These soft and crispy oil-free sweet potato fries are tossed with fragrant spices and baked to perfection! Customizable and incredibly easy to make, they are a healthy and delicious kid-friendly side dish.
If you’ve been enjoying savory and spicy finger food, you need to try these oil-free sweet potato fries! Perfectly dippable, lower in calories and fun to eat, they are among the best vegan side dishes we’ve come across.
Especially when served alongside our stuffed kidney bean burgers in fluffy whole wheat buns or drizzled with creamy cashew sour cream, our oven-baked oil-free sweet potato fries definitely contribute to the perfect weekend family dinner!
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Our delicious side dish is full of flavor, almost fat-free and secretly healthy — no deep frying required to obtain the perfect texture!
Let’s take a look at this classic comfort food gone whole food plant-based together.
Overview & recipe features
- Delicious way to eat more vegetables
- Packed with flavor and nutrients
- Crispy, salty and tender on the inside
- Gluten-free, vegan & oil-free
- Easy to make and customize
- Few ingredients needed
- Family-friendly and filling
Our oil-free sweet potato fries are baked to perfection, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside — basically everything you want a potato to be.
Sounds good? In terms of kitchen tools, you will need a chopping board, sharp knife and a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Let’s check out what goes into these oil-free sweet potato fries!
Ingredients needed
- Sweet potatoes
- Salt
- Garlic powder
- Chili powder
- Cumin
You can find the exact amounts in the recipe card below. If you’re not fond of any of these spices, you can swap them for anything else you like!
We’ll share some customization ideas and tips for the best oil-free sweet potato fries in a bit.
How to make oil-free sweet potato fries
Preparation
Before you start, preheat your oven to 400 °F (200 °C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Get a cutting board and sharp knife.
Wash & slice sweet potatoes
Wash your sweet potatoes and decide whether or not you want to peel them. If you’re serving picky eaters, you probably want to remove the skin but it’s also the part that can crisp up the most in the oven!
Put your first prepared sweet potato on your cutting board and slice it into long, thin strips. Be sure that they are somewhat uniformly sized so that they bake evenly. Repeat until all sweet potatoes are cut.
Arrange & spice them
Place your sliced sweet potato fries either on your baking sheet or in a bowl. Add all the spices and salt, then toss to coat all of the strips until they are well-coated.
Now, arrange them into a single layer on the baking sheet.
Bake & enjoy
Put your baking sheet into the preheated oven and bake your oil-free sweet potato fries for around 30 minutes until they are lightly brown and crispy.
To ensure they bake evenly, you can flip the sweet potato fries after 20 minutes of baking. Once the fries are done, remove them and let them cool slightly before serving!
Serving suggestions
Although we sometimes enjoy these baked sweet potato fries alongside a colorful salad without any dipping sauce, nothing can beat the combination of salty, crispy fries and a creamy dip.
Our favorite healthy dips
- Vegan ketchup
- Herby tofu ranch
- Oil-free hummus
- Homemade vegan mayonnaise
- Greek yogurt sauce
- Vegan cheese sauce
- Cashew sour cream dip
They also go well with baked cauliflower bites, collard wraps, some slices of lentil loaf, a vegan sandwich or falafel tacos.
More ideas include putting the fries in burritos or wraps, loading them with beans and vegan nacho cheese or having them with some soup or bean chili.
Tips & adjustments
How to store these oil-free sweet potato fries
Unfortunately, the fries need to be eaten soon after baking because they will get soggy otherwise.
If you don’t mind that texture, you can throw them into a Buddha bowl or something similar the next day!
Should I use peeled or unpeeled sweet potatoes?
Depending on your taste preference, you can just scrub the sweet potatoes and leave the skin on — it offers additional health benefits, can help with the crispiness and frankly, is just less work.
However, if you personally don’t like the skin or are catering to picky eaters, you might want to take the time and peel them first.
Can I make oil-free baked wedges?
Sure, the shape and size of your sweet potatoes or potatoes are entirely up to you!
Larger fries and thicker wedges take longer to bake and come out softer while thinner ones will be very crispy.
You can also cut the sweet potatoes into cubes or rounds! This makes your baked root veggie super versatile and easy to throw into different plant-based bowls or salads.
