I could eat sweet potatoes, in some form, every day. They’re one of my favourite foods. I find them to be comforting and also incredibly versatile. It’s my cozy carb of choice for life! I had to round up all of my favourite sweet potato recipes for you out of total necessity ;)
I have so many options for you! Everything from classic sweet potato casserole to flavourful salads, the best baked fries, cozy breakfast muffins, hearty stews, and naturally lots of vegan dinner recipes too. All but one of these recipes is naturally gluten-free :)
I’ve broken these recipes down into four categories for you below. Just click on whichever heading you’d like to be taken to!
The First Mess Cookbook
Sweet potatoes are definitely featured in The First Mess Cookbook! Along with lots of seasonal vegan recipes for every occasion.
1. Soups and Stews
Ginger Sweet Potato & Coconut Milk Stew with Lentils and Kale. The mellow sweet potatoes are complimented so nicely by plenty of ginger and ground spices. This is one of the most popular, well-rated recipes on the site!
Lentil Soup with Coconut, Sweet Potato, Spinach & Lime. This is a slow cooker winner! We grate the sweet potatoes and they just *melt* into the soup as it cooks.
Creamy Cauliflower & Sweet Potato Chowder. This naturally gluten-free recipe is cozy and vibrant at the same time, and flavoured with dried thyme and tarragon, garlic, smoked paprika, grainy mustard, and lemon. Roasting the cauliflower first brings an extra dimension of deep flavour.Creamy Cauliflower & Sweet Potato Chowder.
Flavours of Morroco-Inspired Vegetable & Chickpea Stew. This chunky and hearty stew is total comfort all year round. I love to make it in the Winter when I need some extra cozy vibes though.
Sweet Potato Soup with Coriander & Blood Orange. Silky smooth simplicity that’s ready in under 30 minutes with less than 10 ingredients. Minimal and great.
Sweet Potato Dal with Coconut Leeks. Can you tell that I like sweet potatoes and coconut milk together with spices? I honestly was not aware that I had 3 extremely similar (but still different I suppose) recipes on this site ;)
2. Salads and Sides
Sweet Potato Radicchio Salad with Roasted Shallot Dressing & Candied Pumpkin Seeds. This salad has it all. Sweet, tart, and bitter flavours. Soft, creamy, crisp, and crunchy textures. Every mouthful is a total party.
Grilled Sweet Potatoes with Chili Lime Tahini Sauce. We grill sweet potatoes all summer long. The smoky flavour works so well. Even better smothered in a creamy chile lime tahini sauce.
Smoky Maple Vegan Sweet Potato Gratin. This vegan sweet potato gratin has richness from a savoury and sweet homemade cashew “cream” that features maple syrup, nutritional yeast, onion powder, Tamari, liquid smoke, garlic, and raw cashews. So deeply flavourful and the bubbly and browned top is gorgeous with a spiral pattern.
Kale Power Salad with Spicy Almond Dressing. This salad is so satisfying and loaded with flavour. Kale is topped with tender roasted sweet potatoes, crispy baked tofu bits, avocado, and red onion. A super creamy spicy almond dressing that you’ll want to drizzle on everything finishes it off.
Sweet Potato Sunshine Salad. I took a lot of the flavours from the Flavours of Morocco-Inspired Vegetable & Chickpea Stew and turned them into a salad. It’s drizzled with a lemon date vinaigrette and topped with plenty of herbs and chopped pistachios.
Vegan Sweet Potato Casserole with Apples & Crunchy Rosemary Walnuts. This is classic holiday comfort, done up fully vegan with a few flavourful extras added in. I whip the sweet potatoes up with some orange juice and vegan butter. Then they’re topped with sautéed apples and browned rosemary walnuts. I swear this is the best sweet potato casserole ever!
Sweet Potato Noodle Salad with Creamy Chipotle Miso Sauce. This unusual and gorgeous salad has the most delicious chipotle sauce for dressing. I love all of the textures in this high vibe bowl of goodness.
Crispy Baked Sweet Potato Fries with Roasted Garlic Tahini Yogurt Dip. I really think that these are the best baked sweet potato fries. There’s a few extra steps, but that crispy, golden perfection as the end result (ie NOT soggy and sad sticks of sweet potato) is so worth it.
Kale Sweet Potato Salad with Spicy Tahini Ranch, Crispy Chickpeas & Pickled Red Onions. The title is a mouthful and honestly the salad is too! As in: full of flavour and texture that you’ll want to eat again and again! The oven does some work here and it’s ready in about an hour. One of my favourite dinner salads ever!
Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes with Chili & Lime. This is a fun little veggie side with the bold flavours of chili, lime, maple syrup, tahini, and other spices. There is minimal chopping involved with this one and the cooking time is mostly hands-off.
3. Main Courses
Sticky Sweet Potato Tacos with Avocado Cilantro Sauce. This is one of my favourite quick dinners. You sauté shreds of sweet potato with BBQ sauce (this brand is my fave) and pile it all into a tortilla with crunchy cabbage and a creamy avocado sauce.
Sweet Potato Cake Patties with Lemony Slaw. These patties are simple to prepare and so satisfying. I add quinoa and hemp, and mashed sweet potato is the perfect binding agent. I serve them with a creamy and lemony slaw, but they also work well as a veggie burger.
Sweet Potato Walnut Chili with Corn Dumplings. The sweet potato walnut chili in this recipe is so deeply flavourful on its own, with dried chiles, cocoa, Tamari, garlic, beans, and spices.
Sweet Potato and Broccoli Rabe Sheet Pan Dinner. This vegan sheet pan dinner with roasted sweet potatoes, broccoli rabe, chickpeas, and ginger peanut sauce is a flavourful addition to your weeknight meal plan. So easy to make, simple ingredients, and so satisfying!
