If you want to eat a rainbow, these sweet potatoes have just the color purple you’re looking for. Using an easy baking method and coconut milk instead of regular dairy, you’ll get a creamy, substantial, and striking side dish to brighten up any plate.
Since purple sweet potatoes are available year round, you can have this side dish with anything you would eat with regular potatoes or sweet potatoes.
Try them with Hawaiian salmon and sesame broccoli for a Hawaiian inspired meal. Or try a rainbow themed Thanksgiving meal with baked duck legs and dairy free green bean casserole.
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Why You’ll Like this Recipe
- It bakes in the oven while you cook the rest of the meal.
- You won’t miss the milk or heavy cream typical of a regular mashed potato or sweet potato.
- The royal purple color instead of yams really does surprise your regular weeknight meal.
What are Purple Sweet Potatoes?
They are root vegetables, similar to orange sweet potatoes, that come in two main varieties:
- Okinawan – Light brown/white skinned and can fit in the palm of a large hand. Grown in Hawaii and exported. Okinawa is an island in Japan and a designated blue zone where people live historically longer lives than other populations in part due to these purple potatoes.
- Stokes – Purple skinned and the shape of longish, regular orange sweet potatoes
Not to be confused with Ube
Ube is a Filipino yam that grows on a vine above ground and has a dark brown, rough skin.
Purple sweet potatoes may be called ube, but they are technically different.
What do they taste like?
If you close your eyes, it probably tastes like an orange sweet potato. However, I find them to be a little bit stringier and starchier.
Where can you buy purple sweet potatoes?
An Asian market, specifically one that stocks Chinese, Japanese, or Filipino products, will have all variations of purple colored potatoes including ube, Okinanwan, and Stokes.
The Stokes varietal is appearing at more and more big box stores including Whole Foods Market.
Alternately, it looks like Amazon conveniently sells them too.
How sweet are they?
Oh, that all depends. I’ve found the tiny, white skinned Okinawan varietal to be much, much sweeter than the large dark skinned Stokes varietal.
You can add more or less sweetness to taste with your choice of sweetener.
How long do you bake it for?
Some publications such as Southern Living and Parade say that you need to bake it for 90-120 minutes at 350 degrees F for premium moistness.
I cooked mine at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes until tender and still found them moist. They are a little starchier than orange yams anyway, so I didn’t expect them to be terribly moist.
Ingredients
- Purple sweet potatoes – Use the version you can find such as Stokes or Okinawan. They cook and taste similar to regular orange or yellow sweet potatoes but are richer in anthocyanins – a nutrient with antioxidant properties. They generally have a long elongated shape similar to a yam. Purple sweet potaotoes should not be confused with the regular Peruvian purple potato that is not sweet at all.
- Coconut milk – Regular coconut milk or light coconut milk will work. The potatoes are starchy, so you need some kind of fatty liquid to help smooth out the flesh.
- Salt (optional) – Not necessary, but a little bit of salt helps bring out the flavor of the potatoes.
- Sweetener (optional) – Use maple syrup, agave, honey, or other sweetener of your choice if needed. Not all purple sweet potatoes are actually sweet (even though they’re called sweet).
See recipe card for quantities.
Instructions for Baked Purple Potato Mash
Prick with a fork. Once it heats up, that steam needs to escape. Prick a few holes on all sides of the potatoes with a fork.
Scoop flesh. Remove potatoes from the oven, cut in half, and scoop out all that purple goodness. If too hot, let sit a bit until cool enough to handle.
Mix in the goodies. I mixed in butter for creaminess and honey for additional sweetness. You could substitute with vegan butter or coconut milk and the sweetener of your choice (agave, maple syrup, coconut sugar, etc.) Also, a pinch of salt brings out the flavor of all that purple
Serve. Ideally, this is served hot as a Barney inspired bed of sorts for your protein of the day. Alternately, I’ve seen this cooled, refrigerated and sprinkled onto salad as a healthy, colorful topping.
Hint: In the oven, purple potatoes are very forgiving. Any extra 5, 10 or even 15 minutes of baking won’t hurt in case you forget to check on them. Boiling them in water, on the other hand, leaves your potatoes susceptible to getting water logged with even just a few minutes of overcooking.
Substitutions
- Sweet Potatoes – This of course work with regular orange or yellow sweet potatoes.
- Russet Potatoes – This recipe also works with regular russet potatoes. In fact, some chefs prefer roasting russets with rock salt instead of boiling them because you get a dried, fluffier interior.
- Milk of your choice – Don’t have coconut milk? Use another plant based milk or the milk of your choice.
Variations
- Peel and Boil – Instead of roasting the potatoes, you could also boil chunks of peeled purple potatoes in water until tender. Drain, mash, and season.
- Split in half (Baked Potato style) – Don’t want to scoop the flesh out of the potatoes? Just split them in half and serve with a dollop of butter or make a little well for some coconut milk for each diner to deal with themselves. This is a preferable method if you can only find purple sweet potatoes that are really small.
- Serve cold as a salad topping – If you don’t add any coconut milk, you can dollop cold chunks of the mashed potato on top of salads. (I’ve seen it served that way in San Francisco!)
Variation: Boiled Purple Potato Mash
Peel and cut the potatoes into even sized two inch chunks.
Put the potatoes into a pot and cover with with about an inch of water. Bring to a boil over medium high heat.
Once the water has come to a boil, lower the heat to medium and simmer at a low boil until the potatoes are cooked. This should take 7-10 minutes depending on how large the chunks are.
