The sweetest thing

When I look back on a 25-year career in food journalism, particularly the hundreds of recipes — actually, I think it’s gotten to be more than 1,000! — I’ve developed and published, which ingredient do you think shows up most often?

If you guessed beans, you’re probably right — after all, they’re in every one of the 125 recipes in “Cool Beans,” and in plenty of the recipes in my other cookbooks and for The Washington Post. I haven’t done an actual count, but I’m pretty sure a close second is the sweet potato. Of course, I’m not counting salt, pepper, olive oil, etc., because, c’mon. But of the real ingredients, the sweet potato is high on the list.

In one of my first odes to it, which we headlined “My Orange Crush,” I wrote about my frequent ritual as a then-single cook: “At least once a week, my just-home-from-work drill goes like this: Drop bag, turn on oven, put in sweet potato, take dog to park, return, remove sweet potato, slash, squeeze, season, eat.”

It was one of my Cooking for One columns for the Post, where I tried to give as many ideas for easy ways to cook for yourself and how to even find the joy it in rather than falling back into that trap of, “Why would I bother if it’s just me?” Well, as a former therapist of mine was prone to say, that’s stinkin’ thinkin’!

Anyway, my love for sweet potatoes existed before I wrote about “serving yourself,” to paraphrase another book title, and it has lived on long past my single days. Now, with a husband and teenager to feed, I still find myself as drawn to sweet potatoes as ever. I cook them so often, I’ve developed a few tricks and tips for doing it right. Here’s a few of them.

• I think the oven or air fryer are the best, but don’t believe those folks who say the only way to do that is low and slow. Sure, you can do a super-slow-cooked sweet potato, and if you have time, go for it. I tend to choose an even 400 degrees, cooking for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on how big the tuber is.

• To speed things up, try microwaving for 3 or 4 minutes first, then baking. It’ll shave a good 15 or 20 minutes off the oven time.

• Don’t scoff at the peel. When my husband eats my baked sweet potatoes (or white potatoes, for that matter), I wince at how much peel — and flesh stuck to it — he leaves on his plate. I’ve tried just about everything to convince him of its goodness, including rubbing it with olive oil and salt before baking, and I have succeeded in getting him to eat it. Sometimes. Other times, not. I find it delicious, which I suppose is debatable, but what’s not debatable is its nutrition: So much more fiber! (The skin is where much of the nutrients are concentrated.)

• While roasting them whole is my go-to, you can of course cook sweet potatoes in all sorts of other ways, and I do: Cubing and then roasting or steaming goes pretty quickly, and you can pack so much seasoning on. They’re delightful in soups and stews (including one of the versions of that chili I wrote about last week), nice in tacos and quesadillas and fajitas, pretty great on pizza, perfect as part of the dough in biscuits and (James Beard’s) rolls, and even good not on a burger, but as the burger.

And then there are the desserts: Sweet potato pie is the classic. I was one of the first to publish Patti LaBelle’s recipe when her Walmart pies went viral years back, and I also designed a Persian-spiced pie in which I layer thin slices of sweet potatoes on their edges, the way Rose Levy Beranbaum does with her Designer Apple Pie. (The only other thing you do here is brush those sweet potato slices with a spiced butter and bake.)

For something simpler (no crust!) but just as impactful, I included a simple, elegant recipe for Sweet Potato Creme Brûlée in “Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking” (recipe below). I worked with Brigid Washington on this, and loved the complex spicing that results when you use a dash of Angostura bitters in the mix. Other than that, it’s a mere puree of roasted sweet potatoes, coconut milk, brown sugar, cinnamon and vanilla, thickened with a bit of cornstarch and cooked briefly on the stovetop. After that, you refrigerate it in ramekins, torch the sugar on top, and serve them for people to crack into like their spoon is an ice-skate blade on a barely frozen lake.