Stuffed and Sauced Sweet Potatoes with Chickpeas and Tahini. A classic flavour combo in the classic stuffed sweet potato format. This simple recipe is a perfect weeknight meal.
Roasted Winter Bowl with Sweet Potatoes, BBQ Tempeh & Hemp Seed Ranch. You could make this any time of year; not just in the winter. Tender Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes combine beautifully with BBQ-glazed tempeh and creamy hemp-based ranch sauce.
Spicy Vegan Buffalo Meatloaf Minis. I use cooked and mashed sweet potato as a binder in this flavourful take on vegan meatloaf. The Buffalo sauce and traditional ketchup glaze are so comforting and flavourful. These are a great make-ahead recipe too.
Grilled Sweet Potato & Black Bean Burrito Bowl with Cumin Garlic Sauce. This is a go-to wholesome weeknight meal for us! Sometimes I air fry or roast the sweet potatoes if I don’t feel like grilling (or it’s raining out haha). The cumin garlic sauce is so tasty here, but also great on basically anything.
Sweet Potato Pecan Tacos with Quick-Pickled Cabbage & Cashew Sour Cream. The tangy pickled cabbage meshes so well with the spiced, roasted sweet potatoes and pecan “meat” crumble here! A creamy drizzle of cashew sour cream takes these vegan tacos into the stratosphere ;)
4. Sweet Treats
Spiced Sweet Potato Granola with Pecans. Is there anything sweet potatoes can’t do? They help to bind this wholesome granola with pecans and plenty of warm spices. Maple syrup and coconut oil help to bring it all together and are perfect flavour partners here.
Vegan Sweet Potato Muffins with Pecan Streusel. These perfectly sweet and pillowy muffins are topped with a buttery and crunchy pecan streusel. It’s a nice little grab and go breakfast with a hot coffee.
Chocolate Sweet Potato Smoothie. This banana-free smoothie is so rich, thick, and lush! It’s perfectly sweet from steamed and frozen sweet potatoes, and satiating enough to have for breakfast.
Sweet Potato Recipes: Crispy Baked Sweet Potato Fries
Ingredients
Roasted Garlic Tahini Yogurt Dip
- 1 head of garlic
- oil
- generous ½ cup unsweetened non-dairy yogurt of choice
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons tahini
- 1 small handful chopped fresh parsley
- 1 small handful chopped fresh mint
- sea salt and ground black pepper, to taste
Crispy Baked Sweet Potato Fries
- 2 small-medium sweet potatoes, peeled (about 750 grams total)
- 2-3 tablespoons arrowroot powder
- cayenne, cinnamon, thyme, garlic powder, rosemary, turmeric or any other SALT-FREE seasoning that you like (we’re adding salt at the very end)
- high heat-tolerant oil spray (I like avocado oil)
- fine sea salt, to taste
Notes
- I would not go off-script here. I’m all for making recipes your own, but if you’re expecting perfectly crispy results, I’d follow this recipe to a tee the first go-around.
- If you’re down with using cornstarch, you can use the same amount of it in place of the arrowroot.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. If your baking sheet is well-seasoned, you can skip the parchment lining.
- Make the dip: Cut the top ½ inch off of the garlic head. Tear a piece of foil (enough to wrap around the garlic) and place the garlic head in the middle. Drizzle oil on top, letting it seep into the garlic cavities. Wrap the garlic up and place it in the oven. Roast the garlic until squidgy and golden inside, about 45 minutes. Set aside to cool.
- Place the yogurt into a small bowl. Squeeze the cooled roasted garlic into the bowl. Add the lemon juice, tahini, parsley, mint, salt, and pepper to the yogurt mixture. Mash and stir it all together with a fork until combined. Cover the bowl and set aside in the refrigerator.
- Make the fries: Cut the sweet potatoes into 3-inch long and ½ -inch thick fries. Place the cut sweet potatoes into a large bowl and cover them with cold water. Let them sit for at least an hour or up to overnight in the refrigerator.
- Drain the sweet potatoes and lay them on a clean kitchen towel. Place another clean kitchen towel on top and loosely roll them all up. Massage the little towel sweet potato roll-up for a bit so that the fries are as dry as possible.
- In another large bowl, toss the cut sweet potatoes with the arrowroot powder and SALT-FREE seasonings of your choice (salt is happening later). The cut sweet potatoes should have a light, powdery coating of arrowroot.
- Spray the parchment on your baking sheet evenly with the oil spray. Arrange the sweet potatoes in rows on the baking sheet. Spray the tops of the sweet potatoes with the oil spray before sliding them into the oven.
- Bake the sweet potato fries for 25 minutes or very lightly browned in spots and the arrowroot is forming a light “webbing” on the undersides of the fries. Remove the fries from the oven and carefully flip them all over. Slide the sweet potato fries back into the oven and bake for another 25 minutes.
- At the end of the 25 minutes, the sweet potato fries should have some strong brown spots and crisp exteriors. If they still look like they need crisping, carefully flip them one more time and bake until they’ve reached your desired doneness.
- Quickly transfer the fries to a large bowl and toss them with a fat pinch of sea salt. Warning: when they’re piping hot, they won’t FEEL completely crispy yet. Place the hot fries on your serving plate in a single layer along with your roasted garlic tahini yogurt dip. After they sit for a few seconds, they will start to get that super crispy quality.
I’ve enjoyed all the ones I’ve made from this list, (especially #1) and can’t wait to try the rest! Today, I had a sweet potato smoothie that I got the recipe for from at the bottom of your 20 smoothie list. It was delicious!!! I so love it here!
I have made practically all these recipes and all are super delicious. Thank you