Healthy Sweet Potato and Apple Recipe - light and delicious
Sweet potatoes cooked with Apples keep you from feeling overly full!
I love this recipe because it is a healthy sweet potato recipe that is also delicious and - well - sweet! But the good news is that there is NO SUGAR added. How does that happen? You can use the sweetness and fragrance of apples to make the recipe taste divinely sweet without adding any further sugar other than what is in the apples themselves.
Are you wishing you could come up with something besides heavy and hard to digest candied yams that would fulfill your desires for a sweet sweet potato dish for fall evenings or Thanksgiving?
This is it. And if you add brown sugar or marshmallows to the top, that is your decision! But if you want a healthier recipe, this is a recipe that will satisfy.
All photos taken by Elyn MacInnis unless otherwise noted.
Sweet potatoes are so delicious, but they have a lot of fiber and can sit in your stomach like a lead balloon. They are sweet, but sometimes not sweet enough to be enticing. What to do?
When you mix fragrant and delicious fall apples, especially Golden Delicious, Courtland, or Fiji, with glorious bites of deep orange sweet potatoes, you have a match made in heaven.
Want a sweet taste but are afraid of all that caramel sauce or pile of marshmallows? Try this recipe. If you add the optional ingredient of cinnamon to the mix, you will also be controlling your blood sugar. Another great aspect of this recipe is that you can cook it on top of the stove and don't have to use the oven.
Ingredients
- 3 medium sized sweet potatoes -- preferably the Jewel Variety
- 4 -5 apples -- preferably fragrant ones -- like Golden Delicious - Fuji - Courtland
- 2 -4 tablespoons butter
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- A dash of salt
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- Pepper if you like the idea
Instructions
- My favorite way to do this recipe is to bake the sweet potatoes in the oven until they are ALMOST done. Not quite. They should need a little more cooking. That brings out all the flavor. Slice them into rounds or small chunks and set aside.
- Cut up enough apples to have as many pieces of apple as you have of sweet potatoes. I like to cut them into chunks. You don't need to slice them thinly or they turn into applesauce.
- Put the apples in the skillet with 2 tablespoons of butter and cook them carefully until they have caramelized a little at the edges. Make sure you don't burn them.
- Add in the sweet potato chunks, the dash of salt, pepper if you like that idea, and add another 2 tablespoons of butter. You might need more if it sticks. Cook until the whole pan is thoroughly hot, the sweet potatoes have finished cooking, and the potatoes and apples have mixed their juices.
- If you like spice, add them at the end. Adding cinnamon will help manage your blood sugar, so it is always a good idea if you like the flavor.
Cook them a little longer to bring out the caramel flavor
Yam and sweet potato duel - Duke it out! Which one is right??
Some people insist on calling all orange potatoes "sweet potatoes." Some say they only like yams, not sweet potatoes. Is there a difference between a yam and a sweet potato? How about you? What do you think?
Are yams and sweet potatoes the same?
Peelers
Sometimes I am in a hurry and boil my sweet potatoes. But first I peel them, and if you want to do that, you need a really good peeler. Wouldn't you like a new one?
Here they are, stars of the show!
The true YAM is on the LEFT
It's buddy the SWEET POTATO is on the RIGHT
If you are in the US, any true yam you find in the market probably comes from the Caribbean. If you are in Europe, it is likely it comes from Africa.
But mostly all the sweet potatoes/yams that are in the stores in the US, no matter what color they are, are actually differing varieties of sweet potatoes. which come in varying colors: White, yellow, pale orange, deep orange, and purple. There are soft ones and firmer ones. The softer ones are often called "yams" and the firmer ones called "sweet potatoes", especially in the South. Both are actually "sweet potatoes."
The photo above is from the website of the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission. Click on the photo for the link.
Chinese sweet potato vendor's cart - They made it themselves...
Can you see that there is a bike in the front? They can ride the cart home when they are done selling their sweet potatoes. In the fall they also sell roasted corn. Each of the little doors is a cubby for a few sweet potatoes to keep warm in.
I buy my sweet potatoes from the vendor, take them home hot in my pocket, and add apples for dinner. Yum!
Hot tip from my sweet potato seller friends in China
If you want an especially sweet, delicious and fragrant sweet potato, wait until after the first frost. It makes a difference!
Books about Sweet Potatoes
In Japan, as in China, there are sweet potato vendors on street corners during frosty weather selling roasted sweet potatoes. They are incredible - fragrant, sweet, with a caramelized drip oozing out the tips. Nothing much more tasty to eat than these beauties on a cold winter night! The first book on this list is a book about a sweet potato seller in Japan. You might like this one. The others are good too - have a look!
