Turn Your Sweet Potato Fries Into Dessert With This Maple Peanut Butter Sauce

For health coach and food blogger Ilene Godofsky Moreno, eating well means piling your plate high with foods that span every color of the rainbow, from bright red beets to deep purple carrots. Eating this way is good for more than just your Instagram feed, says Moreno, who recently published The Colorful Kitchen cookbook, dedicated to the vibrant ROYGBIV-inspired meals she’s known for.

“Different colored fruits and vegetables contain different types of nutrients, so packing your plate with a rainbow of colors is an easy way to make sure that you're getting a variety of vitamins and minerals,” says Moreno. “We can drive ourselves crazy studying nutritional information and crunching numbers, but I find that approaching food from that angle takes the fun and creativity out of cooking.”

Sweet potatoes are a staple in the colorful meals Moreno makes. Like most bright orange vegetables, they’re packed with vitamin A and beta-carotene, plus most people find them easy to digest, Moreno points out. “As part of my weekly meal prep, I'll roast a big batch of sweet potatoes to keep on hand in my refrigerator,” says Moreno. She adds the to macro bowls, puts slices into sandwiches, and even uses them as a secret ingredient in her vegan mac n' cheese.

Here, the orange tuber stars in a sack-dessert hybrid dish: sweet potato wedges are dusted with cinnamon and a bit of coconut sugar, then roasted until crisp before being drizzled with a maple-sweetened peanut butter sauce.

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Keep reading to get the sweet potato recipe.

Cinnamon sweet potato fries with maple peanut butter sauce

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients
4 medium sweet potatoes
1 Tbsp coconut oil, melted
1 Tbsp coconut sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
2 Tbsp maple syrup
2 Tbsp peanut butter
2 Tbsp shredded coconut (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.

2. Scrub the sweet potatoes and slice them into fries about a half-inch thick. Place them in a large bowl.

3. Toss the fries with the coconut oil, coconut sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Spread them out on a baking sheet.

4. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and use a spatula to flip the fries. Return them to the oven for another ten minutes.

5. While the fries bake, prepare the sauce by stirring the maple syrup and peanut butter together in a small cup. Serve the sauce on the side for dipping, or drizzle it on top of the fries. Sprinkle the shredded coconut over the fries, if desired.

If you want more ways to incorporate sweet potato into your diet, try these apple and sweet potato protein pancakes for breakfast or this vegetarian sweet potato chili for dinner.