Drain the potatoes once the are easily pierced with a fork and cooked through.
Add your choice of seasoning ingredients: butter/coconut milk, coconut sugar, salt.
Mash with a fork or potato masher.
Hint: It’s an old chef’s trick to return boiled potatoes to the warm saucepan they were boiling in. That helps dry them out, so you get less water in the final mash.
Equipment
No special equipment is required except for a baking sheet or other oven safe vessel. Parchment paper or silicon liners also help make for easy clean up.
To mash the potatoes, you will need a potato masher or fork works too.
Storage
Store up to 3 days in the fridge. You can also freeze this for up to a month.
Menu Ideas
Top tips
- 1 1/2 lbs of purple potatoes makes roughly 3 cups of purple potato mash. Each serving is about 3/4 cup. This recipe serves 4 as a small side dish or 2 if you want a larger potions.
- Can’t be bothered to mash? Just split the potatoes in half after cooking and let everyone scoop and mix in their own toppings.
- Don’t like skin? Peel, chop, and and boil the potatoes in water until cooked through (about 7-10 minutes for 2″ sized chunks.) Proceed with mixing in the coconut milk/butter/sugar as desired. Note this method adds more water to your potato, resulting in a looser consistency.
FAQ
350 degrees F is hot enough to cook the potatoes evenly and thoroughly with less change of overcooking or burning.
Depending on the size your potatoes, this will take anywhere from 40-60 minutes. They should be easily pierceable with a fork or knife with little to no resistance.
According to the USDA’s Food Data Central site citing a nutrition label from Wegman’s, 100g of purple sweet potatoes contains 85 calories, 1.54g of protein, 20g of carbohydrates, 3.1g of fiber, 30mg of calcium, 0.62mg of iron, 337mg of potassium, and 54mg of sodium. (The nutrition label was sourced from Wegman’s organic purple sweet potato product. Wegman’s is a chain of grocery stores on the east coast of the US.)
Related plant based dishes:
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:
Pairing
These are my favorite dishes to serve with :
Baked Purple Sweet Potato Mash
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lb purple sweet potatoes
- 2 Tb coconut milk, add more as needed or butter or vegan butter
Optional Ingredients
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 Tb maple syrup or coconut sugar or honey, agave, or other sweetener
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Wash and prick the sweet potatoes with the tines of a fork a few times on all sides.
- Place on a baking sheet, and put in the oven. Roast until the potatoes are ompletely soft and easily pierced with a fork or paring knife with no resistance. This should take around 40-50 minutes.
- Cut sweet potatoes in half, and scoop out flesh with a large spoon. Let cool if too hot to handle.
- Mix in the coconut milk and any optional ingredients and serve.
Notes
- 1 1/2 lbs of purple potatoes makes roughly 3 cups of purple potato mash. Each serving is about 3/4 cup. This recipe serves 4 as a small side dish or 2 if you want a larger potions.
- Can’t be bothered to mash? Just split the potatoes in half after cooking and let everyone scoop and mix in their own toppings.
- Don’t like skin? Peel, chop, and and boil the potatoes in water until cooked through (about 7-10 minutes for 2″ sized chunks.) Proceed with mixing in the coconut milk/butter/sugar as desired. Note this method adds more water to your potato, resulting in a looser consistency.
Nutrition
Food safety
- Do not use the same utensils on cooked food, that previously touched raw meat.
- Don’t leave food sitting out at room temperature for extended periods.
- Never leave food that is cooking unattended.
- Use oils with high smoking point to avoid harmful compounds
- Always have good ventilation when using a gas stove
See more guidelines at USDA.gov.
Fortune Cookie 🥠
Everything you’ve done to me, already done to you.
Celie in The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Lucky Cat 🍀 🐈
Lynn
I just picked up some of these, I believe the Stokes variety. I was told they are much sweeter but not really so. Definitely drier that regular sweet potatoes. I baked them and they’re in the fridge waiting to be made into something. Perhaps I’ll go with your additional of coconut milk. Thanks for sharing what looks to be a tasty dish!
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Oh that is so cool! So glad you were able to find some. Can’t wait to hear how you decided to prepare them!
Alan
These are purple camote in the Philippines. I decided to make this today. It has really a nice flavor, although I made considerable adjustments. I doubled the amount of salt and honey specified, and also added 1/4 tsp of Chinese five spice powder.
The mixture is very, very dry and almost impossible tosh, so I added 1/2 cup of cream. That was the magic ingredient. Everything came together, even the colour improved, becoming a silky purple mash.
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Hi Alan, thanks so much for your comments! Super helpful, and I’m so glad you were able to modify the recipe to make a great dish!
Nan
Why not just seam them? Takes care of the dryness and faster cook time than baking/roasting.
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Hi Nan! Yes steaming would work well too! It’s just a bit more of a set up process for me, so I opt for the easier route of baking.
Ray
I tried this with steamed Stokes potatoes, pretty good. The Stokes variety are apparently the least dry out of the purple sweet potatoes and steaming them also made them kind of too wet to eat plain, but perfect for a mash. I’ll probably try baking them next. I also thought that the Stokes were so sweet that I didn’t need any additional sugar but I added about a tablespoon of coconut milk per one potato.
Deanna @ Agile Test Kitchen
Hi Ray! How wonderful to hear of your success with the Stokes potato! So happy you were able to find some purple potatoes and make it your own with some coconut milk. Thanks so much for visiting and sharing your experience!