How to Repurpose Sweetpotato Leftovers
While cooking sweetpotatoes may be something you’ve already mastered, have you thought about how you can repurpose those leftovers? Reusing leftovers in various ways can help you save time and money, and reduce food waste. Plus, with the cost of food rising, it’s great to get more bang for your buck with the most versatile ingredient around!
Sweetpotatoes are very freezer-friendly when stored properly and can add a touch of color and an abundance of nutrition to your favorite dishes. To be able to use food for leftovers, you want to make sure you are storing and cooking sweetpotatoes properly.
How do I store sweetpotatoes?
Store sweetpotatoes in a cool, dark area, such as the pantry, basement or root cellar. You want to store them away from heat sources. Do not store them in the refrigerator, as that can produce a hard center and unpleasant taste.
What is the shelf life of sweetpotatoes?
When stored properly, sweetpotatoes will last up to two weeks.
How to cook sweetpotatoes
You can cook sweetpotatoes many different ways, such as baking them, boiling them, grilling them, cooking them in the air fryer, instant pot, and even microwave. Choose a method that works for you depending on its feasibility, taste, and convenience.
Whichever method you choose, we recommend cooking a bunch at once, so you can reuse throughout the week or with your lunch.
How long do cooked sweetpotatoes last?
Once your sweetpotatoes are cooked, aim to reuse them within 3-5 days for optimal freshness, taste and for food safety reasons.
Here are some easy ways to use sweetpotato leftovers:
Throw them on a salad. This is perhaps the easiest way, whether you have baked sweetpotatoes, diced, wedges, fries, and more. You could also use leftover baked sweet potato cubes in a breakfast hash.
Add roasted sweetpotato slices to kabobs. This sweetpotato chicken kabob recipe is great on the grill or in the oven!
Use the mash in muffins, baked goods, and more. We love these sweetpotato zucchini muffins or sweetpotato chocolate chip bread! If you’re more of a pie person, consider sweetpotato pecan pie!
Add them to burgers and meatballs – Similar to mashing them into baked goods, you can also up the nutrition in your meat-based dishes by adding mashed sweetpotatoes to burgers, like these sweetpotato turkey burgers, or to sweetpotato turkey meatballs. The bonus is that the vitamin C from the sweetpotatoes can help with iron absorption from the meat.
Freeze them in ice cube trays to add to smoothies or flavor your water. In the warmer months, we also love these pina colada sweetpotato popsicles!
Add fries alongside any sandwich. Upgrade your sandwich sides by adding sweetpotato wedges or fries to your dish. You can also add sweetpotatoes to a quesadilla! These are also great as sweetpotato lunch ideas (link to January blog post).
Add them to soups – Whether you have leftover mashed, baked, or diced sweetpotatoes, adding them to a soup is a great way to reuse them easily. For inspiration, we love this sweetpotato noodle soup and vegan sweetpotato chili. You can use fresh sweetpotatoes, or even freeze your sweetpotatoes after cooking and then use them the next time you make a soup.
Add the mash to the meatloaf – Have a favorite meatloaf recipe? Add some mashed sweetpotatoes in there next time!
Cook with eggs – Sweetpotatoes for breakfast? Yes please! Scramble those eggs in with some diced sweetpotatoes or create your own sweetpotato hash.
Add them to your next homemade pizza as a topping or add into the pizza crust!
As you can see, the versatility of sweetpotatoes is amazing, and you can really find a way to add them to nearly everything. We hope this inspires you to cook extra and find a fun way to reuse this superfood that will inspire healthy eating in your family!