Grains bowls or Salads with sweet potatoes and other healthy vegetables can look as good as they taste. Even if you don’t want to style your lunch for Instagram, sweet potatoes should keep their shape and not become mushy with each bite.

The flesh of a whole sweet potato will become too soft to cut or slice if it is cooked in the microwave or oven. This is true for whole sweet potatoes as well as sliced sweet potatoes. The result is a soft, fluffy potato that can be mashed, but it’s too fragile to stand by on its own.

To get perfect slices or cubes of sweet potato, cut them before cooking them. Then, heat them at high, dry heat. You can either bake or fry the sweet potatoes. It doesn’t matter if you want to make cubes, rounds or wedges. You can also choose to peel the skin or leave it on. Are you ready to give it another try? Here are the steps.

Perfectly roasted or air-fried sweet potatoes for Grain Bowls and Salads

1. Prep the sweet potatoes in the oven. While the oven heats up, you can peel or not the sweet potatoes and then cut them. Add just enough olive oil to coat the pieces.
2. Season sweet potatoes: This is the fun part. Before you cook your sweet potatoes, you can add any seasonings to enhance the flavour of the salad or grain bowl. You can rub or sprinkle the sweet potatoes with some salt and pepper.
3. Roast the sweet potatoes. The sweet potatoes will be slightly crispy around the edges but not dry. Keep warm, at room temperature, or refrigerate for up to five business days.

Blanching sweet potatoes are another option.

You can blanch cubed, peeled sweet potatoes to make a fast alternative to roasting. While you won’t have the same crispy, tender edges as a high-and-dry roast, your salad will cook faster. This method will not work for large sweet potatoes, such as wedges and rounds. The edges of the sweet potato will cook faster than the rest, which can lead to undercooked middles or mushy exteriors.

1. Cook the sweet potatoes. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add the chopped sweet potatoes. Cook for 8-10 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are tender but not too soft.
2. Place the sweet potatoes in an ice bath. Once they are done cooking, add ice water to a bowl. To transfer the potatoes to the ice, use a spider and strainer.
3. Cool the sweet potatoes by letting them cool in ice water until they are completely cool to touch. You can either use them immediately or keep them in an airtight container for up to five days.

You can prepare a vegetable ahead of time, whether you’re cooking it as a single ingredient or in combination with other ingredients like soup or stir-fry. Prep means washing, drying, peeling, and then cutting it up. Place a moist paper towel over the cut vegetables to prevent drying out in the fridge. Then, store the container in an airtight container.

Also, you can blanch vegetables up to two days ahead of time and keep them in the fridge. To blanch, boil the vegetables in salted water until tender. Then shock them in ice water to stop any further cooking. Drain and pat dry the dish, then refrigerate.