These Stuffed Sweet Potatoes are like individual Shepherd's pies. The sweet potato skins have a ground beef filling with a Southwestern spin. The sweet potato mash is piped on top of each loaded sweet potato boat.
Make these stunning Shepherd's Pie sweet potato skins as an appetizer for your next gathering or serve them as a main dish with a big green salad on the side.
How to Make these Shepherd's Pie Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
There are a few things to do to make these shepherd's pie stuffed sweet potatoes, but they are very easy! You start with cooking the sweet potatoes and then making a mash out of the cooked flesh. There is also a shepherd's pie filling that you create to stuff into the potato skins before baking until the skins are crispy and delicious.
Similar to double-baked potatoes, you will halve the cooked sweet potatoes and scoop out the flesh. You want to leave some potato in the skin as it will help give it a little more structure to hold all your filling. The sweet potato filling will then turn into a fluffy mash with some milk and butter.
After crisping up your potato skins in the oven, you will fill them with a flavourful ground beef mixture. To make this, simply brown the onion followed by the beef. Next, you add some broth, taco seasoning, and bell pepper to cook until soft. Then the ½ cup frozen corn and ½ cup black beans go in, as these only need a quick warm through.
You can use canned black beans for this or even cook your own from dried black beans. The filling goes into the crispy sweet potato skins before being topped with sweet potato mash and baked on a baking sheet until golden for mini shepherd's pies.
I like to pipe the sweet potato mash on top with a star-shaped piping tip. This gives the stuffed sweet potatoes a more elegant finish, but of course, you could simply spoon the mash on top, too.
How to Make Sweet Potato Mash?
You can cook the potatoes in a few ways including an Instant Pot, microwave, or oven. Whatever method you choose will produce excellent results, so it is entirely up to you! Cooking the baked sweet potatoes in the microwave is the fastest as they should only take about 5 minutes to soften. Cooking in the oven will take the longest at 40 to 60 minutes.
Next, you halve the sweet potatoes and scoop out the flesh. Use a potato masher or fork to mash the hot sweet potato with milk, butter, and salt. The quantity of milk will depend on the moisture content of your sweet potatoes. Use just enough to make a smooth sweet potato mash.
Is a Sweet Potato Enough for Dinner?
Why not? These stuffed sweet potatoes comprise of quality protein via meat and black beans in a nutrient-rich sweet potato skin ensuring that you have something balanced on your plate. Plus, you would normally eat Shepherds pie for dinner, so why not in this stuffed potato form? If you want to make the meal a little more substantial, though, you could add a green salad to round out your meal.
Sweet potatoes are among the most nutritious of plant foods because they contain significant amounts of vitamins and minerals. In fact, 1 cup of sweet potato should give you well over your daily-recommended intake of vitamin A. Other noteworthy nutrients are vitamin C, manganese, potassium, fiber, and vitamin B6.
The addition of rich beef, black beans, and spices will make the sweet potato even more satisfying. Sometimes these bright orange sweet potatoes can be a little too sweet for people's liking, but the taco seasoning, meat, and black beans really help keep them in savoury land. If you have any family members who don't normally love these bright orange vegetables, you may win them over with this sweet potato recipe.
Can I Make Stuffed Potatoes on the Grill?
Sometimes it gets too hot in the house to make a dish like this shepherd's pie stuffed sweet potatoes recipe. You might even be at a holiday property where you don't have access to an oven. In those cases, you can use a grill to make these baked sweet potatoes just like you would with regular potatoes.
When you start your grill, you can preheat it to 400° F as you would with the oven. Everyone's grills are a little different. Generally, though, turning it up high to start and reducing the heat to the lower end once you hit 400° F should help you maintain a consistent temperature. You can bake your potatoes whole on the grill before proceeding with the other steps. You will want to keep the lid closed in order to imitate the oven method effectively. The cook time should be very similar if you can maintain your grilling temperature.
You can even make the filling on the grill if you have an ovenproof skillet. A heavy-bottomed cast iron pan works great for this.
Can I Make Stuffed Sweet Potatoes in Advance?
