Air Fryer Sweet Potatoes

These air fryer sweet potatoes are the perfect recipe for your next holiday gathering or for an easy side dish option! With only 2 ingredients, they can be made in under 40 minutes and yield a perfectly tender and delicious sweet potato!

Cooking whole sweet potatoes in the air fryer is an easy, mess-free way to cook a sweet potato. Simply pop them in the air fryer, set the timer, and come back about 40 minutes later to a tender and soft sweet potato! Pair them with some buffalo chicken thighs or air fryer tilapia for a quick and easy meal.

After you make this recipe, be sure to check out my other sweet potato recipes! My family loves these oven-baked sweet potato slices, healthy sweet potato fries and this sweet potato and ground turkey skillet!

Jump to:

• Reasons to Love This Recipe
• Ingredients Needed
• How To Pick A Good Sweet Potato
• Recommended Toppings
• Step by Step Instructions
• Cooking Times
• Expert Tips
• Serving Suggestions
• More Vegetable Dishes
• Air Fryer Sweet Potatoes

Reasons to Love This Recipe

Cooking a whole sweet potato in the air fryer creates a crispy skin with a soft and tender inside. This is perfect if you are only needing to cook a small batch of sweet potatoes and don’t want to turn on the oven. It is also great if you are cooking a piece of meat in the air fryer and want to throw in a sweet potato along with the meat.

• Sweet potatoes are an easy and nutritious side dish to eat during mealtime. They are loaded with Vitamin A!
• Sweet potatoes pair well with almost any entrée. You can serve them as a side, or top them with bbq meat, such as in this bbq chicken and sweet potato recipe!
• Sweet potatoes are also very easy to meal prep or batch cook. They hold up well for multiple days in the refrigerator and reheat quickly in the microwave at meal times.

Ingredients Needed

Sweet Potatoes- choose a medium-sized sweet potato. If using two sweet potatoes, choose an appropriate size so that the sweet potatoes can fit in the air fryer without touching each other. Yams can also be used.

Olive Oil – used to brush on the skin of the sweet potato. Canola oil can be substituted.

See recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.

How To Pick A Good Sweet Potato

• Choose a sweet potato that does not have any large bruises, cracks or blemishes.
• Avoid sweet potatoes that have a wrinkled skin.
• Look for a sweet potato that does not have long vines or strings attached.
• Pick a sweet potato that is a red/orange color as this version is known to be more moist. The tan/purple colored sweet potatoes are a more dry potato.

Recommended Toppings

My favorite part about sweet potatoes is the toppings! There are so many different ingredients that can be added to the top of a sweet potato. Sweet potatoes are versatile and can be topped with either sweet toppings or savory toppings.

• Butter
• Honey
• Cinnamon
• Syrup
• Chopped Walnuts
• Marshmallows
• BBQ Chicken
• Taco Meat
• Salt, pepper and butter

Step by Step Instructions

Step 1: Scrub the sweet potatoes with a vegetable brush to remove any dirt. Run under warm water. Using a fork, pierce the sweet potato about 10 different times throughout the entire potato. This allows steam to escape while cooking the potatoes.

Step 2: Preheat the air fryer. Brush olive oil outside the sweet potatoes using a pastry brush.

Step 3: Add the prepared sweet potatoes to the basket. The sweet potatoes should be spaced out so that they are not overlapping.

Step 4: Cook for 40 minutes. Sweet potatoes are done when a knife can be poked through the center and they are soft.

Cooking Times

The sweet potato's cook time will vary based on the brand of air fryer used and depending on the cooking temperature. I have found that 375F is the best temperature to cook sweet potatoes. Any higher temperature has made the skins too crispy.

The cooking time will vary based on the size of the sweet potato used. Below are some common cook times that I have been successful with. Check to see if the sweet potato is done by sticking a knife in the middle to check if it is tender.

Small Sweet Potato: 35 minutes at 375F
Medium Sized Sweet Potato: 40 minutes at 375F
Large Sized Sweet Potato: 45-50 minutes at 375F

Expert Tips

• Poke holes in the sweet potatoes with a fork before cooking. This helps the steam escape and the potato to cook evenly.
• Fluff the sweet potato with a fork before adding your toppings.
• Flip the sweet potatoes halfway through cooking to prevent them from burning.
• Use a medium-sized sweet potato. A smaller or larger sweet potato will need an adjusted cooking time.
• Store leftover sweet potatoes in the refridgerator for up to 4 days. Cut the sweet potatoes in half before storing them in the refrigerator. This helps the steam escape and makes them cool down faster.

Serving Suggestions

• Pair as a side dish to a main entrée, such as this hot honey chicken, spicy adobo chicken, chicken pancit or honey chipotle chicken.
• Mash the sweet potato and serve it on an egg white wrap with butter and honey.
• Use the sweet potato as a base - top with asian turkey meatballs or air fryer turkey meatballs. It would also be great under some spicy southwest chicken salad.
• Add protein by topping with bbq chicken. Here's an easy recipe for bbq chicken stuffed sweet potatoes.

More Vegetable Dishes