How to Make Sweet Potato Fries

Hey , I'm John Connell .

Today on Preppy Kitchen , we're making delicious sweet potato fries .

So let's get started .

First off , we're gonna grab some sweet potatoes and I gotta tell you there is a big sweet potato fry controversy .

Basically , it's to soak or not to soak .

There's two trains of thoughts I thought in this video it would be fun to show both methods and see which one's better .

I'm gonna try and rope Brian in to see if he'll do a blind taste test .

We'll see .

Um you're gonna want either two big or three medium size sweet potatoes .

They seem pretty large to me .

So that'll be good .

Also a vegetable peeler .

Get a nice knife out too .

We are gonna use a little bit of olive oil and some seasonings , but those come later .

So basically everyone loves a nice crispy fry and sweet potato fries can be kind of soggy when you bake them .

So the most popular method is just to bake them up .

However , a lot of people are telling me that they get good results from soaking them in cold water overnight .

So I thought we could start this video today and come back tomorrow .

All I have to do is peel this potato , cut it and soak it .

Sweet potatoes are actually delicious and they're very nutritious as well .

I'm gonna chop this up .

Now .

You want that knife to be sharp because a dull knife is your enemy .

OK ?

We want quarter of an inch thick slices .

So 12 lots of surface area because later on , we're going to be dusting these in corn starch and then giving them some seasoning as well .

I like to cut my sweet potatoes in like a little bit of a conveyor belt one two and look at these beautiful little fries .

You have already having sweet potato fries is a great way to get your kids to have a little bit more beta carrot in their diet and introduce them to foods like sweet potatoes that maybe they're not like super friendly with .

It's interesting because uh kids go through a phase where they're really experimental will try anything and then they grow up and then they start expressing opinions .

So you have to reintroduce foods to them .

Our sweet potatoes are all cut up .

This looks beautiful , really easy .

You can use ice water or just cold water floppies in kinda wanna release some of the starch and just get them nice and crispy in theory .

Um Should I grab some ice for this ?

Make it really cold ?

Let's do it .

It's so cold .

Ok .

This is gonna go into the fridge overnight .

These guys have been soaking 24 hours .

The hope is that any excess starch will just be dispersed into the water and that you'll have crispier fries that don't stick together as much .

We'll find out the meantime , I'm gonna be peeling and chopping another one for our , our control .

These fries are just gonna go straight into our preparation .

No soaking .

I'll keep them separate though and we're gonna see if I can taste the difference or maybe if Brian can soto fries are great and the kids like them .

I will admit though , my favorite sweet potato preparation is like a sweet potato casserole , the brown sugar , the butter quarter inch thick slices in case you're wondering , I'm using a global knife .

These are my favorite because they're kind of indestructible .

So they have like a metal handle and I'm not getting paid to say this .

By the way , I've had some really nice knives that have gotten just trashed because someone put them in the dishwasher by accident .

It's ok .

We all make mistakes .

But this way , like even if you mishandle it , you can just sharpen it up again and we'll be fine .

Nice quarter inch thick fries .

I've noticed when I see these being photographed that they're all like perfect fries .

Like they literally just take the very central ones out and you never see some of the edge guys .

So these are totally fine .

Don't throw them away .

All right , clean this up and on to the next stage .

Head to that pantry .

Now we're gonna get some magic but these guys are wet and cold .

I don't like that .

So let's just pour the water out .

You give them one final rinse gonna grab a clean kitchen towel , just get that excess liquid off .

So we're gonna do this twice .

Once with our regular ones , once with the silk ones .

First off , we're gonna grab a good size tablespoon corn starch , gonna Sprinkle cornstarch over these guys .

You could also like plop them in a plastic bag and give them a good shake .

Just a nice little coating .

It'll help them crisp up .

I've been doing a lot of fried chicken tenders and stuff like that and corn starch is something you go through so quickly .

OK .

Here's the deal .

This hopped out over here .

These guys same deal .

Some people say this method is useful but I wonder if they're just copying over what happens with actual like regular potatoes because regular potatoes have more starch .

These guys don't have as much .

So I don't know how helpful it's actually gonna be in part because they've been like completely soaked with water .

So even though we padded them dry and I did a good job padding , it's just like they feel a bit wet .

To me .

These go on a separate baking sheet , you're gonna drizzle with olive oil .

I'm gonna use my favorite tool , which is an olive oil , mister .

This lets you mist olive oil on veggies .

It's also good when I air fry things .

So I use this for all my air fried chicken stuff .

It gives it a good spray .

I just wanna like mist the top and like , let's be real .

All the recipes were like one teaspoon of olive oil drizzled .

Like , are you kidding me ?

It doesn't galls me to no end because you have to give them like a little bit of oil all over the surface .

Not like one drizzle on one part that does nothing .

Nothing .

You can let me know in the comments if you've had like a recipe kind of like fail because you actually followed like this silly one little drop of oil rule .

One teaspoon drizzled over the surface .

Ok .

Wait is the oven on set that up into 400 needs to be nice and hot Mr fries .

Mr fries could be the name of a band .

Alrighty .

The last thing is I'm gonna use some fine sea salt and just Sprinkle it over my fries for seasoning , gonna Sprinkle some now and a little bit more later when I give them a toss , there are many seasonings you could use for your sweet potato fries .

So let me know in the comments like what your favorite is .

Some people like to have like a little bit of a kick for like from some chili , some of them like seasoned salt like with something extra added to it .

It's totally up to you .

I almost have to tell you these guys can't just be like higgledy , piggledy all over the baking sheet , spread them out .

And if you need to , you could even , you know , split them up into different baking sheets .

I think I might do that .

Now , we're gonna go into the oven 400 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes and then we're gonna take them out and do something else .

Ok .

After about nine minutes , I pull these out .

So we're just flipping them all over .

Just make sure they're still spaced out a little bit after you flip them over , pop them back into the oven for each 10 minutes until they're nice and crispy .

Repeat the other batch and we'll give them a taste .

Our sweet potato fries are out of the oven .

I've been munching on them , but I have two plates here .

They look the same , Brian .

Take one bite of each and tell me which one you like better .

That was a , this is b I mean , it taste , taste texture all the same like the first one a little bit better .

But I don't know .

I think it might have just had more salt on it .

Well , by a hair he liked the soaked ones .

They're actually almost exactly the same .

So I don't know if it makes any difference .

I will say like if you want to prep something the night ahead , go ahead and soak them if you want to bake them right ahead .

That works too .

That's gonna be perfect with a little bit of dipping sauce .

Mm Maybe a turkey burger .

I'll see you in the next video if you like this video , check out my side dish playlist .