Coat Sweet Potatoes In Brown Sugar Butter Before Roasting For A Caramelized Crust

Sweet potatoes have a fluffiness that melts easily in your mouth. But while we love the luscious texture, we prefer to break through a crackly crust before finding the delectable sweet potato within — almost like we're tapping on the surface of a crème brûlée to access the custard. Under the right conditions, sweet potatoes can get crispy, but brown sugar butter definitely helps it along the way.

Sweet potatoes have their fair share of sugar; it caramelizes in the oven, giving the vegetable more depth. To get that flavor on the outside, as well as a crisp surface, brown sugar butter is key. It's easy to toss cubed sweet potatoes in it, with the butter helping the sugar adhere to the veggie. In the oven, the sugar will be the first thing to caramelize, giving the potatoes an even, delicious crust.

You can use an electric mixer to whip the sugar and butter together, then coat the sweet potatoes while preheating the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Add the potatoes to a baking pan and make sure not to crowd them, or else they won't crisp evenly. Both butter and sugar can burn at high temperatures, so once the crust has developed around 40 minutes in, reduce the temperature to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. You can also use clarified butter, which has a high smoke point, to prevent the potatoes from scorching and roast the sweet potatoes for an additional 20 minutes.

The sweet-on-sweet combination of brown sugar butter and sweet potatoes may be a little saccharine for even the ultimate sweet tooth, so it helps to balance it out with a helping of bitterness. Broccoli rabe is the very embodiment of bitterness, although you can blanch it before cooking to tame it. Roasting it also accentuates its nutty flavor, in turn embracing sweet potato's earthiness. To match the sweet potato's slightly spiced flavor, add a sprinkle of red pepper flakes to the broccoli rabe before roasting.

Adding roasted sweet potatoes to a salad can also help to counteract the sweetness while boosting all the other flavors. The brown sugar butter-tinged vegetable is the perfect fit for an almond-crusted chicken kale salad. Kale is incredible at grounding sweeter foods, as is almond. The nuts can be bitter at times, but they still have an element of creaminess that meshes with the sweet potatoes. The salad is finished off with a cider vinaigrette, which features Dijon mustard, apple cider, and lemon juice to brighten up the rich ingredients.