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Home » Appetizers & Sides

Baked Purple Sweet Potato Mash (oven baked or boiled)

Published: Dec 17, 2019 · Updated: Jan 11, 2024 · This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.

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Baked purple potato mash in a white bowl with a garnish of pineapple wedges and mint.

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.

Baked purple potato mash in a white bowl with a garnish of pineapple wedges and mint.

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.

Jump to:
  • Why You'll Like this Recipe
  • What are Purple Sweet Potatoes?
  • Ingredients
  • Instructions for Baked Purple Potato Mash
  • Substitutions
  • Variations
  • Variation: Boiled Purple Potato Mash
  • Equipment
  • Storage
  • Menu Ideas
  • Top tips
  • FAQ
  • Related plant based dishes:
  • Pairing
  • Recipe
  • Food safety
  • Fortune Cookie 🥠

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:

  1. 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.
  2. Stokes – Purple skinned and the shape of longish, regular orange sweet potatoes
Raw purple yam sliced in half
The Stokes variety is a registered trademarked named, non-GMO purple sweet potato grown in California and found in grocery stores like Whole Foods Market.

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

Labeled ingredients for mashed purple sweet potatoes.
Those 4 purple potatoes are about 1 ½ lbs total. Each one is one serving, so this recipe serves about 4 with roughly ¾ c of mash per person.
  • 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

4 purple stokes potatoes on a baking sheet with a silicon liner.

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.

4 baked purple sweet potatoes on a baking sheet with a spoon scooping out the flesh.

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.

Ube mash in a brown bowl with a pat of butter

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

Mashed purple yam in a brown bowl with a spoon

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

Purple potato cut into chunks on a wooden cutting board.

Peel and cut the potatoes into even sized two inch chunks.

Raw purple potato chunks in a silver saucepan covered with water.

Put the potatoes into a pot and cover with with about an inch of water. Bring to a boil over medium high heat.

Purple potatoes cooking in boiling water in a silver saucepan.

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.

Drained and cooked purple potato chunks in a saucepan.

Drain the potatoes once the are easily pierced with a fork and cooked through.

Cooked purple potato chunks in a sauce pan with two dabs of butter.

Add your choice of seasoning ingredients: butter/coconut milk, coconut sugar, salt.

Chunks of purple potatoes being mashed with a fork in a silver saucepan.

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

Purple yam mash on a plate with turkey dinner
Thanksgiving alternative: Serve instead of orange yams on a thanksgiving inspired plate with a pomegranate seed garnish, delicata squash, sauteed greens, and baked duck legs.
A filet of Hawaiian salmon on a plate with broccoli and purple mashed potatoes behind it.
Hawaiian theme: Serve with a coconut milk "gravy," air fryer Hawaiian salmon with gochujang glaze, Korean broccoli salad, and pineapple wedges.

Top tips

  1. 1 ½ lbs of purple potatoes makes roughly 3 cups of purple potato mash. Each serving is about ¾ cup. This recipe serves 4 as a small side dish or 2 if you want a larger potions.
  2. Can't be bothered to mash? Just split the potatoes in half after cooking and let everyone scoop and mix in their own toppings.
  3. 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

What temperature do you bake purple sweet potatoes?

350 degrees F is hot enough to cook the potatoes evenly and thoroughly with less change of overcooking or burning.

How long do you bake purple sweet potatoes?

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.

What is the nutrition of a baked purple sweet potato?

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:

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    Vegan Green Bean Casserole with Coconut Milk (only 7 ingredients)

Pairing

These are my favorite dishes to serve with :

Recipe

Purple potato mash in a white bowl with a garnish of pineapple wedges and mint.
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5 from 1 vote

Baked Purple Sweet Potato Mash

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.
Course Side Dish
Cuisine Asian, Hawaiian
Diet Gluten Free, Low Lactose, Vegan
Keyword purple sweet potatoes, purple yams, ube recipes
Prep Time 5 minutes minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes minutes
Servings 4
Calories 236kcal
Author Agile Test Kitchen

Ingredients

  • 1 ½ lb purple sweet potatoes
  • 2 Tb coconut milk, add more as needed or butter or vegan butter

Optional Ingredients

  • ¼ teaspoon 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 ½ lbs of purple potatoes makes roughly 3 cups of purple potato mash. Each serving is about ¾ cup. This recipe serves 4 as a small side dish or 2 if you want a larger potions.
  2. Can't be bothered to mash? Just split the potatoes in half after cooking and let everyone scoop and mix in their own toppings.
  3. 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

Serving: 4g | Calories: 236kcal | Carbohydrates: 53g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 2g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0.1g | Sodium: 174mg | Potassium: 1405mg | Fiber: 7g | Sugar: 5g | Vitamin A: 235IU | Vitamin C: 29mg | Calcium: 30mg | Iron: 1mg
Tried this recipe?Mention @agiletestkitchen or tag #agiletestkitchen!

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 🍀 🐈

A gray and white cat walking on concrete in front of a green wooden fence.

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Comments

  1. Lynn says

    January 01, 2020 at 9:03 am

    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!

    Reply
    • asiantestkitchen@gmail.com says

      January 01, 2020 at 10:48 am

      Oh that is so cool! So glad you were able to find some. Can't wait to hear how you decided to prepare them!

      Reply
  2. Alan says

    September 21, 2021 at 12:33 am

    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.

    Reply
    • asiantestkitchen@gmail.com says

      September 28, 2021 at 8:38 pm

      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!

      Reply
  3. Nan says

    December 11, 2021 at 8:20 am

    5 stars
    Why not just seam them? Takes care of the dryness and faster cook time than baking/roasting.

    Reply
    • asiantestkitchen@gmail.com says

      April 02, 2022 at 3:21 pm

      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.

      Reply
  4. Ray says

    October 22, 2023 at 3:48 pm

    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.

    Reply
    • Deanna @ Agile Test Kitchen says

      October 22, 2023 at 7:57 pm

      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!

      Reply
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