Elevate Canned Sweet Potatoes To A Whole New Level With Your Air Fryer

Canned sweet potatoes are convenient and delicious, often garnished and baked with brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon for a melt-in-your-mouth side dish. While their ultra-soft texture is also advantageous for mashed dishes like sweet potato casserole or as a sweet, starchy addition to brownie or waffle batter, you won't typically see them touted as a worthy swap for roasted sweet potato chunks. However, an air fryer is able to give canned sweet potatoes that desirable textural contrast of crispy edges and tender pulp that we used to think was only possible with raw sweet potatoes.

Air fryers are veritable miniature convection ovens that have an incredibly powerful hot air circulation mechanism and reach high temperatures quickly. These factors are responsible for not only cooking food rapidly but also creating perfectly crisp edges. Since canned sweet potatoes are already cooked, throwing them in the air fryer with a bit of oil and seasonings will elevate their flavor and texture in under half the time it takes to achieve the same results in an oven. Plus, you'll save all of the preparation time you'd spend washing and chopping raw sweet potatoes.

While some recipes call for a 10 to 15-minute cooking time at 380 degrees Fahrenheit, temperature and cooking times depend on many outside factors. Some recipes recommend higher temperatures of 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes. You can experiment with times and temperatures, keeping a close eye on your potatoes as you figure out what works best.

Tasting Table has shown how air fryers can convert savory canned potatoes into crispy home fries. While canned sweet potatoes have softer pulp, many of the same cooking tips apply to accomplish those crispy edges. Draining and drying canned sweet potatoes is the first and most important step to ensure improvements to their flavor and texture.

You can pat them down with paper towels to soak up as much unwanted moisture as possible. This allows the sweet potatoes to soak up any seasonings and oil you add and crisp up thoroughly in the air fryer. Just as with oven-roasted potatoes, arranging canned sweet potatoes in a single layer without overcrowding them will help guarantee those crispy, slightly charred edges.

Since heat comes from the top of the air fryer and not from all sides, you'll need to flip or shake the potatoes halfway through the cooking time for even browning. You can toss drained and oiled sweet potatoes with a bit of flour, potato starch, or cornstarch before adding them to the air fryer for an especially shatteringly crunchy coating. A dusting of parmesan cheese will also create a crunchy layer while delivering a savory complement to the sweet potato.