Oven Roasted Sweet Potato

Roasting sweet potatoes to the perfect texture can take a little practice. I went to Sweet Greens and ordered my favorite meal accompanied by the roasted sweet potatoes with green goddess dressing. My mouth was watering in anticipation. I watched her scoop the potatoes and it grabbed my attention as the delicious roasted sweet potatoes were completely black on one side and the other side was exposed orange fibers. I stopped her mid scooped and said, wait those are completely burned. She replied, no they’re not they’re roasted. My heart sand and said, “never mind, I don’t want them.” She was completely confused, annoyed and frustrated that I had now required her to put them back into the container.

This brought up a ton of feelings, frustration, irritation, but mostly just sadness. This restaurant depends on the staff to maintain consistency. In an instant she showed lack of knowledge around one of the staples in their restaurant, and she is not alone. There’s so many out there that don’t know how to cook a simple food like a sweet potato.

I love this recipe, because it is just that, simple. The star of the recipe is the potato and the oil and salt are merely there to help show off this incredible root vegetable.

The secrets to roasting the perfect potato are:

1 . The potato must be coated evenly with oil so it doesn’t dry out.

2. The oven needs to be hot enough to create the golden brown exterior.

There are tons of other tips like; don’t roast on a black pan because it will cook the exterior too quickly with out cooking the inside, and use an oil that has a burning point like avocado oil or vegetable oil so that you’re not adding in carcinogens into your food. The key is to roast the potatoes without burning them and roast to a soft interior. Let me know if you have any secrets to roasting the perfect sweet potato.