If you love sweet potatoes and want to prepare them quickly when making a meal, prepping your sweet potatoes for the freezer is a great way to have them on hand and ready at a moment's notice. Here are a couple of tips to keep in mind when freezing your sweet potatoes, how to store them, and some great recipes to use once they're thawed.
Tip #1: Cook Before You Freeze
Although it's true that you can freeze an uncooked sweet potato, it can cause undesired outcomes. Because sweet potatoes have a lot of water in them, if you freeze them before cooking them first, it can cause your potatoes to develop freezer burn. This, in turn, can cause an unpleasant texture. So take a little time to cook your sweet potatoes before you freeze them.
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Tip #2: Blanching
If you don't have time to make the sweet potatoes how you like them before needing to freeze them, then blanching your potatoes will make sure they don't get freezer burn. To blanch your potatoes, boil a pot of water and cook the potatoes for three to five minutes. You want the potatoes to be tender but still firm. You can check the doneness of the potato with a fork. Remove the potatoes and then place them in an ice water bath. Doing this will make sure that the potatoes stop cooking when they're removed from the pot.
Tip #3: Storing Baked Sweet Potatoes
If you made baked sweet potatoes for dinner but want to freeze the leftovers, here's how to store them properly. Once the potatoes have cooled down to room temperature, wrap them up in aluminum foil and place them in a freezer bag. These potatoes will be good for use in the freezer for about six months.
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Tip #4: Storing Boiled Sweet Potatoes
If you want to store your leftover boiled sweet potatoes in the freezer, you can place them in a freezer bag. The most important thing to do is to make sure that you squeeze any excess air out of the ziplock bag. Then, you can store them in the freezer and save them to reheat at a later date for up to six months.
Tip #5: Storing Mashed Sweet Potatoes
If you are storing your mashed sweet potatoes, here's the best way to package them up. Once they've cooled down, place the mashed sweet potatoes into a freezer bag. The trick here is to flatten them out to take up as much space in the bag as possible. Then, remove any excess air and store it in the freezer for up to six months.
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Our Favorite Sweet Potatoe Recipes
Now that you have prepared sweet potatoes in the freezer, here are our favorite sweet potato recipes you can use when you're ready to thaw out your potatoes!
Sweet Potato Casserole
This sweet potato casserole recipe uses mashed sweet potatoes and is the perfect dish to bring as your Thanksgiving dinner contribution. It's made with brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon. If it's not being used as a side dish, it also makes for a great dessert.
Fruited Sweet Potatoes
This fruited sweet potato recipe is a healthier way to cook up your sweet potatoes. It has less sugar than a dish like sweet potato casserole but is still deliciously sweet. Along with the sweet potatoes, this recipe calls for crushed pineapple and golden raisins. It also contains bourbon, but you can use vanilla extract as a substitute if you prefer.
Sweet Potato Puff
This sweet potato puff recipe is essentially mashed sweet potatoes but made to be more airy and fluffy. It's a great side dish that can go well with poultry entrees. This recipe calls for ingredients like butter, eggs, brown sugar, ginger, lemon zest, and ricotta cheese.
Mini Sweet Potato Pies
These mini sweet potato pies will be the cutest dessert at the party. Adding in spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and allspice with the creaminess of sweet potato makes for a perfect pie. This recipe is excellent for using your frozen boiled or mashed sweet potatoes.
Ham And Sweet Potatoes
Both ham and sweet potatoes are staples that come around during the holidays, and these two work great together in a meal. You can use them together in a ham and sweet potato casserole or separately by baking a ham and having mashed or baked sweet potatoes as a side.
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