Many years after writing that first ode to my sweetest thing, I followed up in 2023 with a bit of a pivot, or concentration, in a piece that we headlined simply, “Japanese sweet potatoes are the best sweet potatoes.” Lest you think that was just clickbait, let me assure you that I do believe it. The Asian variety, with its white-yellow flesh and starchier, drier flesh has, it’s true, knocked my orange crush into second place. Especially, I have to say, for roasting whole. In fact, one of the recipes for The Post I’m proudest of tops them with tofu crumbles and a gochujang butter.

Truly delectable. In fact, so much so that I think I’ve got to stop typing now and get to the farmers market, because I just decided on tonight’s dinner plan. Sweet.

I break for animals:
Bogey

Recipe: Sweet Potato Crème Brûlée

This dessert exemplifies the easy elegance that can be found in using an everyday ingredient in a classic and elevated way. Sweet potatoes are roasted with a heavy shower of orange zest and brown sugar, then blitzed and zinged with warm autumnal spices and creamy, nutty coconut milk. Cornstarch imparts the smooth textural density of a traditional crème brûlée, and of course another sprinkling of sugar gets torched for that signature crunchy topping. Serve this in individual 1-cup (240 ml) ramekins, or in one big batch if desired.

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Makes: 6 servings
Storage: Refrigerate for up to 5 days.

• 2 large sweet potatoes (about 1 pound/450 g each), scrubbed and halved lengthwise

• 1 tablespoon melted coconut oil, refined or unrefined

• 2 tablespoons finely grated orange zest (from 1 large navel orange)

• ¼ cup packed (55 g) plus 1 teaspoon light brown sugar

• 1 (13.5-ounce/400 ml) can full-fat coconut milk

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• ½ teaspoon Angostura bitters (optional)

• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt

• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1 teaspoon cornstarch

• 2 teaspoons cold water

• ¼ cup organic cane sugar

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Brush the cut sides of the sweet potato halves with the melted coconut oil. Sprinkle each half with 1½ teaspoons of the orange zest and ¼ teaspoon brown sugar. Place the sweet potato halves, cut-side down, on a large sheet pan.

Roast until very tender, about 40 minutes.

Transfer the sweet potatoes to a plate and let them sit until cool enough to handle, at least 10 to 15 minutes. Remove and compost the sweet potato skins (or save for a snack!) and transfer the flesh to a blender.

Add the coconut milk, vanilla, bitters (if using), salt, cinnamon, and remaining ¼ cup (55 g) brown sugar. Blend on low for 1 minute. Then blend on medium-high speed until the mixture is very smooth, about 2 minutes.

While it is blending, in a small bowl, make a slurry by combining the cornstarch and cold water and whisking with a fork until smooth.

Transfer the sweet potato mixture to a medium saucepan. (If it’s lumpy, press it through a fine-mesh sieve first.) Add the slurry and whisk to combine. Heat over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture—which is already thick—bubbles and thickens a little more, 5 to 7 minutes.

While the mixture is cooking, set six 1-cup (240 ml) single-serve ramekins on a sheet pan or platter.

Using a ladle, divide the sweet potato mixture among the ramekins. Transfer to the refrigerator and refrigerate, uncovered, for 2 hours to cool, or freeze for 1 hour. (If desired, you can instead pour the mixture into one 6-cup/1.4 L bowl for serving.)

To serve, sprinkle 2 teaspoons granulated sugar on the surface of each ramekin. Use a kitchen torch to brûlée the sugar until it melts and a hard golden crust forms. Allow the sugared crust to cool for at least 2 minutes before serving.

Recipe from “Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking” (Ten Speed Press, 2024). Copyright Joe Yonan.

More favorite sweet potato recipes

These are gift links to the recipes at the Post. Note that they require you to register but not subscribe. Gift links are free to access for 2 weeks, so if you want to save any of these recipes but don’t subscribe or want to subscribe, I suggest you save them!

Japanese Sweet Potatoes With Tofu and Gochujang Butter

Sweet Potato Coconut Biscuits

Spiced Tahini Loaded Sweet Potatoes