Roasted Sweet Potato Skins with Rosemary
a potato skin they left in the oven too long
This is what to do with the skins when you have scooped out sweet potatoes for something else. They cost nothing, they were going in the bin, and roasted hard they turn into the best thing on the table.
Sweet potato has far more sugar in it than a russet, which means the edges caramelise and go translucent rather than just browning. That amber, almost glassy look in the picture is sugar, and it is why these need a lower oven and more patience than ordinary potato skins.
Rosemary goes on in the last five minutes. Thirty minutes at roasting heat and it turns to ash.
- Feeds
- 4
- Hands-on
- 10 minutes
- In the oven
- 30 minutes
- Rosemary
- Last 5 minutes
What you need
Everything
- Skins from 6 baked sweet potatoes, cut into strips
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 2 sprigs rosemary, leaves picked and roughly chopped (from my garden)
- Flaky sea salt
- Coarse black pepper
How it goes
1 — Bake the sweet potatoes whole first
400°F for about fifty minutes until soft. Scoop the flesh out for something else and keep the skins.
2 — Cut them into wide strips
Two or three strips per half. Wide enough to curl rather than shrivel, and they will curl — that is what makes the shape in the picture.
3 — Oil them well on both sides
Tossed in olive oil until every surface is coated. Dry patches stay leathery rather than going crisp.
4 — 400°F on a wire rack, not a tray
A rack lets air underneath so both sides crisp at once. On a flat tray the underside sits in its own moisture.
5 — Twenty-five minutes, then look
They shrink, curl and the edges go dark amber and slightly see-through. Sweet potato burns faster than ordinary potato because of the sugar, so start checking at twenty.
pro tip — Translucent and caramel at the edges is done. Brown and opaque all over is five minutes too far.
6 — Rosemary in the last five minutes
Scattered over and back into the oven just long enough to toast and release its oil. Any earlier and it is black and bitter.
7 — Flaky salt the second they come out
While the surface is still oily, so it sticks. Flaky salt rather than fine — you want to feel individual crystals against the sweetness.
They were going in the bin. Now there are never enough. LFG.