The Best Cubed Air Fryer Sweet Potatoes

Say goodbye to dry or shriveled sweet batches of air fryer sweet potatoes! This recipe offers a method of par-cooking your sweet potatoes before cutting them into cubes and air frying them. The resulting sweet potatoes are perfectly tender and moist, yet crispy and gently browning at the edges.

For a long time, I said that I owned an air fryer for two purposes: reheating pizza and making sweet potatoes.

This was a joke, and I’ve expanded my air fryer repertoire considerably since then. But air fryer sweet potatoes are still a mainstay in my home. (As is leftover pizza.)

I serve my air fryer sweet potato cubes with tofu scramble for breakfast. I pile them onto vegan bowls. They’re an easy side dish at dinnertime. And I like adding them to tacos, too—especially my sweet potato tacos with black bean spread.

Making sweet potato cubes in the air fryer might sound like a self-explanatory process. For me, however, it was not.

It took me a while to get my air fryer sweet potatoes just right. This post is about the simple par-cooking step that gave me great results.

Air fryer trial and error

In the past, I roasted sweet potato in the air fryer similarly to how I roasted it in the oven. I cubed raw sweet potatoes, seasoned them with oil, salt, and pepper, then let the air fryer go to work.

Sometimes, this worked out just fine. But a lot of the time I ended up with sweet potato cubes that were dry and shriveled. Sometimes, they had a pale, starchy appearance, even if their edges were heavily browned.

The texture of these potatoes was, for lack of a better description, excessively air fried.

Part of what I love about sweet potatoes is their rich, sweet flesh and satisfying texture. These cubes were too airy; it was as if they’d lost their substance.

I kept coating the potatoes in more oil in an effort to combat this effect. I only ended up with sweet potatoes that were both dry and greasy—not a great combo.

I could have just given up on making sweet potatoes in my air fryer, but I didn’t want to. I eat a lot of sweet potatoes and keep my air fryer on the countertop often; I wanted to make this recipe work!

I kept tinkering with time and temperature, with no luck.

Finally, I added a step that turns out perfectly cooked sweet potato cubes each and every time: par-cooking.

Par-cooked potatoes = perfect results

Par-cooking is any process in which you cook a food incompletely before finishing cooking in another way, or at another time.

You can par-boil noodles before making lasagna or blanch vegetables before adding them to a casserole. Sometimes it’s helpful to simmer fruit before baking it in a pie shell.

Here, you’ll prick your raw sweet potatoes and microwave them for about four or five minutes before you cube and air fry them.

Technically, you could use the air fryer itself for the par-cooking step, but the microwave does the job faster.

I first started using the microwave to par-cook sweet potatoes when I was writing The Vegan Week. That book is all about meal prep, which means that it’s also about tight schedules and efficiency.

I wanted to present a means of oven-baking sweet potatoes with deep flavor and tenderness. Yet “low and slow” isn’t always an option for the hurried home cook.

Par-cooking sweet potatoes in the microwave before transferring them to the oven for baking does the trick: tender, candy-like potatoes in less time.

Similarly, the microwave helps to give the sweet potatoes a head start in this recipe. It’s also a cooking method that preserves their moisture. Once microwaved, the sweet potatoes will become crispy in the air fryer without getting dry.

I know it may seem a little nuts to cook a vegetable in two ways, especially if convenience is a priority. But five minutes of microwaving goes by quickly, and it ensures great sweet taters every time.

Adapting the recipe to your air fryer

This method works for my air fryer and my oven, so it ought to be adapted successfully for most types of air fryers.

That said, air fryers can differ in their heat, efficiency, and timing, so you may need to experiment a little with the method.

I have a Philips air fryer that’s now discontinued (this one is similar), but it’s the type with a basket, rather than one that looks like a toaster oven. It has about a 4L capacity, and this recipe is developed accordingly.

You can half or double the recipe if you’re working with a different sized machine.

How to make perfect cubed air fryer sweet potatoes—each and every time

Step 1: Pick your sweet potato

I usually make this recipe with one large sweet potato. It’s fine to prepare it with two smaller potatoes, but if you do that, you may need to adjust microwave time (four minutes for a single, smaller potato, or about seven minutes for two smaller potatoes at once).

