Sweet potatoes, sometimes called yams, are on the top of our smart carb list. These fiber-rich, colorful fall jewels not only satisfy your sweet tooth, but provide more balanced blood sugar over plain old Russets or Yukon Golds. Loaded with immune-supportive vitamin A, sweet potatoes are an ideal staple for cold and flu months. Top with protein and healthy fat for a hearty breakfast or an awesome after-school snack.
Method
Choose larger, round sweet potatoes for most uniform shape.
Thinly slice a sweet potato lengthwise, ¼ – ½ inches thick.
Toast these slices a few times in your toaster, or use the highest/longest toast setting on your convection oven, until completely heated through and soft to the touch. (Careful, sweet potato toast will be hot!)
Terrific Toppings
Try these tasty combinations of proteins and healthy fats to take your toast to the next level.
- Cream cheese + chocolate chips
- Apple butter + pumpkin seeds + apple slices
- Cashew butter + banana +shredded coconut
- Coconut butter + a sprinkle of cinnamon
- Sunflower-seed butter + roasted apples
- Nutella + graham-cracker crumbles
- Grass-fed butter + marionberry jam
- Avocado + lemon zest + salt + pepper
- Almond butter + dried cherries
- Avocado + sliced hardboiled egg
- Dried apricots (minced) + thinly sliced ham + mustard
- Pasture butter + maple syrup + bacon crumbles
- Mashed banana + hemp seeds
What’s in a name?
Sweet potatoes are often incorrectly labeled as yams, but you’ve probably never eaten a true yam, which hails from Africa and Asia. Sweet potatoes come in many colors and varieties. The firm sweet potatoes with brown skin and pale flesh were the first on the market. When soft sweet potatoes with red skin and orange flesh became available, they were labeled as “yams” to differentiate the two. As the name implies, soft sweet potatoes become moist and soft after cooking while firm sweet potatoes retain their firmness after cooking. At New Seasons and other markets, the sweet potato varieties you are most likely to find are garnets and jewels (pictured above).
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