Creating Healthier Family Traditions:

Candied sweet potatoes have been apart of my Thanksgiving tradition since I was a little kid. My aunt Tina has always made the best candied sweet potatoes, but they are definitely loaded with butter and sugar. I wanted to enjoy the same flavors and deliciousness, but in a healthier way without the butter. Being plant-based, I don’t eat butter or lots of sugar. I prefer using pure maple syrup as my sweetener of choice, and I knew it would work in this recipe. That is how I created my favorite healthy candied sweet potatoes.

Healthier Substitutions

Instead of butter, we are omitting it and adding more apple juice. To give a stronger flavor to the dish, I chose an unfiltered apple juice. If you’re not able to find unfiltered apple juice, you can use regular apple juice. I like the unfiltered variety from Trader Joe’s. If you aren’t able to go to Trader Joe’s, I also like the Tree Top brand, which can be found at Walmart and Target.

Either brand works, and gives a delicious and strong apple flavor, making this dish even more amazing. These healthy candied sweet potatoes will definitely impress anyone who loves a more traditional version of this recipe.

Prep Work

You definitely have some prep work with this recipe, but it’s well worth it. You can either bake the sweet potatoes the day before, or the morning you make this dish. There is no way around it. If you try and prep this dish using hot sweet potatoes, you will get sweet potato casserole, not candied sweet potatoes.

Take the time and prep the sweet potatoes the right way, and there will be no problems. This dish is worth it!

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Healthy Candied Sweet Potatoes

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Servings 8 people

Ingredients

3 large sweet potatoes or 5-6 small to medium size
1 ½ cup unfiltered apple juice
⅔ cup pure maple syrup
1 ½ Tbsp. corn starch or arrowroot powder
½ Tbsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
dash of salt

Instructions

The day before eating this dish, or the morning of, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash the sweet potatoes and place in a 9X13 baking dish. Add 1 cup of water, and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 1 ½ hours or until sweet potatoes are soft to the touch.
Allow sweet potatoes to cool completely. This will take a few hours at least. You can also place the sweet potatoes in the refrigerator to cool them down faster.
When you're ready to make candied sweet potatoes, preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
Peel your sweet potatoes (they should peel very easily), and slice them in half like a hot dog. Then slice those long halves in half like a hamburger. Slice each quarter into 2 or 3 slices. You want the sweet potatoes to be in spears, not rounds.
Lay the sweet potato spears in a 9X13 baking dish. It's ok if you have to overlap the slices.
In a mixing bowl, mix together the apple juice, maple syrup, and corn starch. Whisk it until there are no lumps of corn starch. Pour the mixture over the sweet potatoes.
Top the sweet potatoes with lots of cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and salt.
Bake for 45 minutes. This allows the corn starch to thicken the sauce. It's so good!
As the dish cools down, the sauce will thicken even more.

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