We love the addictive dinner staple that is sweet potato fries – if for no other reason than for adding a little orange to our otherwise green dominated plate. Did you know that it’s best to consume green and orange veggies together for optimal liver health? 

So – you’re as hooked on sweet potato fries as we are? It could be that you’re skipping the essential step that only hard-core foodies may have mastered. Author Mary-Frances Heck calls the secret step “the hard way” to make sweet potato fries in her cookbook devoted to the most loved root veggie of the 21st century. Here’s what you need to know…

Making really good sweet potato fries is one of the great recipe challenges of the twenty-first century because whether roasted or deep fried, a few minutes later they’re limp. Sweet potatoes are considered healthier than white potatoes because they contain less simple starch (which is metabolized as sugar) — and this is the root of why sweet potato fries don’t crisp on the outside while staying fluffy on the inside.

French fried white potatoes are first cooked at a low temperature. This cooks the potato and gels the outer layer of starch on its surface. Then they are cooked again at a higher temperature to crisp the gelled starch. The result is a crisp, dry outside encasing moist potato inside. Processed food companies, chefs and even NASA conducted test after test to approximate this gelled starch coating for sweet potatoes. Experimental steps include washing, drying, blanching, alkalinizing, dehydrating, freezing, dredging and battering the poor spuds before their eventual trip(s) through hot oil. Thus the following two recipes evolved after testing a dozen methods and studying the results.

The Easy Way Making sweet potato fries The Easy Way distills the oven-fry method to its most essential steps: cutting uniformly so they cook evenly, oiling and seasoning aggressively, then roasting in a hot oven until crisp.

The Hard Way Sweet potato fries made The Hard Way are deep fried and require a few steps that will dirty some dishes, but are well worth it. First, a dusting of baking soda and cornstarch clings to the fries and begins to rough up and gelatinize the surface starch. Freezing them buys the outside of the fries more time to crisp in the oil before the inside becomes soft. Dipping the frozen fries in a slurry adds a layer of dissolved starch that begins to gel as soon as it hits the oil. These essential steps yield sweet potatoes worthy of the term fry.

on seasonings While both recipes only call for salt, try adding a teaspoon or two of any of your favorite seasonings. Got some herbes de Provence? Toss ’em in there. Spanish paprika? Definitely. Za’atar, curry powder, Mrs. Dash, Old Bay or Tony Chachere’s? Yes, please.