My sister was tasked with preparing the main items for our big family pot-luck harvest feast and she asked me if there was anything specific I would like her to prepare. I asked for baked, plain, skin on sweet potatoes. First of all, I like them this way. Bake it just like a russet and I’ll eat it with just butter, salt and pepper. Sweet potatoes don’t require any further adulteration but if you need to add sweetening then a bit of honey butter and cinnamon or a touch of maple syrup can be added to your own spud without corrupting all of them.
Don’t even get me started on XXXXing marshmallows!
My sister happily complied and per my request, prepared a few whole, baked sweet spuds for those like me who prefer them. She also prepared a large baking dish of peeled sweet potatoes cut into 2" pieces, topped with butter, brown sugar and chopped pecans and then baked and also prepared a small dish of baked, mashed sweet potatoes topped with marshmallow and coconut. As far as I’m concerned, all’s well.
The dishes of sweetened spuds disappeared like a sneeze in a tornado. I was the only one who took a plain sweet potato and I got some pretty strange looks from a couple of cousins in the process.
IMHO, there’s not a darn thing wrong with a plain, baked, sweet potato and I don’t apologize for liking them. That doesn’t mean I’m not the outlier.
How do you like you sweet potatoes and is a plain, baked, sweet potato an acceptable second choice?
Nope. I cannot stand SWEET sweet potatoes. Cannot stand them. Even as a kid I didn’t like them. Hell, I thought I hated sweet potatoes for this reason, and then realized you didn’t have to serve them with marshmallows or glaze or whatnot. My mother-in-law made some wonderful sweet potatoes last night for Thanksgiving dinner: just mashed sweet potatoes with a little bit of fresh rosemary, salt, pepper and topped with a caramelized shallots. Simple and one of the best sweet potato dishes I’ve ever had.
I also discovered that roasted or fried sweet potatoes go exceptionally well, at least to my tastes, with habaneros/habanero sauces. I generally dislike sweet potato fries, but with a habanero sauce to dip them in, they’re great.
All we do is bake them - smash them - add a little butter and salt/pepper - cinnamon if I’m feeling particularly festive. I hate “candied yams” which is what I grew up thinking sweet potatoes were.
I don’t personally believe they belong anywhere near me. I can’t think of a single example where marshmallows bring anything useful to a dish. I can’t even stand them in my hot chocolate.
I like a baked sweet potato. Sometimes they are a little sweeter than I would like, truth be told. But I like them plain, served in the skin. I’ve never added pepper, but that would be nice. A medium-sized one makes a nice light meal, IMO.
I’ve never understood the marshmallow or sugar glaze, either.
I think I like them every way I have ever had them. I sometimes bake them and just sprinkle on cinnamon, and they are great. Sometimes I cube and roast them, along with apples and fennel, and serve them with an Apple cider/butter sauce. My husband’s favorite Thanksgiving dish is a stunningly delicious casserole with mashed sweet potatoes, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, and vanilla with a pecan praline topping. I think most people feel that the sweet potato as a confection dishes are festive holiday fare, but they are all certainly good.
I agree. Sweet potatoes, being, you know, SWEET, do not need any added sugar. Just roast the damned things, fry them, or bake them in a pie, and be done with it. Adding brown sugar, syrup, pineapple, maraschino cherries, or otherwise tarting them up* is an abomination unto God.
I’m also a fan of the basic baked sweet potato with butter, salt and pepper. However, there is a recipe named for some Florida senator that includes a hefty glug of Jack Daniels which is also pretty darn good for the holidays.
I prefer them candied with marshmallows. My daughter grew up with them only served this way but her Dominican husband taught her how to roast them with different spices and she was just shocked at how much she loved them with savory spices. She got me all excited about trying it this way. Nope, I didn’t like it at all. If I’m going to eat them like that I want Yukon golds.
Baked and filled with cheese, like a regular potato. But then also, instead of chives or sour cream, which to me really don’t go with sweet potatoes … I add BBQ sauce.
Just a bit of sweetness without the overpowering marshmallows. Originally the Late Other Shoe suggested it, and I really like the combo. Makes a good quick lunch, since sweets handle microwave “baking” far better than russets.
The only way I like them sweetened is in sweet potato pie.
Here’s a recipe for sweet potatoes with three kinds of ginger. It has a little added sweetness in the candied ginger, but not enough to make the dish noticeably sweet. The soy sauce keeps it from being cloying. I make this dish every year for Thanksgiving:
4 medium sweet potatoes or yams, peeled & cut into 1/2-inch slices
2 tsp. grated fresh ginger
2 tsp. grated young ginger (if not available, double the amount of fresh ginger)
1 Tbsp. chopped candied ginger
1 cup heavy cream
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
Preheat oven to 400 F.
Cover the bottom of a baking dish with a layer of sweet potatoes. Sprinkle with a bit of each type of ginger. Add more layers of sweet potato and ginger until all has been used. Mix the cream and soy sauce and pour over the sweet potatoes. Cover and bake for 45 minutes, or until tender.
This. I still am not sure I like them, having only had them as an adult as sweet potato fries, but am not as averse to the concept of eating them as I was when I was a kid.
Same thing goes for tuna. Always paired with mayo when I was growing up so I thought I hated it. To this day I even still sort of dislike canned chicken because it reminds me of canned tuna which reminds me of mayo!
I like sweet potatoes baked with lots of butter and maybe some dark brown sugar or real maple syrup. My daughter loves the things, and prefers them to white potatoes. She eats them without butter now, since she found out she’s lactose intolerant, poor kid!
There’s nothing wrong with a candied-sweet-potato-and-marshmallow dessert. But as a side dish? Yeah, pretty much prepare it in the same way as white potatoes. Baked is good, but I prefer home-fried.
I hated sweet potatoes all my life because I had only had them candied. Then my cousins hosted Thanksgiving and just baked them. I found they were very good that way and now am willing to eat them.
They’re called sweet potatoes. Why add sugar to them?
I like them plain roasted, too. One of my favorite meals is a baked sweet potato with butter, salt and pepper, accompanied by a high quality ham steak. The sweet and salty combo is luscious.
