Baked Sweet Potato Recipe and Nutrition Facts

The sweet potato is becoming very popular in North America. In the not-so-distant past it was usually reserved for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but people are now finding ways to use this versatile vegetable every day. Sweet potatoes can be used for main courses as casseroles, they can be used as a side dish or they can even be used in dessert such as cake.

I recently started eating sweet potatoes because I was getting tired of having regular potatoes almost every day. While I love regular potatoes, I decided I needed more variety in my diet. I browsed the Internet looking for recipes. I decided to start simply with just baking a sweet potato and found a few that suggested using brown sugar and cinnamon on top. Everyone has their own tastes and I slightly adapted the recipes I found to suit my own preferences.

To most of the world, yams and sweet potatoes are completely different vegetables; they even grow differently. However, some sweet potatoes are mistakenly called yams in North America. These are actually related to the sweet potato and are not true yams. So basically, what many of us know as yam fries are actually sweet potato fries. Are you confused yet?

For the purpose of this article I will be calling them by their correct name, sweet potatoes.

While sweet potatoes are believed to have originated in Central or South America, the majority are now grown in China.

However, most of the sweet potatoes used in the United States are grown here; North Carolina grows almost 40% of the United States crop.

I have made this recipe several times and it always turns out great. Baked sweet potatoes make a great side dish and go with any type of food.

Warm up the oven to 400F. Choose a reasonable sized sweet potato, wash it thoroughly and dry completely with a towel. Pierce the sweet potato with a fork in a couple of places to let the juices out while cooking.

When the oven is hot enough place the sweet potato in the oven. Make sure you put it on a cookie sheet or a piece of aluminum foil since the sweet potato will leak. You don't want to have to clean your oven after making this tasty treat.

Meanwhile, mix the cinnamon and brown sugar together in a small bowl; make sure you mix it well as you don't want to have spots on the cooked sweet potato that are too sweet or too cinnamony. The brown sugar I use is a combination of brown sugar and Splenda; it is less fattening and just as tasty.

After an hour, check to see if the sweet potato is ready; if a fork goes through it easily it is ready.

Remove the sweet potato from the oven and slice it in half vertically. Top it with the butter or margarine; add salt if you desire but it's not really necessary.

Sprinkle the cinnamon and brown sugar on top of the sweet potato. Eat and enjoy!

The last time I made this baked sweet potato recipe I made it my meal. It is quite filling and satisfies several daily nutritional needs.