Crispy Baked Sweet Potato Fries Recipe - Kristine's Kitchen (2024)

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These baked sweet potato fries are the BEST! With a secret ingredient and a few simple tips, you’ll be making perfectly seasoned, crispy (healthy!) sweet potato fries at home.

It’s hard to beat a good sweet potato fry. The best sweet potato fries are crispy and perfectly seasoned. They combine sweet and savory flavors in the most irresistible way! Like our favorite Roasted Sweet Potatoes, roasting at high temperature brings out the flavor of the sweet potatoes in this easy sweet potato fries recipe. Looking for an air fryer recipe? Try these Air Fryer Sweet Potato Fries.

I’ve tested batch after batch of baked sweet potato fries to find the best way to make homemade sweet potato fries that are crispy and flavorful. These fries are one of my very favorite sweet potato recipes. I love regular Baked French Fries, but I find this sweet potato version to be even more flavorful. Sweet potatoes pack a lot of extra nutrition, too!

If you search for baked sweet potato fries recipes, you will find all sorts of methods that promise you the crispy, healthier fries that you crave. When I’m testing recipes to share with you, my goal is always to find the best balance between taste and convenience. I’m not willing to take extra steps in the kitchen unless those steps make a big difference in the final product.

In the case of this sweet potato fries recipe, the biggest question was whether or not soaking the fries in water before baking produced a noticeable difference in crispiness. The theory is that soaking the fries removes excess starch, giving you crispier baked fries. In my kitchen, a side by side taste test of soaked and unsoaked fries showed that soaking makes baked sweet potato fries slightly crispier. But the difference was so small, it wasn’t enough to justify the extra step and time involved. Originally, I included the soaking step in this recipe, but I’ve since updated the method to skip the soak.

You’re never going to get oven baked fries to be as crispy as if you were to fry them in oil, but with this recipe your fries will have noticeably crispy outsides and soft centers. I’ve made at least fifty batches of sweet potato fries in my lifetime, and these are truly the best!

Tips for the BEST Baked Sweet Potato Fries

• Cut thin, evenly sized fries: Thin fries will crisp up better than thick fries. Cut your fries into 1/4-inch thick matchsticks. Try to cut all of your fries approximately the same size to help them bake evenly. You don’t need to peel your sweet potatoes before cutting them. The peel adds extra fiber and other nutrients, and I find that leaving the skins on makes the fries crispier.
• Coat the fries with cornstarch: Cornstarch is the secret ingredient for crispy sweet potato fries! The cornstarch will absorb extra moisture from the sweet potatoes to help them get crispy as they bake. I’ve tested this recipe with and without the cornstarch and the cornstarch really does make a difference!
• Season your fries well: Not only do we want our fries to be crispy, we also want them to be seasoned well! You are going to love the seasoning on these sweet potato fries. It’s so simple and so good! The ingredients for my sweet potato seasoning blend are chili powder, paprika, garlic powder, and pepper and salt. Or, use this Cajun seasoning for extra spice.
• Use olive oil: Oil is needed to get a crisp exterior on your baked fries. I choose olive oil since it’s a healthier option. The oil also helps the seasonings to stick to the fries.
• Bake on parchment paper: Parchment paper will keep your fries from sticking to the baking pan. This saves you from the sad situation of stuck fries and also makes clean up easier.
• Don’t overcrowd the pan: This is crucial. You want to leave some room between each of your fries on the pan so that air can circulate around them. If the sweet potato pieces are too close or laying on top of each other, your fries will steam instead of roast and they’ll turn out soft. I find that one medium-large sweet potato’s worth of fries will fit on one baking sheet. If you’re using two sweet potatoes, use two baking sheets and rotate them halfway through the bake time.
• Bake at a high temperature: Cook your sweet potato fries at 425° F. A high temperature is essential for those crispy edges.
• Take the time to flip each fry: I know. You don’t really want to. But guess what? I timed myself and it took just two minutes to flip each fry over. Well worth it for evenly baked, crispy fries.
• Serve immediately: As the fries rest they will soften up, so these are best served hot out of the oven.

How to Make Sweet Potato Fries

First, preheat your oven with racks in the upper and lower third of the oven. This recipe makes two pans of sweet potato fries, enough to generously serve four people. You can halve the recipe to make just one pan of fries.

Next, cut the sweet potatoes into fries. To do this, first slice the sweet potatoes into 1/4-inch thick flat slices and then cut each potato slice into fries. Place the sweet potato fries in a large bowl, drizzle them with olive oil, and toss to coat.

Sprinkle the cornstarch and seasonings over the sweet potatoes. Use your hands to rub the cornstarch and seasonings into the sweet potatoes, until the seasonings are evenly distributed and you no longer see the cornstarch on the fries.

Arrange the fries in a single layer on two parchment paper lined baking sheets. Spread the sweet potato fries out so that there is a little space between each one.

Bake the fries in the oven for 15 minutes, then flip the fries and rotate the pans top to bottom on the oven racks. Bake for 10-20 more minutes, until the fries are crispy and brown on the edges. Serve immediately and enjoy!

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posted by Kristine Rosenblatt on Jan 19, 2023

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