How to Cook Sweet Potato? Simple and delicious!
Sweet potato or sweet potato is actually not a potato but a tuber, a thickening of the roots of the sweet potato plant. It is not a nightshade family like potatoes are, but one of the bindweed family. So they are not related at all. But how can you cook a sweet potato if it is not related to the potato?
How to Cook Sweet Potato?
Cooking a sweet potato. Peel and cut the sweet potato into equal-sized pieces. Put some salt in the pan with some water in it. Let the water boil. After about 15 minutes you will pierce with a fork whether the sweet potato is cooked. It depends on how quickly the sweet potato is cooked. Sweet potato is done when they are soft boiled.
There have been a number of questions about how to cook the sweet potato and we are going to describe them below. After cooking, you can season the sweet potato with herbs and seasonings. You can read about the best herbs and spices for sweet potatoes in our blog about seasoning sweet potatoes.
How Long To Cook Sweet Potato
Cooking a sweet potato can be different from one day to the next. Not because the sweet potato changes, but because you cut it into different sizes. If the sweet potato is cut in half, the cooking time may take 20 to 25 minutes. In any case, cut all sweet potato pieces the same size, otherwise one piece will cook faster than the other. If you cut the potato into ‘normal’ potato size, your sweet potato will probably be cooked in 15 to 20 minutes.
To make sure your sweet potato is cooked, pierce it with a fork. If the potato is soft and the fork goes in easily, the sweet potato is cooked. Do not let the sweet potato boil for too long, because then it will become a bit floury. That doesn’t improve the taste.
Sweet Potato Cooking Baby
When you are going to cook a sweet potato for a baby, you peel the sweet potato and cut it into smaller pieces. This way the sweet potato is quickly cooked and ready for the baby who can already eat some solid food. What I would definitely pay attention to is that I would not add salt to the water when you are going to boil it. Salt is not necessary in itself and babies need to learn about the flavors of vegetables. Without salt is also better for the baby.
If you want to give sweet potato to the baby who still eats everything pureed or has to learn to eat it, I would of course make puree of it without salt and butter. Just the sweet potato.
Sweet Potato Puree Cooking
Something different on your plate than boiled (sweet) potatoes. Then you can also cook sweet potato puree. Peel the sweet potato and cut it into equal pieces. Boil the potato with some salt if needed, about 20 minutes. (for a baby see above) Check after 15 minutes if they are already cooking because that depends on the size of the pieces.
Pierce the potato with a fork. when they are soft you can drain them. Mash the sweet potato with a pestle and add for example Flora butter (or other butter, whatever you like). Spoon or mash the butter well through the sweet potato and you have puree. Taste to see if you want to add more salt or other spices.
Sweet Potato Cooking With Peel
You can cook sweet potato with skin on, if you like. This peel is not poisonous. If you make sweet potato puree, I would peel it.
It is not often done, cooking sweet potato with a skin. When you make sweet potato fries, sometimes the sweet potato is peeled and sometimes not. A baked sweet potato with skin is of course one thing, it cannot be otherwise. You can also put potato slices in the airfryer with or without the peel or bake them in the pan. The choice is entirely yours!
Sweet Potato Cooking Stew
You peel a sweet potato and cut it into equal pieces. Boil the potato in a pan of water with some salt. It depends on the size of the pieces how long it takes, but after 15 minutes you poke the sweet potato to check if they are cooked. To make a stew you can add vegetables, which I give here as an example. The taste combination with sweet potato is delicious:
- Sweet potato stew with beetroot
- Sweet potato stew with leek
- Sweet potato is also very tasty with chicory
- and finally, arugula, raw with the sweet potato puree, is delicious and summery.
Sweet Potato Cubes Cooking
Peel the sweet potato and cut it into cubes. Put the potatoes in the pan with some salt and let it boil. When you are going to cook sweet potato cubes, it depends on how big the cubes are before they are cooked. From about 8 minutes I would taste how cooked the potato cubes are and whether they need to be in the boiling water any longer.
Based on this information, you can cook even longer or take it out. It goes without saying that small cubes of 1 cm by 1 cm cook much faster than cubes that are 4 cm by 4 cm. The advice is therefore to prickle and taste.
