The Best Ways To Include Sweet Potato In Your Meals This Autumn
Sweet potato is one of my favourite ingredients all year round, but it does have a particularly autumnal feel, with its orange colouring matching the falling leaves outside. There are so many ways to incorporate it into both hot and cold dishes, you’ll be eating it every day of the week!
Add it to your salads
If you’re desperately trying to maintain that summer body you worked so hard for by sticking to salads, drop some sweet potato in there to add some colour and sweetness. Ease those carbs back into your diet and start enjoying food again! Sweet potato goes particularly well with spinach, kale and quinoa, check out this list of sweet potato salad recipes to try this autumn!
Add it to your fry ups
As we make the transition from healthy summer breakfasts such as fruit salads and yogurt granola bowls, to the familiar greasy Full English that makes its return in autumn as temperatures drop and appetites return, why not throw some sweet potato into the mix. Fried to match the nature of the meal of course, wouldn’t a small pile of crispy orange potatoes be an added treat to your Sunday brunch? Imagine the flavour combinations with the egg, bacon, mushrooms – it’s the breakfast of dreams…
Substitute your standard roast potatoes
Roast them! They’re great drizzled in olive oil on a roasted vegetable tray bake as a perfect early autumn BBQ accompaniment, or to jazz up your roast dinner and make a change from your typical roasties.
In a one pot
Everyone loves a one pot. They’re super easy and make a good meal for you and your partner to cook together. If you’re also a chorizo fan, I recommend saving this smoky chorizo one pot recipe for a drizzly autumn day.
Sweet potato fries
We tend to get very excited when we see these on a restaurant menu, the novelty not having quite worn off despite this innovation having appeared quite some time ago now. What we fail to realise is that we can easily make our own sweet potato fries at home! Simply cut your potato into chips shapes and preferably deep fat fry them (if you own a deep fat fryer), or alternatively smother them in oil and paprika or chilli powder and oven cook them.
Mash it!
Of all the ways to change up your mash potato (with cheese, parsnips, etc), using sweet potato is by far the best in my opinion. It’s a totally different flavour that engages all your senses far more than normal potatoes, standing out on your plate against blander colours.
Jacket potatoes
What’s better than jacket potatoes? Sweet jacket potatoes! Top with chickpeas, pancetta and cheese for a colourful, flavourful and textured dinner you’ll be dying to boast on Instagram or release your inner Mexican and cover in kidney beans, guacamole and jalapeños.
In curries!
If you’re carb counting or following a vegan diet, don’t panic – this one’s for you. Counting as two of your five a day and coming in at under 400 calories, this satay sweet potato curry isn’t one to be missed. Who wants chicken satay when you can have sweet potato satay? The bright orange is toned down by the yellowy satay sauce in this dish and broken up with fresh green spinach, not unlike an earthy autumn park.
In soup
If you feel like changing up the texture of your sweet potato, blend them into a soup! Pairing sweet potato with lentils makes for a tasty meal and a good home remedy for that autumn cold you’ve picked up. Try this easy vegetarian recipe to warm you up before you click the heating on this autumn!
