Recipe: the best sweet potatoes

Use this slow and low technique taken from traditional Japanese Yaki Imo to take your sweet potatoes from good to show-stopping.

I spent two weeks in Japan in April. Cooked sweet potatoes were easy to find on restaurant menus and in markets. They became a staple of my Japan diet. I realized the sweet potatoes I’d been making at home weren’t cutting it. I was drying them out.

I was on a quest to make a sweet potato at home that tastes like those in Japan.

I ran into this cart while walking through the Bamboo Forest in Kyoto, Japan. I was hungry after taking the train in from Tokyo that morning and lots of walking, packing in tourist sites. A freshly cooked, warm sweet potato was the perfect snack.

Sweet potatoes are commonly served at restaurants, steamed and in tempura in Japan.

You can also find cooked, plain sweet potatoes at local markets. In the U.S. we have ice cream trucks. Japan has sweet potato trucks.

Sweet potato trucks are less common In Japan than they used to be, but many markets continue to offer plain, cooked sweet potatoes. These are warm or room temperature, ready-to-eat.

They are inexpensive, typically 200-300 yen for one potato. That’s $1.92(!) at the current yen to USD exchange rate (May 13, 2024). Compare that to a grab-and-go brown rice avocado roll at Whole Foods in the U.S., which is $9.

We picked up cooked sweet potatoes whenever we saw them. They are healthy. They are inexpensive. They are filling, but also snack-sized.

We also stopped in to a specialty sweet potato store on Yanaka Ginza, a popular shopping street in Tokyo. Keep your eyes peeled for this place if you find yourself on Yanaka Ginza! We tried three varieties of cooked Japanese sweet potatoes. Wow. They were unlike any sweet potato I’d eaten in the U.S.

Sweet potato from a store on Yanaka Ginza, Tokyo

I wrote my previous post on potatoes three weeks before leaving for Japan.

I’d been following the baking instructions I’d seen online: “how to cook sweet potatoes.”

When I returned from Japan, I modified my search: “how are sweet potatoes cooked in Japan?”

Japanese sweet potato, Bamboo Forest, Kyoto Japan

How to bake the best sweet potatoes

Recipe courtesy of Okonomi Kitchen

Ingredients

4 Japanese sweet potatoes

Can’t find Japanese sweet potatoes at your local market? No problem! Use any variety of sweet potato available.

Instructions

Use a vegetable brush to wash and scrub the potatoes.
Dry the potatoes with a towel.
Using a fork, poke a few holes in the potato so the steam can escape. Don’t make the holes very deep, this can extend cooking time.
Place the potatoes on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a Silpat baking mat.
Turn on the oven to 325 degrees fahrenheit — no preheat.
Bake for 70-90 minutes or until you can insert a wooden skewer or chopstick through the potatoes easily.
Turn off the oven and let the potatoes rest in the oven for 1 hour.
Enjoy!

To store

Let the cooked potatoes cool completely. Store for up to 5 days in the fridge or 2 months in the freezer.

Notes

I don’t use aluminum foil. I don’t think it’s necessary. I have one less box in my cabinet and one less thing to buy. What’s the impact of aluminum in the body? Unclear. If something is unclear, I err towards caution.

Yaki imo (Japanese sweet potato) at home. At least I thought that’s what I was buying?! This one was so juicy, it dripped down the side of my hand. Have you ever described a sweet potato as juicy? Yeah, me neither.

Tips 🌱

Make planning simple.
↪️ Are you busy? I get it. Set a timer and do any other thing (within earshot) while the potatoes are cooking.
↪️ Throw a note on your calendar 2 hours before you want to eat the potatoes. It takes 5 minutes to scrub the potatoes, poke the holes, and get them in the oven.
Cook at least one more than you need.
↪️ Are you a snacker like me? Sweet potatoes make the perfect snack.
↪️ Store in the fridge for a ready-to-go addition to any meal.
Make eating simple.
↪️ Eat the skin. It’s high in nutrients. I like the taste and texture. Who has time to peel?! You can throw a potato with the skin in a bag and take it on-the-go.
↪️ Ground eating and food preparation in health. Try relaxing preconceived notions of what ‘goes together.’ If it’s nutritious, throw it on the plate.

Nutrition 🌱

1 medium sweet potato, baked

source: Cronometer

Calories - 135

Fat - 0.2 g
Protein -3 g
Fiber - 5 g

Vitamin A - 206% DV
Vitamin C - 39% DV
Manganese - 41% DV
Potassium - 27% DV

Why eat sweet potatoes?

Great source of fiber, protein, vitamins & minerals

🌱 “USDA experts report that 95% of Americans don’t get enough fiber, and on average, American adults consume only half the fiber they need.

It’s worth noting that dietary fiber naturally occurs only in plant foods.”

“Inadequate intakes [of fiber] have been called a public health concern.”

[source, source]

🌱 Okinawa, Japan, home of the Okinawan sweet potato, is one of The Blue Zones. I’ll explore this in a future post.

Inexpensive

A medium-sized (0.69 lbs) organic Japanese sweet potato I bought recently from Whole Foods was $1.86.

Low effort
Low environmental impact

What else happened when I tried this recipe?

I don’t feel the need to add a condiment, like unsweetened ketchup or BBQ sauce. Butter was never my jam, vegan or not.

Maybe it’s having had the recent experience of eating so many plain sweet potatoes in Japan. More likely it’s using a baking technique that makes a better potato. This recipe doesn’t need sauce.

🌱 Don’t wait for a disease diagnosis to prioritize your health.
Start somewhere.
Start today.

Have you tried this recipe? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below!

Thanks for reading!

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