Cooking with Sweet Potatoes (and Please Don't Call Them Yams!)

For a few years now, I've been a fan of sweet potatoes. In fact, nearly two years ago I made the bold statement that Sweet Potatoes are the New Potatoes, in a BlogHer post outlining why sweet potatoes are a better choice than white fleshed potatoes. Since that time, my love for sweet potatoes has stayed strong, and in fact I keep coming across more new ways to use them. If your exposure to sweet potatoes has mostly been the brown-sugar and marshmallow type some people cook for Thanksgiving, maybe it's time for you to expand your sweet potato horizons.

First though, let's get one thing out of the way. Unless you live in Asia or Africa, those orange potato-like things you may call yams are not yams, they're sweet potatoes. In fact, yams aren't even found in the United States. Sweet potatoes come in a different colors, and some varieties are moister than others, but all the vegetables sold as yams in the United States are actually sweet potatoes.

Photo of Sweet Potatoes from Culinary Types

I once tried to tell the produce guy at the store that the orange-skinned potatoes the store was calling "Sweet Yams" were actually sweet potatoes. He kept pointing me to the white-skinned sweet potatoes and telling me, "No, these are sweet potatoes and those are yams." It quickly became apparent I was not going to convince him with my new-found sweet potato knowledge, and if your family has been eating "yams" for Thanksgiving for many years, you may decide the name is not worth fighting about. What you probably won't get any arguments about is how great sweet potatoes taste and what a wide variety of ways there are to cook them. Here are some new sweet potato ideas you may not have thought of. One of these might even possibly make it on to your Thanksgiving table, but it does, please don't call them yams!

Photo of Crunchy Sweet Potatoes
from Kayotic Kitchen

Savory or Barely-Sweet Ideas with Sweet Potatoes:
From Kayotic Kitchen ~ Crunchy Sweet Potatoes (pictured above )
From Dlyn ~ Crash Hot Sweet Potatoes
From Food Blogga ~ Honey Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Pomegranate Glaze
From Cookin' Canuck ~ Grilled Sweet Potatoes with Pancetta and Sage
From My Own Sweet Thyme ~ Sweet Potatoes with Bacon and Pecans

Photo of Savory Sweet Potato Bread
from The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Sweet Potatoes in Bread or Pasta
From The Barefoot Kitchen Witch ~ Savory Sweet Potato Bread (pictured above)
From Culinary Types ~ Sweet Potato Walnut Bread
From Happy Herbivote ~ Maple Kissed Sweet Potato Muffins
From Vanilla Garlic ~ Sweet Potato Gnocchi
From Not Eating Out in New York ~ Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Arugula and Hazelnuts

Photo of Baked Sweet Potato Latkes
from Erin Cooks

Thinking Outside the Box Sweet Potato Dishes
From Erin Cooks ~ Baked Sweet Potato Latkes (pictured above)
From Fat Free Vegan Kitchen ~ Sweet Potato Falafel with Yogurt Tahini Sauce
From Half Baked ~ Sweet Potato Chips
From A Life Less Sweet ~ Sweet Potato Cookies
From Karina's Kitchen ~ Sweet Potato and Black Bean Enchiladas

Kalyn Denny also blogs at Kalyn's Kitchen, where she's focused on creating low-glycemic recipes using fresh ingredients. Kalyn has possibly spoken too soon, but she's already predicted that Soy-Glazed Sweet Potatoes with Sesame Seeds may be her favorite new Thanksgiving Recipe of 2009.