Sweet Potatoes: Delicious Nutrition Super Stars

If you’re looking for a way to add some delicious nutrition to your eating plan, have you thought about sweet potatoes?

Sweet potatoes are nutrition super stars, and here are a few reasons why:

• Good source of vitamins C, D, B-vitamins, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, thiamin, and zinc
• Loaded with vitamin A, which helps keep your eyes and your immune system healthy besides being good for your heart, kidneys, and reproductive system
• Help lower your risk of cancer
• Help control diabetes
• Lower LDL (bad) cholesterol

And even more reasons:

• Loaded with manganese, which helps promote bone and skin health and also promotes collagen production
• Offer a healthy dose of potassium—more than 1.5 times that of a banana!
• Natural anti-inflammatory
• Even though they have “sweet” in their name, sweet potatoes don’t cause sugar spikes
• Some of the starch in sweet potatoes is a resistant starch, which can help with weight loss
• High in fiber
• Good amount of protein for a vegetable
• Help maintain healthy blood pressure levels

Sweet potatoes are also so versatile when it comes to eating them!

Ways to Enjoy Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potato sticks: Our kids have loved these for years! They’re not grainy like you’d think a potato would be—they’re crunchy and tasty! Clean and skin the sweet potatoes, then cut them up as you’d like.

Baked sweet potatoes: I like to do mine in the microwave, and it’s super fast! Clean and then poke the sweet potato randomly with a fork, put it on a paper towel, and cook for 5 minutes. If more cooking time is needed, do 30 seconds at a time until done.

Instapot sweet potatoes: I just found this way of cooking sweet potatoes, and it’s a game changer. Skin the potatoes, cube them, put a cup of water in the bottom of the Instapot, add the trivet thing, add the cubed sweet potatoes, and cook manually for 3 minutes. Do the quick steam release, and you’re good to go!

Mashed sweet potatoes: Cook them in the Instapot like above, and then mash that sweet potato goodness and enjoy!

Roasted in the oven: Skin the sweet potatoes, then cube them into about the same size cubes. Toss lightly with olive oil and seasonings—my favorite is Montreal Steak Seasoning. Cook at 425 degrees for 30 minutes, flipping sweet potatoes every 10 minutes for even cooking.

These yummy nutritional powerhouses deserve to be a regular part of any nutrition plan. How do you enjoy your sweet potatoes?