I made Hawaiian sweet potato fries last week! Hawaiian sweet potatoes or, okinawa potatoes, are strictly found in Hawaii. They start off as a light purple color on the inside and as they are cooked, they become a deep, dark brown.

Surprisingly, Hawaiian sweet potatoes taste much like the orange sweet potatoes (yams), but are much healthier than russet or the other sweet potato. In fact, Hawaiian sweet potatoes even have fewer carbs! And you all know that I’m all over having a low carb lifestyle since discovering that it has reduced my epilepsy migraines! To read more about the benefits of the Purple Yam, check out this neat article by Healthline: “7 Benefits of Purple Yam...”

Given that this dinner was a total experiment, I decided against trying something extraordinary. I didn’t want to ruin dinner for my grandparents. So I settled on a tried and true method of cooking sweet potatoes: oven baked french fries. Kyler made a Cesar salad and I started my morning preparing a “fat” pork loin for BBQ pulled pork sandwiches. BONUS: My very first Instant Pot recipe!

These fries turned out delightfully soft on the inside and crisp on the outside; with a similar flavor to orange sweet potatoes.

Recipe for Hawaiian Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

3-4 Hawaiian sweet potatoes, evenly sliced into wedges
Pink Himalayan salt
Pepper
2 TBS Olive Oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees
Evenly slice washed potatoes into wedges
Put potato wedges in a bowl and add the olive oil. Evenly coat the wedges with the oil
Season with salt and pepper

Spread out on a foiled baking sheet
Bake for the Hawaiian sweet potatoes for 15 minutes, then flip or shuffle the fries around the pan. It takes about 15 minutes to cook the potatoes and an additional 5-10 minutes to make them crispy oven baked fries.

Enjoy these amazing Hawaiian sweet potato fries with a Cesar salad and the pulled pork sandwiches! We sure did- except for my husband who loathes sweet potatoes. The Instapot recipe is below!

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Sweet potato fries and pulled pork sandwiches

Recipe for InstaPot Pulled Pork Sandwiches

For my original pulled pork sandwiches recipe, click here.

Ingredients

2-3 lbs section of pork loin
1 1/2 cups of BBQ sauce (whichever type of sweet BBQ sauce that you prefer)
1/2 – 1 cup water
Dash of following spices/seasoning: salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika

Directions

Place pork loin in InstaPot
Combine water, BBQ sauce and seasoning blend and make sure the pork loin is evenly covered by the mixture
Set InstaPot to cook for 6-8 hours LOW or “slow cooker mode”
Check after 6 hours
Remove pork loin and place it on a plate to shred the meat

Place shredded pork back into the InstaPot and continue to cook. Make sure the BBQ sauce mix is thoroughly covering the meat
During this time, make your Hawaiian sweet potato fries! (see directions above)