I think it’s safe to say if you’ve been following along with my recipes for a while now, you’ve realised my love for sweet potatoes is absolutely bonkers. In this instance however it’s not the sweet potatoes themselves that send my taste buds into a frenzy, but more the addition of roasted garlic and how they complement each other so beautifully.
Roasted Garlic
The key to delicious garlic sweet potatoes is roasting the garlic. When you roast garlic, you not only completely change the flavour, but you also change the texture. Flavourwise it goes from being quite pungent to being sweet and nutty. The texture turns soft, buttery and sticky.
Low ‘n’ Slow
To achieve that sweet, soft, buttery goodness you’ll need to roast the garlic low and slow. This will draw out the natural sugars in the garlic and help them caramelize.
Rosemary
A sneaky tip to enhancing not only your roasted garlic, but the flavour of the whole dish, is to roast the garlic with fresh rosemary. Sweet potatoes and rosemary go together beautiful, so that added flavour infused into the garlic goes down beautifully. To roast the garlic with rosemary just slice the bulb through the centre and stuff in the rosemary – almost like a mini garlic-rosemary burger (see below)
Roasted Sweet Potato Mash
When it comes to making the mashed potatoes, I HIGHLY recommend roasting the potatoes, as opposed to boiling or steaming them. Just like the garlic, when you roast sweet potatoes you draw out the natural sugars to caramelize. This adds a huge amount of flavour you simply can’t achieve by boiling. Also, when you boil potatoes you essentially add in water. Sweet potatoes are already packed with moisture, so adding more on top of that just increases the chance of sloppy mashed potatoes. Which is never ideal ☹️ To roast the sweet potatoes just keep them whole, prod a few times with a fork and roast away. No need for seasoning or oil, you don’t want the skin, only the yummy potato in the centre! Process shots: drizzle garlic with oil then stuff with rosemary (photo 1), wrap in foil (photo 2), stab potatoes with fork (photo 3), add garlic to tray and roast (photo 4).
Roasted Garlic Sweet Potato Mash
Once the sweet potatoes are knife tender and the garlic is soft & sticky, it’s time to throw it all in a bowl with some extra goodies.
Garlic Sweet Potato Mash Ingredients
Roasted Sweet Potato – Scoop it from the skins (be careful not to take any skin with you!) Roasted Garlic – Squeeze the garlic from the skins and save the rosemary. Butter – Adds a rich undertone to the mash. And, mashed potato of any variety without butter, is a crime. Sour Cream – Turns the potato nice and creamy and the slight ‘tang’ helps cut through the sweetness of the potato & garlic. Salt & Pepper – Season generously the helps balance the sweet flavours.
The importance of a potato masher!
Although it takes a bit more elbow grease, I recommend using a potato masher to mash the potatoes. Using a hand blender or mixer will cause the starch in the potatoes to go gloopy/gluey! Process shots: slices sweet potatoes (photo 1), scoop out potato (photo 2), unwrap garlic (photo 3), squeeze into potato and add butter, sour cream and s&p (photo 4).
Serving Garlic Sweet Potato Mash
Once you’ve made the mash, plonk it in a serving dish. From there, I like to crumble bacon and sprinkle over the leftover rosemary. Although optional, I do recommend drizzling over some melted butter too. If you want to take things even further you can roast up 3 bulbs of garlic and use the third to dot over the top at the end.
Can I make this ahead of time?
Yup! Just leave off the toppings and allow to cool, then tightly cover in the fridge. You can reheat in the microwave, oven or on the stove (more in the recipe card).
If you’re after more mash recipes check out my Mustard Mash, Cheesy Roasted Garlic Mash and Butternut Squash Mash! For more similar recipes check out these beauties too:
Roasted Sweet Potato Recipes
Roasted Sweet Potato Bites Roasted Sweet Potato Curry Garlic Rosemary Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Chorizo Roasted Sweet Potato Quesadillas
How to make Roasted Garlic Sweet Potato Mash (Full Recipe & Video)
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