Why Sweet Potato Fries Taste Better In Restaurants Than At Home

If you've made sweet potato fries a few times yet, they never turn out as good as when you have them at a restaurant, you're skipping one secret ingredient: starch. Often cornstarch is the missing element to the best fries ever. It's what makes them deliciously crispy on the outside and tender on the inside every time.

To make restaurant-quality sweet potato fries, peel the potatoes and chop them into french fry thin strips. Next, toss the strips in cornstarch to coat them. This is the step that leads to deliciously crispy yet moist sweet potato fries. Once the cornstarch dries out and forms a film over the potatoes, you can go ahead and deep fry them. If, however, you're baking them, toss the sweet potato strips in a bit of oil before placing them in the oven.

In case you're wondering, this trick also works for regular french fries. According to potato experts, the reaction of oil with cornstarch leads to a film that forms a crunchy crust while sealing the moisture in the fries. As a result, the starch lends that perfect texture you find in restaurant fries while elevating their taste. Overall you get sweet potato fries that are delightfully crispy, tangy, and sturdy enough to dip in sauce.

Along with adding starch, restaurants rely on vinegar to create tasty fries. Typically, they soak fries in water before frying. By adding vinegar to the water, it gives the fries a slight piquancy that improves their taste. The acid in the vinegar also partially breaks down the potato's surface, lending to a crispy fry (you know, the crunchy ones that you purposely seek out!).

How you fry your fries also makes all the difference in how they turn out. One tip when frying sweet potatoes is to avoid overcrowding them in the pan. When packed extremely closely, sweet potato fries tend to self-steam and turn soggy. Choose to either fry them in batches or use two different pans to allow for crisp edges to form.

If you're baking your sweet potato fries instead, make sure that you set the oven to a high temperature such as 425 F. This is the ideal temperature for fries that turn out crispy without burning their oil coating. These are just a few of the methods employed, but you can read our tips on why French fries taste better at a restaurant than at home to stay on top of your potato frying game.