Okay, y’all. It’s been quite some time since I made a dish that completely blew my mind at the first bite. We can honestly blame my 2020 2.0 stuck-in-the-house cooking burnout. We’ve all been there over the last year so I decided to challenge myself on cooking things without shopping for new items: using what I have in the damn house. After seeing my lovely friend José whip up some twice-baked sweet potatoes, I knew I had to make some with my own spin on it and whew, these are definitely going into rotation going forward.

These potatoes are SO good. Perfectly tender yet crispy sweet potatoes drizzled with a tangy and savory tahini sauce and topped with fried capers. When I worked at a local Greek restaurant while I was in culinary school, we ran a special with whole roasted cauliflower with tahini and I wanted to make a riff on that with what I had on hand: sweet potatoes. This dish is all about balance: sweet and savory from the potatoes and tahini, pops of salt from the fried capers, with earthy cilantro mellowing it all out. You’re left with a perfect bite.

This recipe takes a little bit of time since we have to bake the sweet potatoes twice, but it’s honestly such a low maintenance recipe, you don’t even have to worry about much while you’re making this since the oven does all of the work for you. Make the sauce and fry the capers while the potatoes are in the oven and that’s it! Let’s get cooking.

Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes

Cook time: 1 hour

Serves: 4

4 large sweet potatoes

Extra virgin olive oil, as needed

Large pinch kosher salt

Zesty Tahini Sauce

3 tbsp Duke’s mayonnaise (see note)

2 tbsp tahini (see note)

Pinch smoked sea salt (kosher salt works just fine)

Pinch cracked black pepper

Pinch red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp onion powder

1 tsp granulated garlic

1 tsp nutritional yeast

1 tsp honey

1 lime, zested and juiced

Splash of water, to thin sauce out

1 tsp roasted sesame seeds (more for garnish)

4 tsp capers, fried

Vegetable oil, for frying the capers

Hand torn cilantro leaves, for garnish

Note: Living in the South, I only use Duke’s because there’s no other kind of mayonnaise that compares. It’s much tangier than other mayos I’ve tried and I’m such a huge fan. You can order it online if you don’t have it in stores where you live. It’s worth ordering, I promise. If you use another kind of mayo, you may find that you need to add a little more lime juice for that tang. As for the tahini, you can find this toasted and ground sesame seed paste sold with other Mediterranean and Middle Eastern foods. It’s readily available in most grocery stores nowadays. Plant-based babies, you can use a plant-based mayo here and substitute agave for the honey to make this completely vegan!

Preheat oven to 425ºF and line a sheet pan with parchment or silpat.

Wash, scrub, and dry the sweet potatoes. Prick the potatoes all over with a fork and use a paring knife to cut random slits into the potatoes to allow steam to escape while baking and for the insides to get fully cooked. Next, drizzle them with some extra virgin olive oil and a large pinch of kosher salt on each potato and rub all over.

Bake for 30-45 minutes or until fork tender. Carefully remove them from the oven and let them cool down just a bit in order to press together and smash open. I loosely placed some aluminum foil on top of them to stay warm because I was working on another recipe at the same time.

While the potatoes are cooling down, let’s work on the sauce. In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, tahini, pinch of smoked sea salt (or kosher if that’s all you have on hand), cracked black pepper, and red pepper flakes. Then add the ground cumin, onion powder, granulated garlic, and nutritional yeast. Add the lime zest to the top and then mix everything together. Add the honey and lime juice. Stir again and then add a splash of water to thin out the sauce to your liking (I made mine pretty saucy in order to be easily drizzled on the potato). Mix in the roasted sesame seeds and then set the sauce aside.

Next, preheat some vegetable oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Place the capers in a small bowl and cover them with water to rinse off the brine. Rinse and drain very well, patting dry with a paper towel. You don’t want to add excess water to a pot of oil, trust me. That can be dangerous, so make sure you pat the capers dry.

Once the oil is shimmering and ready for frying, using a fine mesh strainer or slotted spoon, add the capers to the oil and fry. They’re going to sizzle frantically and pop, which is normal. Fry them until the bubbles slow down and the start to burst open, about 2-4 minutes. Remove and drain on a paper towel lined plate. Set aside.

By now, the potatoes should be cool enough to handle. Cut a slit down the middle like you normally would serve a whole baked sweet potato and then using a spoon, split the potato open and smash it down a little bit, spreading the potato out into random sized chunks. Drizzle with more olive oil and place back in the oven for another 30 minutes so they can get all caramelized and deepened in color and concentrated in flavor. Some of the edges are going to be charred and that’s okay, that’s going to be a great contrast of flavor when you eat everything together. Once the sweet potatoes are ready, remove them from the oven and carefully serve one potato per person.

Drizzle all over with the zesty tahini sauce, additional toasted sesame seeds, fried capers, and hand torn cilantro.

¡Buen provecho!