What to Do When Sweet Potatoes are On Sale
Spoiler Alert: You do this. 😉
Here’s the back story…
Just before Thanksgiving, I ran into the grocery store to grab a few things for my 3rd son’s birthday gathering. We had a few of his buddies over to our house to play games and celebrate him turning 9 (how is that possible!?!). I had my 2 younger boys with me, which is really rare! (I go to great lengths to shop alone, sometimes even at 10 pm when they’re all asleep! lol)
Sweet potatoes were NOT on my list…but they were quickly added to my list when I saw that they were $.12/lb. (Yes, you’re reading that right!)
That’s 22 lbs for $2.66!!!
Also, they had some from a local farm that were ginormous! I quickly decided to grab as many as would fit into the top of the little cart and ended up with 12 giant sweet potatoes.
They were as big as my head…as I show here in this Facebook live…straight from the toy aisle at the store! Give it a watch, and I’ll quickly explain what to do…
Now, what do you do when you find sweet potatoes on sale?!
You buy as many as you think you can handle, then cook and freeze them.
This is how “$5 Dinners” works…I now have 6 hefty side dish servings that cost me a total of $.30 each. Doing this helps me keep the overall meal costs LOW, and I don’t have to fuss about cooking these later (other than reheating!). Win-Win!
(I only cooked 8 of the 12 for the freezer…the rest we used for our holiday meal!)
P.S. Cooking these sweet potatoes was NOT on my list of things to do that day, and it was already a busy day…but I managed to squeeze in getting them going in the Instant Pot and oven, and then once they were cooked and cooled off, I mashed them and put them in the freezer. Probably a total of 10 minutes for part 1 and 10 minutes for part 2.
Here, I’ll show you….
Would ya look at that sale price!!!!
These guys were monsters! (That’s my hand!)
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How to Prepare in Instant Pot
Add a little water (1-2 cups) to the bottom.
Add the steam rack. This is the collapsible one I love!
Peel and slice the sweet potatoes.
Then add them onto the steam rack…
Filling it up enough so there’s a little room at top and lid doesn’t touch them.
Here they are, cooked and ready to cool and mash!
How to Prepare in Roasting Pan
I added about 1/4″ inch of water to my big roasting pan and then added 5 with slits into the roasting pan.
Then, I added a tight foil seal (pinching 2 pieces together) and “steam baked” the sweet potatoes.
Steam-baking helps them naturally caramelize on their own, so you don’t have to add extra sugar 🙂
Preparing Sweet Potatoes for Freezer
Once both were cooked through and cooled down, I combined all the cooked sweet potato and mashed it. (I didn’t add any butter or cinnamon or anything else. I can do that once I reheat them!)
I had 3 big bowls and I divided into 6 meal size portions (side dish portions).
And then stashed them just like this into the freezer.
When it’s time to cook them, I will thaw them in the fridge or a bowl of warm water and then reheat in baking dish covered with foil. Then I’ll add in some butter and cinnamon and what not!
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