These shepherd's pie stuffed sweet potatoes work very well if prepared in advance of when you intend to serve them. Your first option could be to cook the sweet potatoes, followed by the mashing the flesh, and cooking filling. You could then store these separately in the fridge until you are ready to assemble and bake them. This method is ideal because you can crisp the skins separately and ensure they have some texture like baked potatoes. If you assemble them completely, they may become soggy when re-heated.
Of course, you could simply put the sweet potatoes together in their entirety. In this case, assemble them only up to the point of piping the potato. You can allow them to cool and place them in the fridge before baking the next day to warm through.
You can even prepare these for the freezer so that you can have them quickly on a busy night. To do this, allow them to cool completely once assembled, but don't bake them the second time. Next, place them on a baking sheet in an even layer and in the freezer to quickly set. If you wrap them or put them in freezer bags before doing this, you may ruin your pretty piping. Afterward, you can put them in freezer containers or bags without the worry that you will ruin their appearance.
To reheat, you can thaw them or cook them from frozen. The main difference between these two choices will be the total time that it will take for the potatoes to warm through. I recommend thawing them overnight in the fridge and then proceeding with the second bake in this recipe.
Random Questions
The stuffed sweet potatoes consist of a blend of sweet potato mash and a flavorful ground beef mixture that includes onions, broth, taco seasoning, bell pepper, frozen corn, and black beans.
For delicious toppings, consider adding cheese, sour cream, green onions, or chopped fresh cilantro. These toppings can add extra flavor and texture to your stuffed sweet potatoes.
Stuffed sweet potatoes pair well with a big green salad on the side. The combination of the sweet potatoes and the salad ensures a well-balanced and nutritious meal.
Soaking sweet potatoes before baking is not necessary. Simply cook them using an Instant Pot, microwave, or oven, depending on your preference and available equipment.
To enhance the flavor of sweet potatoes, consider adding complementary ingredients like milk, butter, and salt to create a smooth and flavorful sweet potato mash. Additionally, incorporating taco seasoning, beef, and black beans can help balance the sweetness of the potatoes.
Other Sweet Potato Recipes You'll Love:
Recipe
Shepherd's Pie Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients
- 4 small-medium sweet potatoes
- oil
- sea salt and black pepper
Sweet Potato Mash:
- ¼ - ½ cup milk of choice almond, coconut, dairy
- 2-½ tablespoons butter
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
Filling:
- 1 tablespoon oil
- ½ onion diced
- 8 ounces ground beef
- ¼ cup broth
- 2 tablespoons taco seasoning
- ½ cup diced bell pepper
- ½ cup frozen corn thawed
- ½ cup black beans
Instructions
- Cook the sweet potatoes until soft.
- Instant Pot: I cooked mine in the Instant Pot on a trivet over 1 cup of water for 18 minutes on high pressure.
- Microwave: Pierce the sweet potatoes several times with a fork and microwave for about 5 minutes until soft.
- Oven: Pierce the sweet potatoes with a fork and bake at 400° F until soft throughout; depending on size this can take 40-60 minutes.
- Once the cooked sweet potatoes are cool enough to handle, cut them in half and scoop out the soft flesh with a spoon; leaving about ¼-inch from the edges. Add the flesh to a bowl together with butter, salt and as much milk as needed and combine with a potato masher or fork until smooth and combined. Fill the sweet potato mash into a piping bag fitted with a large star tip and set aside.
- Preheat your oven to 400° F. Place the sweet potato skins on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Brush with oil from all sides and season with salt and pepper. Bake for about 20 minutes to crispen the skins.
- In the meantime, prepare the Shepherd's Pie filling. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a skillet and soften the diced onion. Then add the ground beef and cook while breaking it up with a spatula. When the beef is browned, add broth, taco seasoning, and bell pepper. Cook until pepper has softened, then stir in corn and black beans and continue cooking until heated through.
- Place the ground beef mixture into the crispened sweet potato skins. Pipe the mashed sweet potatoes over top in a zigzag swirl pattern.
- Return to the oven for 15-20 minutes until everything is heated though and the sweet potato swirl starts to brown on the edges. You can also turn on the broiler in the last minutes to achieve the browed edges.
- Sprinkle with chopped parsley or cilantro. Serve while hot.
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