they contribute useful micronutrients, including beta-carotene, potassium and vitamin C.

It's really the best way. Microwaving sweet potatoes cuts down cook time by 45 to 55 minutes, and, according to a 2018 study, helps maintain the potato's nutritional value. All cooking methods cause foods to lose some of their nutrients, but the quicker your potato cooks, the more nutrients it will retain.

Baking can also cause an 80% drop in vitamin A levels, twice as much as boiling. Therefore, from a nutritional standpoint, boiling rather than baking should be recommended for cooking sweet potato.

There is not much difference between boiling sweet potatoes with the skins on versus peeling them, but you will get a boost of fiber and potassium if you keep the skin on. The skin also adds a subtle texture to each bite. If you're looking for a smoother mash, peel the potatoes first before boiling.

All data were analyzed statistically. There were significantly lower amounts of copper, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, silicon, and zinc in canned sweet potatoes than in fresh sweet potatoes and no significant differences in cal- cium, chloride, iron, manganese, and sodium between the fresh and canned samples.

Are canned yams healthy? ›

Fresh sweet potatoes are quickly canned to seal in valuable nutrients making these sliced yams an ideal “superfood” in a hurry.

Whether you eat them out of the can or incorporate them into a more elaborate recipe, rinsing off the sweet potatoes beforehand is more of a necessity than a suggestion. Like most canned products, sweet potatoes come floating in canning liquid, which is key to their preservation.

Sweet Potatoes and Health

Sweet potatoes with orange flesh are richest in beta-carotene. Sweet potatoes with purple flesh are richer in anthocyanins. Beta-carotene and anthocyanins are naturally occurring plant “phyto” chemicals that give vegetables their bright colors.

Yams and sweet potatoes differ in flavor and appearance, and they are not related. Sweet potatoes are in the morning glory family, while yams belong to the lily family. Yams aren't as sweet as sweet potatoes, and they are starchier and drier. Their texture and flavor are more similar to potatoes or yuca.

Sweet potato skins are both edible and highly nutritious.

They are rich in fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and phytochemicals that have health-promoting properties.

Sweet potatoes contain high amounts of oxalates that may increase the risk of calcium-oxalate kidney stones. Sweet potatoes contain beta-carotene, and their excessive consumption can lead to hypervitaminosis A (vitamin A toxicity), in which excess vitamin A accumulates in the liver.

According to the USDA, one cooked medium sweet potato (114 grams or about 4 ounces) with skin contains the following nutrition: Calories: 103. Carbohydrates: 24 g. Total sugars: 7 g.

Research shows that sweet potatoes can lower your LDL "bad" cholesterol, which may lower your odds of heart problems. Macular degeneration. Large amounts of beta-carotene and vitamin A, which are in sweet potatoes, can lower your chances of getting this eye disease, which is the most common cause of vision loss.

You can substitute some rice with sweet potatoes to lose weight, but rice should not be switched out entirely. Vegetables, fruits, and protein should still be consumed to maintain a balanced diet.