Sweet potatoes are a nutritious vegetable. They’re extremely versatile. Many people actually prefer sweet potatoes over normal potatoes as they taste slightly stronger but sweeter. They also have a softer texture.
Knowing what meat goes with sweet potatoes can transform your weekly meals! In this article we provide multiple recipes to use when pairing meats with sweet potatoes.
Table of Contents
- What To Eat With Sweet Potatoes As A Side
- What Main Dish Goes With Sweet Potatoes
- What Meat Goes With Baked Sweet Potatoes
- What Meat Goes Well With Sweet Potato Fries
- What Meat Goes Well With Mashed Sweet Potatoes
- Sweet Potatoes Can Pair With Pretty Much Anything!
- FAQs
What To Eat With Sweet Potatoes As A Side
Sweet potatoes are a great alternative to normal white potatoes and can provide their own stamp on a meal. You can eat sweet potatoes as a side of many meat dishes.
Here are a list of ways you can eat sweet potatoes as a side:
- Pair with pork in the form of sausages, bacon or pulled pork.
- Pair with chicken in dishes such as roast dinners, chicken fajitas or chicken strips.
- Pair with beef in the form of steak, cottage pie or meatballs.
- Pair with fish dishes such as salmon, cod and halibut.

What Main Dish Goes With Sweet Potatoes
There are plenty of meals with sweet potatoes that are easy to prepare and cook. Beef is one of the best paired meats with sweet potatoes. A fantastic main dish combination that pairs nicely with sweet potatoes is cottage pie.
Here is a simple step by step recipe to follow to make cottage pie with sweet potatoes:
You will need:
- 5 sweet potatoes
- 500g minced beef
- vegetable stock
- 2 onions, white or red
- 5 slices of bacon
- salt and black pepper
How to make:
- Step 1: Preheat the oven to 190 C. Wash and peel the sweet potatoes and place in a pan of water that is simmering. Leave the potatoes to simmer until they are soft. While you wait for the sweet potatoes to cook, prepare the beef.
- Step 2: Dice the onions and cut the bacon into small pieces.
- Step 3: Add oil to a frying pan or skillet on medium heat. Add the mince and stir consistently.
- Step 4: After 10 minutes, add the bacon and onions to the pan and leave for 20 minutes to cook.
- Step 5: Once the mince has fully browned, the bacon is pink and onions are soft, add the vegetable stock. Season with salt and black pepper.
- Step 6: Drain the sweet potatoes and mash them in the pan.
- Step 7: Add the beef mixture to a baking tray and place a layer of sweet potato mash on top.
- Step 8: Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Once the sweet potatoes look slightly crispy on top, remove from the oven and serve.
What Meat Goes With Baked Sweet Potatoes
What meat goes well with baked sweet potatoes? Pretty much anything!
Sweet potatoes are such a classic side ingredient dish that every meat can pair really nicely.
Specifically for baked sweet potatoes we would recommend either mince beef, chicken, ham or bacon. All of these meats when used separately as a topper for baked sweet potatoes bring out the sweetness in the potato and add a strong flavour to the dish.
We have a recipe for chicken fajita filling that will pair beautifully with baked sweet potato and should be a quick answer to the question of what to eat with baked sweet potatoes.
Follow this step by step method to make a chicken fajita filling for your baked sweet potato:
You will need:
- 500g boneless chicken thigh meat, diced.
- 2 onions
- 4 bell peppers – either red, green or orange.
- chopped fresh coriander
- 4 sweet potatoes
- olive oil
- 2 tsp chili powder
- juice 1 lemon
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- black pepper
- salt
- Step 1: Pre-heat the oven to 190°C.
- Step 2: Wash and prick the sweet potatoes evenly using a fork. Dip the sweet potatoes in olive oil and season with black pepper and salt.
- Step 3: Bake each potato for 50 minutes or until soft.
- Step 4: Use a separate bowl and combine the lemon juice, chili powder, garlic powder, cumin, 1 teaspoon of olive oil and seasoning.
- Step 5: Spilt the combined sauce into two bowls. In the first bowl, add the chick thigh that is diced.
- Step 6: Add sliced bell peppers and diced onion to the chick thigh.
- Step 7: Add the chicken thigh mixture to a frying pan or skillet that is on a medium heat. Cook for 20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the bell peppers are soft. Add the chopped coriander.
- Step 8: Half the baked sweet potato lengthways and add the chicken fajita mixture inside the baked potato.
What Meat Goes Well With Sweet Potato Fries
Sweet potato fries are by far the most popular way to cook and eat sweet potatoes. You will most likely find sweet potato fries on any trendy restaurant’s menu. Sweet potato fries can be ordered as a side and eaten alone with sauces such as mayonnaise and ketchup. Sweet potato fries are often heavily seasoned with fresh herbs to make them taste even better.
What kind of hamburger meat goes with sweet potatoes? As sweet potato fries are the most common form of eating sweet potatoes, they pair nicely with lots of different types of meat dishes.
Here is a list of ideas of what to eat with sweet potato fries:
- Crispy KFC style chicken strips paired with seasoned sweet potato fries
- Hamburger or cheeseburger with seasoned sweet potato fries
- Turkey burger with seasoned sweet potato fries as a side
- Chicken burger with seasoned sweet potato fries as a side
- Pulled pork bap or sandwiches with seasoned sweet potato fries as a side
- Steak and seasoned sweet potato fries as a side

What Meat Goes Well With Mashed Sweet Potatoes
What does sweet potato pair well with? Just like normal potatoes, sweet potatoes are a versatile vegetable that can fit within many meals and recipes. Sweet potatoes provide a sweeter and softer taste than normal potatoes and therefore pair really nicely with meats like turkey and chicken.
Cooking sweet potatoes as mash is one of the most popular ways to eat sweet potatoes and can occur in more baked recipes such as lasagne or stew.
Here is a list of the top meat dishes that are the most common answer when asked “What goes with mashed sweet potatoes?”:
- Turkey and mashed sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner
- Beef Wellington
- Meatballs and sweet potato mash
- Steak and sweet potato mash
- Meatloaf
- Fish Cakes and sweet potato mash
- Cottage Pie
Sweet Potatoes Can Pair With Pretty Much Anything!
Sweet potatoes are a great ingredient to have in your cupboard as they can pair with any meat! Whether you cook them in the style of fries, baked or mashed, sweet potatoes can add that extra sweetness to your meal.
How do you cook sweet potatoes?
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FAQs
What Protein Does Sweet Potato Go With?
Sweet potato itself is a great source of essential amino acids as it contains 7 of the 9 essential amino acids. Protein such as poultry and beef pair very nicely with sweet potatoes, along with other protein food types such as mushroom, pumpkin seeds or black beans.