America's Test Kitchen LogoCook's Country LogoCook's Illustrated Logo

Substituting White Sweet Potatoes for Regular

Some supermarkets sell white sweet potatoes. Can they be used interchangably with ordinary sweet potatoes?

Some supermarkets sell white sweet potatoes. Can they be used interchangably with ordinary sweet potatoes?

As is true with many edible plants, there are many varieties of sweet potatoes, all with different characteristics. Common sweet potato cultivars in the United States—like Beauregard, Garnet, and Jewel—have yellow or orange flesh; a moist, creamy texture; and a pumpkin-y sweetness. Nearly everywhere else in the world, the prevailing sweet potato cultivars are lighter-fleshed. In the United states, light-fleshed varieties like Hanna, Jersey White, and Golden Sweet are becoming more widely available in supermarkets. We tasted both white- and orange-fleshed varieties in our recipes for Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges and Sweet Potato Salad and found that the lighter varieties were drier and starchier than the moister, creamier orange varieties, but all worked. As with their orange-fleshed cousins, white-fleshed sweet potatoes vary in sweetness from one variety to another, and grocery stores don’t always specify which cultivar is on offer.

THE BOTTOM LINE: White-fleshed sweet potatoes tend to be slightly firmer and starchier than orange-fleshed ones, but it is fine to substitute one for the other in recipes.

This is a members' feature.