Crispy smashed sweet potato recipe featuring crispy, rich exterior with a sweet soft, and moist tender center for a perfect way to enjoy one of my favorite vegetables.
MOOD MUSIC
Duck fat and sweet potatoes are a perfect pairing. I buy duck fat from my local farmers' market from time to time, and then promptly invent duck fat recipes and look for excuses to eat my way through it. Smashed is the new mashed, and I'm smashing everything in sight.
Today it's sweet potatoes tomorrow it will be okra, zucchini, cucumbers, or hell I might be smashing pumpkins. I eat things mashed foods like potatoes, cauliflower, etc. but I've always felt like the texture was lacking. As a result, I've always lightly or roughly mashed my vegetables so that they were chunky with some chew in them. Smashing addresses my texture issues and the duck fat adds crazy flavor and next level crispiness.
SMASHED SWEET POTATOES INGREDIENTS
- Sweet Potatoes
- Duck Fat
- Kosher or Sea Salt
- Cracked Black Pepper
SMASHING INSTRUCTIONS
Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees.
Slice sweet potatoes into ¼ inch slices. Place potatoes in a medium-sized pot and cover completely with water. Season the water well with salt. Bring sweet potatoes to a boil over high-heat and then drop to low simmer.
Cook until you can easily penetrate the potatoes with a fork (about 20-30 minutes). Potatoes should be fork tender, but with some resistance/firmness. You don't want them overcooked as they'll be too soft for smashing.
Remove the potatoes from the pot and drain in a colander, then let cool for about five minutes.
Place potatoes on your baking sheet. One at a time, smash each slice down with the palm of your hand. Apply firm but gentle pressure to avoid smashing completely.
With the potatoes arranged on the baking sheet, season with salt and pepper, then drizzle or brush each slice round with the duck fat.
Roast potatoes until brown and crispy, about 20-30 minutes. Serve hot with a chimichurri or zhoug sauce.
COOKING CONSIDERATIONS AND TIPS
- These work fine either baked (less cleanup as they are smashed on the same tray) or boiled (requires draining) before smashing.
- Smashing with a fork is probably most effective. Using your palm or a potato masher can be tricky and result in the utter annihilation of the potato
- Other fats are effective substitutes from a technique standpoint if you can't source or prefer not to use duck fat.
- The beauty of smashed potatoes is, unlike their french fry cousins, they reheat well so leftovers are a real possibility if you don't finish.
- Top with any combination of fresh herbs, oil, and garlic. I topped mine with Zhug, which I've referenced quite a few times in other posts. It has become my every day, everything go-to condiment.
- For other ideas for uses of sweet potatoes try this sweet potatoes guide.
MORE SWEET POTATO RECIPES
Roasted Hasselback Sweet Potatoes
Black Rice Salad with Sweet Potatoes
MAKE THIS RECIPE
If you make this smashed sweet potatoes recipe or any other from the site, please come back and leave me a comment below with your feedback. Definitely take a photo of the dish and be sure to tag #foodfidelity so that I can see them.
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Ingredients
- 2 Medium sized sweet potatoes sliced ¼ inch thick
- ¼ cup duck fat melted
- ½ tablespoon kosher or sea salt
- ½ freshly cracked black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- Place potatoes in pot and cover completely with water. Season heavily with salt. Bring to boil over high heat then drop heat to low and cook until can easily fork through, about 20-30 minutes. Potatoes should be fork tender with some resistance/firmness. You don't want them overcooked as they'll be too soft.
- Drain in a colander and let cool, about 5 minutes.
- Place potatoes on your baking sheet. One at a time, smash each down with the palm of your hand or fork. Apply firm but gentle pressure to avoid smashing completely.
- With potatoes arranged on baking sheet, season with salt and pepper, then drizzle or brush each round with duck fat.
- Roast potatoes until brown and crispy, about 20-30 minutes. Serve hot and enjoy!
Tea
Sunday 3rd of March 2024
I really like your blog. I always come for one recipe, but stay for at least 45minutes checking out more recipes, and always bookmarking a few. I was looking forward to 'smashed is the new mashed' becoming my new motto in life (and it took me an embarrassing amount of time to get the 'smashing pumpkins' reference), but I wasn't able to make this recipe work for me. They did not crisp up for me. The edges with the peels burned, while the centers remained completely mushy. I'm thinking maybe some varieties of sweet potatoes get more waterlogged than others? I even brushed them with the duck fat every time I turned them. Oh well.. they got eaten! I'm looking forward to trying your hasselback sweet potato recipe!
Marwin Brown
Tuesday 5th of March 2024
Hi Tea, thanks for the feedback and the compliments. I need to update this recipe since there can be some variability depending on thickness, oven temps, etc. Sorry I didn't work but thanks for trying it. If you make the hasselback recipe definitely make extra sauce and use it for other dishes. It's pretty tasty.