Oil-Free Sweet Potato Fries

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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.

Contents show

white table with a speckled plate full of oil-free sweet potato fries one of which is being dipped in cashew sour cream

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!

white table with different white bowls that have colorful spices in it and two hands peeling a sweet potato

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.

woman in blue shirt staning at a white table and cutting orange sweet potato into slices

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.

white table with a baking dish lined with parchment paper in which are lots of sliced and spiced orange sweet potatoes

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!

white table with some newspaper and parchment paper on which lay a bunch of crispy baked sweet potato fries next to some BBQ sauce and cashew sour cream

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

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.

top view of a white table with some vegan BBQ sauce, baked sweet potato fries and two homemade stuffed vegan burgers on some parchment paper

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!

white speckled bowl with two handfuls of homemade oil-free parsnip 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.

white table with some paper and a plate with oil-free orange sweet potato fries one of which is being dipped into vegan sour cream by a hand

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

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!