Crispy Sweet Potato Fries With Curry Aioli

Sweet potato fries are so delicious, especially if they're well seasoned, crispy and served with a curry aioli for dipping. Mmm...these are actually baking while I am writing this post and I am so hungry I cannot even wait for these babies to come out of the oven.

Let's jump right into it. There is a few tips and tricks to making crispy oven baked sweet potato fries. One is soaking/rinsing the starch off the sweet potatoes, as you would do with regular potatoes when making fries...right? 😉 Another is ensuring they're as dry as possible before adding seasonings and oil, and tossing the uncooked fries in a bit of corn starch. Lastly baking on a piece of parchment paper and not flipping them until the last half of mins of cooking. Patients is key. They're not a quick dish by any means, but they're delicious and totally worth it.




Start by peeling, cutting the pointy ends off and giving the potatoes a quick rinse.








If your potato is really long, chop it in half or thirds. I'm using 1 and a 1/2 potatoes here. Just enough for me and my girls for lunch.










Cut your potatoes into thin slices (please ignore my cutting boards, I know they need to be put out to pasture 😎)







Cut your potatoes into fries. These do take a bit to cook so the thicker you cut them the longer they will take. I'm not an overly patient person, especially when I am hungry so I cut them on the thinner side. Try to cut them as even as possible, but don't lose sleep over it.

Add your fries to a bowl and top them with cold water and leave to soak for at least 30 minutes, but you could start this in the morning or the night before and leave them soaking in the fridge until you're ready to cook them. If you're impatient, you can rinse them a couple times, rinse them until the water comes clear, not foggy. Not the preferred method, but it can work in a pinch.


Dump the water from the potatoes, give them a final rinse and dry off the best you can. I lay them on a dish towel and roll them up.





Add the potatoes to a dry bowl, drizzle with 1-2 tsp olive oil just to add a bit of moisture. Season with 1 tsp paprika, 1 tsp chili powder and salt and pepper. *My measurements are based on using 1 1/2 potatoes, adjust for your amount. Toss the fries to evenly coat. 

Sprinkle about 1 tsp of corn starch on the fries and toss well to coat.  Mix well, but again don't stress yourself out.










Set your oven to bake at 400° and add your fries to a parchment paper lined baking sheet. While you're sweet potato fries are cooking, they get soft and very fragile. If you don't have the parchment paper there the fries will stick and when it comes time to flip them you will be breaking them up just trying to get them unstuck, i'm speaking from experience. I have tried just using a well greased baking sheet and it didn't come out well. Lay your fries in a single layer as much as possible. Sweet potato fries actually crisp up where the potato is touching the pan only, if you have fries that are on top of other fries they won't come out crispy. I don't get to crazy about it but try your best. You may need to us multiple pans if you have a lot of fries.

After 30 minutes, before flipping

Bake for 30 without touching! After 30 minutes you can very gently flip them. Put back in the oven for another 10 minutes. Give them a flip and repeat for 10 minute increments flipping after each until the fries are crispy. You should actually be able to smell when they're done, they will start to smell different, like they're caramelizing.  

I believe my fries ended up cooking for a total of 60 minutes. You're going to have a few casualties, it's the nature of hand cut, baked fries. By casualties I mean ones that are a bit too brown. I could have cropped mine out for a better picture, but i'm not really here to post perfect, unrealistic pictures. 
You can dive in now, or keep scrolling for my curry aioli dip.

To make your curry aioli grab a small bowl and add 1/2 cup good, real mayonnaise and 2 cloves of garlic minced. Add the juice of 1/2 lemon and salt and pepper. Mix. If you stopped here you would have a perfectly delicious standard aioli. Precisely the aioli I use on my Copycat Jack Astors Bruschetta. But we're going to take it one step further. Add 2-3 tsp of curry powder and 1 tsp of garam masala. Give it a good mix and taste. Adjust seasonings as needed. 

The best tip I can offer is having a good sous chef. My sous chef specializes in whisking and assisting with the lemon squeezer, so aioli is right up her alley. She also loves curry which defiantly helps.


I will also suggest preparing this about 30 minutes ahead of time and placing it in the fridge as it gets a bit thicker and tastier sitting. The curry aioli is also delicious on burgers, dipping sauce for chicken strips or my Coconut Chicken Strips. Enjoy!