Side dishes · Potato sides

Sweet potato fries

Name: Sweet potato fries
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 2 large sweet potatoes, cut in 1 cm (½-inch) batons; 1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch; 2 tbsp canola oil; 2 tsp paprika; 1 tsp garlic powder; 1 tsp salt

Oven fries that actually crisp: cut thin, tossed with a spoon of cornstarch, roasted hot on a bare tray. The trick is the starch and the space.

Time: 45 min (15 prep + 30 cook)
Servings: 4
Per serving: 230 kcal
Protein: 3 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

2 large sweet potatoes, cut in 1 cm (½-inch) batons800 g
1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch12 g
2 tbsp canola oil25 g
2 tsp paprika4 g
1 tsp garlic powder3 g
1 tsp salt5 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Toss the dry batons with the cornstarch first, until dusty, then the oil and spices. Starch before oil — reverse it and you get paste.
Spread on two trays with space between every fry. Crowding is why oven fries go soft.
Roast at 220°C for 15 minutes, flip, then 12–15 more until browned at the edges.
Salt straight out of the oven and eat within minutes; sweet potato has less starch than russet and softens fast.

Why this score

easy to overeat

No single route carries this one — a moderate amount of protein, volume and fiber.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

6% of kcal

68% water

31 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

13%

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 920 kcal goes into the pot, 849 g of ingredients comes out as ~620 g of food → 148 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 148
Protein: (6%); 2 g
Fat: (28%); 5 g
Carbohydrates: (66%); 25 g
of which sugar: 8 g
Fiber: 5 g
Sodium: 314 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

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Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.