The first time I tasted sweet potato fries was in a vintage diner that made amazing-tasting grease-ladden junk food: juicy cheesy burgers, perfectly-coated onion rings, hand cut fries, real ice cream milkshakes, old fashioned floats, etc you get the drift. Anyway, needless to say, their sweet potato fries were absolute perfection.
Of course, they were deep-fried…so I went on a long journey testing oven-baked ones.
The difficulty with oven baking fries is getting the texture right. They might taste nice, but when you bite into them, they just feel, well…well baked at best. No crunch, no crispiness, slightly soggy and in their worst moments, they look totally dehydrated. For all these reasons I held back on posting a recipe for sweet potato fries and continued testing. Until I stumbled on the ultimate tip: use cornstarch! To that I would also add that you should cut them thin, use enough oil and serve them up immediately.
These are as crackling as non-deep-fried can get and absolutely genius as a party appetizer or side dish served with some sriracha mayo.
Ingredients
- 2 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp smoked papkrika
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 2-3 tbsp cornstarch
- 5 tbsp coconut oil (flavorless) or ghee
- 1 large sweet potato or 2 regular ones, peeled and sliced into thin 1cm-wide sticks
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375F
- Drizzle 2 tbsp of oil on a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper
- In a large bowl or sealable plastic bag, mix the spices, cornstarch, 3 tbsp of oil, sweet potato sticks and combine/shake well, until they are all coated with oil and spices.
- Place the sweet potato sticks on the baking sheet, making sure to leave a little bit of space between them. You don’t want them to bake on top of one another.
- Place in the oven for 10-15 minutes and flip them over once their bottoms are golden and crispy. Bake for another 10 minutes or until crispy.
- Serve immediately
