Sweet potato is a delicious, wholesome vegetable that you can include in your diet in many ways. So, in this article, we will teach you how to season sweet potatoes using the best ingredients and techniques.
Although there are many ways to consume sweet potatoes, seasoning them primarily counts when you need to cook, bake, grill, roast, or fry them. Several ingredients like olive oil, avocado oil, spices, herbs, seasoning blends, and spice mixes can bring out the flavor of sweet potatoes. At the same time, some dishes require seasoning prior to cooking, while some can be seasoned after.
The rest of this episode will enlighten you with everything you need to know about seasoning sweet potatoes. Check this out!
How To Season Sweet Potatoes?
Sweet potato is a versatile vegetable that you can find around the year. It is a nutrition-dense ingredient that will help you with a number of health benefits. This vegetable’s mild starchy, and sweet taste can be complemented with many essential herbs, spices, and flavorings in your pantry.
However, it is not a secret that the key to a tasty dish of savory sweet potatoes depends on how you season it. Therefore, there are a few tips and tricks that you should be following, from picking up sweet potatoes, cleaning them, and storing them until used, to the ingredients you choose to season them.
01- First, Pick Good Quality Sweet Potatoes
It is important that you pay attention to picking up good quality sweet potatoes so that you can follow up with the seasoning more appropriately. So, go for fresh red or orange-skinned ones with no discolorations and soft spots.
02- Cutting The Sweet Potatoes
Prepping or cutting your sweet potatoes depends on what dish you make. You can slice, dice, or cut into chunks/ cubes, sticks, planks, etc. However, it is essential that every piece should be uniform in order to seize the flavor of the seasoning and cook evenly.
03- Skin-on Or Skin-off?
Keeping or removing the skin of your sweet potatoes totally depends on personal preference. But still, cooking experts suggest that it would be best to keep the skin for more texture and flavor along with keeping the extra nutrients of this vegetable.
04- Choosing The Ingredients
The subtly sweet and starchy flavor profile of this vegetable is well-complemented with warm, earthy, and nutty flavorings. Therefore, you can choose from a wide variety of spices, herbs, seasoning blends, spice mixtures, oils, and sweeteners when you need sweet potatoes for a particular dish.
Seasoning Sweet Potatoes When Baking
This vegetable can be baked in an oven, instant pot, or in an air fryer. You must pork holes in your sweet potatoes using a fork before putting them for baking if you bake them whole. If not, you can cut them into chunks. Olive oil, butter, salt, black pepper, and oregano are some basic ingredients you can use to season this.
If you bake them whole, you can season them after they are baked. But, if you are cutting them into chunks, coat them with an oil of choice and season them with salt, pepper, oregano, etc. If you need more flavor, you can adjust the seasoning after the sweet potato chunks are baked.
Seasoning Sweet Potatoes When Frying
Sweet potatoes can be deep-fried, pan-fried, or prepared in the air fryer. Sauteing or stir-frying is another famous method of preparing this vegetable in most Asian cuisines.
Sweet potatoes cut into sticks can be coated with oil and seasoned with salt, black pepper, brown sugar, and other spices/ herbs to be made into fries.
You can toss with more dry seasoning after the fries are prepared if needed. Sauteed or stir-frying will count for more flavors, but that also depends on the recipe and personal preference.
Seasoning Sweet Potatoes For Grilling And Roasting
You can cut your sweet potatoes into plants, slices, cubes, or even roast or grill them whole. As we explained, you can season them after grilling or roasting if you prepare them whole. But, if you cut, slice or cube them, season them beforehand and adjust the seasoning after preparation.
However, it is crucial that you use some kind of fat like oil or butter before preparation if you make sweet potatoes in pieces. You can use salt and black pepper along with other warm, earthy spices and herbs like oregano, chili powder, onion powder, etc.
Seasoning Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Seasoning this vegetable for mashed sweet potatoes is a bit different from the techniques you use when frying, baking, grilling, or roasting. In fact, it should be seasoned with ingredients like salt and garlic powder before it boils and even after you mash them up to finish the dish.
Ultimately, mashed sweet potatoes should be a perfect balance of creaminess along with sweet, salty, and slightly umami flavors.
How Long Should You Season Your Sweet Potatoes?
The best thing about this vegetable is that you don’t have to wait for hours or overnight to get perfectly seasoned sweet potatoes. If you are making a dish that requires proper seasoning, you can do it just before making it. For example, if you make sweet potato fries, just coat them with oil, toss them with the preferred seasoning, and fry. It is just as simple as that!
Summing Up
It must be clear that seasoning sweet potatoes isn’t difficult when you follow the proper techniques and ingredients. As we explained, some sweet potato dishes require seasoning before being prepared, while some dishes can even be seasoned after they are cooked.
However, picking up good quality sweet potatoes, cutting them accordingly, and seasoning them with the right ingredients will directly affect the flavor of your sweet potato dishes.
