How to Bake Perfect Sweet Potato Fries

How to Bake Perfect Sweet Potato Fries

 1. Cut all your fries into the same size so that they all cook at the same rate. Try to make sure you don’t make your fries too large as they will cook on the outside, but will still be soft in the center. We’ve found that fries that are roughly 1/4″ thick work the best.

2. Soak your fries in cold water for around 45 minutes to an hour for maximum crispiness! This draws  out the excess starch from the sweet potatoes, helping them to cook all the way through better so they are crispy on the outside, and soft on the inside without burning.

3. Coat your fries in oil, but not too much or they will be very soft when they come out of the oven. You should need no more than 1-2tsp of olive, or coconut oil, to coat an entire sweet potato. Throw your oil and sweet potato fries into a large bowl, and use your hands to mix them together to distribute the oil evenly. If you’re adding seasoning, do it now as the oil will help the spices stick to the sweet potato.

4. Line a baking tray with grease-proof paper to stop your sweet potatoes sticking. You will need to turn them halfway through cooking to ensure that both sides are evenly cooked.

5. Be wary of adding salt, or seasonings with added salt as this draws moisture from the fries and creates more steam in the oven. And more steam = squishy chips! If you want to add salt, do so after the fries are cooked.

6. We suggest warming your baking tray in the oven before baking to help them chips crisp up perfectly on both sides.

Cooking Your Sweet Potato Fries

1. Cook your fries on a high heat (roughly 190c-210c for 30-40 minutes depending on your oven) to allow as much moisture as possible to evaporate from the fries to ensure they stay nice and crispy.
2. It is best to cook sweet potato fries in the higher shelves of your oven, slightly further away from the heat source so that the sugars do not caramelise too quickly and end up burning the chips. If you are cooking your fries on separate trays, make sure you swap the trays mid-way through cooking so all the chips bake evenly.
3. The most important tip to follow when baking sweet potato fries is not to cook too many at once, and to spread them out evenly on a baking tray, leaving enough room so that they don’t touch. This allows the moisture to escape from the fries to evaporate quickly in the oven, leading to crispier fries. If you put too many sweet potatoes in the oven at any one time, there will be too much steam to allow them to bake, and they will steam instead.
4. Once your fries have cooked, turn the oven off and leave them in the oven for an extra 10 minutes so that they have extra time to crisp up without burning.