If you recently got an air fryer and you’re excited to try some recipes, these air fryer sweet potatoes are a great starting point.
Some Reasons To Love This
What you will love about cooking sweet potatoes in the air fryer is that there’s really no need to soak the potatoes. There’s no need to add cornstarch, and there’s even no need for a lot of oil. In fact, all you really need is about a teaspoon of oil per sweet potato.
These are healthy, crisp sweet potatoes that you’ll wanna make over and over again, so let’s get started because we’ve got some chopping to do.
Ingredients
- 2 medium sweet potatoes
- About 2 teaspoons oil (approximately 1 teaspoon per sweet potato)
- Garlic powder, to taste
- Paprika, to taste
- Salt, to taste
- Black pepper, to taste
EasyCooking4u Tip
When you go to buy sweet potatoes, try to select ones that are as wide as possible, rather than long. This helps create quite good shapes for the fritters, but it is optional.
How to Prepare Sweet Potatoes
Peel the Sweet Potatoes
First of all use a vegetable peeler and just peel the sweet potato all around.
Cut the Sweet Potatoes
Now, you wanna use a rea lly sharp knife as much as possible because it’s just gonna make it so much easier to cut the sweet potato. Cutting the sweet potatoes so finely is really all comes down to the knife. Now cut this in half.
What makes it easier also to cut a sweet potato is to turn it on the flat side down. Soon as you cut it in half, turn it on the flat side down like his.
If you wanted to make it extra pretty, you can cut off the ends and use ’em for another recipe; that way, they’re all pretty even in size.
Cut into Even Strips
Now, just go through and cut all the way down. Try to cut them as evenly as possible in their thickness. We’re aiming for about 1/4-inch thickness for each sweet potato. That’s gonna allow everything to just cook more evenly in the air fryer so you don’t get a batch that’s burnt while a few others are not cooked yet. as you’re cutting them, you can go ahead and drop them in a bowl.
Season the Sweet Potato Fries
Now add the spices to it. Now add some garlic powder, paprika, salt, and pepper. Now, like I described earlier, you don’t need a lot of oil when you’re cooking sweet potatoes in the air fryer. In fact, you probably just need about a teaspoon of oil for one sweet potato. It doesn’t look like much, but if you use your hands to mix everything together, you’ll see that a teaspoon of oil is just the perfect amount.
Preheat the Air Fryer
Now you have to preheat the air fryer while it’s not mandatory to preheat the air fryer, I highly recommend it because that means when you’re putting the sweet potatoes in the air fryer, it’s already hot and it’s already at the temperature that we want.
I recommend 380 degrees for about 12 minutes, making sure to shake the basket a couple of times.
If there is one piece that’s too thin; we probably don’t wanna go ahead and air fry this just because it’s not gonna crisp up too much. It’s probably gonna burn before the rest of ’em cook, so we can toss it.
How to Cook Sweet Potato Fries in the Air Fryer
Add the Sweet Potatoes
When the air fryer is preheated, then go ahead and add the potatoes right to the air fryer.
Leave Space Between the Fries
You wanna make sure to leave some space in between the fries, so you’re gonna have to do this in a couple of batches. That’s really important because if they’re too close together, you might create a steaming effect, and we don’t wanna create a steaming effect. We want a crisping effect.
So in order to create nice crisp sweet potatoes, you wanna make sure to keep a distance between each fry.
This can be tedious if you’re doing this with a lotta sweet potatoes and your air fryer is not very large, but it’s perfect for a couple of serving sizes.
Not overcrowding the air fryer is the best tip I can provide you to make sure that they come out nice and crisp.
Air Fry for 12 Minutes
I recommend 380 degrees for about 12 minutes, making sure to shake the basket a couple of times.
Check the Sweet Potato Fries
When time’s up, check up on the sweet potato fries. You would see how good they look. They would be nice and crisp.
They would not look like frying potatoes in oil, but they would be kinda crisp up on the outside, which comes out so good when you’re having it as a side dish.
Let the Fries Rest
Now to do is transfer them to a wire rack just for a couple of minutes before serving them because what’s gonna happen is air is gonna circulate around the wire rack and just gonna help them crisp up just a little bit more.
All right, now let these rest for a couple of minutes and here’s the second batch. You just gonna add everything to this plate.
Serving Suggestions
Serve the fries simply with ketchup, ranch, or a garnish of chopped cilantro or parsley for color.
Final Result
These air fryer sweet potato fries turn out crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and full of flavor while using minimal oil.