Step 2: Par-cook in the microwave

Prick the sweet potato all over with a fork. Place it on a microwave-safe plate and microwave the potato for 5 minutes.

At this point, the potato will be tender, but it won’t be fully cooked. If you’re working with a medium or small potato, rather than a large one, four minutes of microwaving will do the trick.

No microwave? No problem. I include instructions for par-cooking in the air fryer itself in the recipe card.

Step 3: Cube the potato

Allow the potato to cool for five minutes, then cut it into 1-inch / 2.5cm cubes. Careful as you do this—it’ll be hot!

Step 4: Season the potatoes

I often use avocado oil spray when I’m making anything in my air fryer; it’s convenient and easy. So, you can transfer the cubes to your air fryer basket, give them a spray of oil, then season them with salt and pepper.

Alternatively, you can toss them with a small amount of regular avocado oil in a bowl, season them with salt and pepper, and transfer them to the air fryer basket.

Step 5: Air fry

Air fry the potatoes at 400°F / 200°C for 8-10 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender and browning along the edges.

Stop once halfway through air frying to shake the basket well; this helps the potatoes to crisp up evenly.

Step 6: Serve

You can serve the sweet potatoes just the way they are, or you can sprinkle them with toasted chopped nuts or seeds.

You can also drizzle the potatoes with some kind of dressing. I’m really partial to my cashew queso, but vegan honey mustard (I sweeten mine with dates), beet ketchup, and yum sauce are nice ideas, too.

Meal prep & storage

A tender batch of cooked sweet potatoes is one of my favorite things to meal prep over the weekend. This recipe finds its way into my own meal planning all the time.

The potatoes can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to five days.

If you’re like me, and your first question about any food or recipe is “can I freeze this?” the answer is yes! You can do so for up to eight weeks.

Defrost the potatoes in the fridge overnight. Enjoy them cold, in salads or bowls, or reheat them in the air fryer at 350° for about five minutes.

Print

The Best Cubed Air Fryer Sweet Potatoes

Say goodbye to dry or shriveled sweet batches of air fryer sweet potatoes! This recipe offers a method of par-cooking your sweet potatoes in the microwave before cutting them into cubes and air frying them. The resulting sweet potatoes are perfectly tender and moist, yet crispy and gently browning at the edges.

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Diet Gluten Free, Low Lactose, Vegan, Vegetarian

Keyword air fryer, side dish, sweet potatoes, vegan basics

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 20 minutes minutes

Servings 2 servings

Author Gena Hamshaw

Equipment

• air fryer

Ingredients

• 1 large sweet potato, scrubbed and cleaned
• 2 teaspoons avocado oil (or avocado oil spray)
• Salt
• Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

• Prick the sweet potato all over with a fork. Place it on a microwave-safe plate and microwave* the potato for 5 minutes (4 minutes for a medium or small potato). The potato will be tender, yet not fully cooked. Allow the potato to cool for five minutes, then cut it into 1-inch / 2.5cm cubes. 
• In a mixing bowl, toss the cubes with the avocado oil and then transfer them to your air fryer basket. Alternatively, you can transfer them to the basket and spray them with avocado oil spray. Season the potatoes with salt and freshly ground black pepper. 
• Air fry the potatoes at 400°F / 200°C for 8-10 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender and browning along the edges, stopping once halfway through air frying to shake the basket well (this helps the potatoes to brown and cook evenly). Enjoy. 

Video

Notes

If you don’t have a microwave, you can par-cook the sweet potato whole in the air fryer. Prick the potato and air fry it at 400°F / 200°C for 15 minutes, flipping it over once halfway through the cooking time. Then, cube it and proceed with steps 2 and 3, above.

The sweet potatoes can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to five days or frozen for up to eight weeks. To reheat, air fry the potatoes at 350°F / 175°C for 5 minutes.

It’s funny to devote as much trial and error as I have to a simple side dish. But we love what we love, and I love sweet potatoes.

I’ll tell you all about my go-to air fryer mushrooms soon!

For now, I hope you find this method useful.

xo

The post The Best Cubed Air Fryer Sweet Potatoes appeared first on The Full Helping.