By the way, instead of orange sweet potatoes, you can go for purple or Japanese varieties, use russet potatoes, red or yellow potatoes, yams or even parsnips to create healthy fat-free fries!
Are fries usually vegan?
Most of them, luckily, are vegan. But in some cases, they can contain beef fat or are fried using the same oil as chicken wings or other animal products!
When eating out at any non-vegan place, you need to accept that there is very likely some food contamination going on and traces of meat or dairy products can be found on or in your food.
If you buy frozen fries at the store, you can check the label for non-vegan ingredients; most of them will, at least accidentally, be vegan.
What are the benefits of oil-free sweet potato fries?
The most obvious difference between traditional and oil-free sweet potato fries is that the latter are lower in fat and calories.
Once heated and especially when deep-fried, oil can create trans fats which should be kept to a minimum in our diet.
Munching on these oil-free sweet potato fries contributes more to healthy weight loss or maintenance compared to many other snacks, plus they are rich in fiber, vitamin A and vitamin C.
However, you can spray some oil on your fries before baking them for some added crispiness and extra calories — something that can be important when feeding kids a plant-based diet.
More flavor options
Experiment with different seasonings, such as black pepper, onion powder, paprika, smoked paprika, thyme, nutritional yeast or curry.
Plus, you can make a sweet version using cinnamon and a pinch of brown sugar!
More easy vegan side dishes
- Healthy Vegan Grilled Cheese
- Potato Vegetable Croquettes
- Veggie Chips
- Vegan Chicken Wings
- Gluten-Free Cornbread
Did you make our oil-free sweet potato fries? Please share with us in the comments below and leave a rating. Make sure to Pin the baked fries here and tag us on Instagram so we can see your creations!
Ingredients
- 4 medium sweet potatoes (1.15 lbs / 520 g)
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 2 tsp cumin powder
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 °F (200 °C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Peel the sweet potatoes (or leave the skin on if you like) and get a sharp knife.
- Cut the sweet potatoes lengthwise into thick slices and place them next to each other on your baking sheet.
- Add the spices and salt, then toss to coat the fries evenly.
- Alternatively, you can place the sweet potato fries in a bag or large bowl and shake until the fries are well-coated.
- Now, arrange the strips into a single layer and bake for 30 minutes, until they are lightly brown and crispy. To ensure they bake evenly, you can flip the sweet potato fries after 20 minutes.
- Once your oil-free sweet potato fries are done, remove them from the oven and serve warm alongside some vegan dips.
Notes
- Instead of orange sweet potatoes, you can use any other variety — even good old white potatoes taste wonderful when spiced and baked into crispy fries in the oven.
- Use your favorite spices, such as smoked paprika, curry powder or even nutritional yeast sprinkled on your sweet potato fries! You can also create a sweet version using cinnamon which makes for a really healthy breakfast or snack.
- Slice the sweet potatoes very thin to make them crispier!
- Find more tips around this recipe in the article above.
turned out great without oil
Question about the sour cream dip: What can I substitute for cashews? I’m allergic to tree nuts and peanuts, so cashews are definitely off limits. I appreciate you posting the recipe though. Store bought vegan sour cream is impossible to find in the area I live in. Our choices are basically Walmart, Winn-Dixie, Save-a-Lot, Publix, and Bravo and none of them sell it.
Hey Laney,
thanks for the question! We have made vegan sour cream using silken tofu (swapping it 1:1) but it tastes slightly different. Alternatively, try this garlic yogurt sauce for a dip: http://nutriciously.com/vegan-yogurt-dressing/
Hope this helps :)
Just found your website – it’s like my dream site! Healthy wfpb recipes and nutrition ! Love it! Xx
thanks so much for the lovely comment! happy to have you :)
I’m new to the wfpb world. So please excuse my ignorance. Since there’s no oil how will the spices be able to stick to the potatoes? Does water or vegetable broth need to be used instead?
Hey Steph,
welcome to the community :) When cutting sweet potatoes, they release a bit of water which allows for the spices to stick to them. If that isn’t enough, though, add a splash of water or lemon juice!
Enjoy your delicious food x
Try using aquafaba in place of oil…we feel it works much better than water for adhering the spices to the fries, and even seems to crisp the fries up more like oil would in the oven. I often make these with some kind of bean burgers, so I just use some of the liquid from the beans for the fries.