How To Get Strings Out Of Sweet Potatoes

Removing strings from sweet potatoes is not just about aesthetics. It’s about enhancing the vegetable’s inherent sweetness and smooth texture. This process allows sweet potatoes to cook more evenly, bringing out their natural flavors and improving their consistency.

As a result, dishes made with sweet potatoes look more appealing, taste better, and offer a more satisfying mouthfeel. By understanding and applying the right techniques for string removal, you can significantly upgrade your culinary creations, making them stand out both in taste and presentation.

Why are there strings in your sweet potatoes?

Nobody likes stringy sweet potato pie!

A good gardening site will explain that the “strings” in sweet potatoes, the veiny-like textures, come from growing a potato in too fertile soil. As a result, the sweet potato vines will grow fast and big with long, stringy roots that cause stringy potatoes!

Is it normal for sweet potatoes to have veins?

What people are really concerned with is if you can you eat sweet potato strings?

The good news is that strings in sweet potatoes are not likely a result of anything you’ve done wrong at home! And if they don’t bother you, feel free to eat them as normal.

But if you’re using sweet potatoes to bake a sweet potato pie, you’ll want to get rid of the strings so they don’t disrupt your pie’s silky smooth texture making it hard to eat.

How do you keep your sweet potato pie from being stringy?

Strings in your sweet potatoes when baking can be a worry of the past when using an electric mixer, especially a robust one like a KitchenAid stand mixer.

Pro tip: I have both KitchenAid models, Bowl-Lift and Tilt-Head. By far, the Tilt-Head mixer is the way to go!

How do you get the stringy stuff out of sweet potatoes?

• How to get strings out of sweet potatoes with a mixer – A mixer, blender, hand-held mixer, or stand electric mixer will round up and collect the strings with the mixers or blade. Or it will dissolve the strings, making the process almost effortless.
• How to get strings out of sweet potatoes without a mixer – Without an electric mixer, the process is way more tedious. For example, you could pick the strings out individually by hand, or push the cooked sweet potatoes through a kitchen strainer or sieve with the back of a large spoon.

How do you buy sweet potatoes that are not stringy?

I have a helpful post HERE about what type of sweet potatoes are best for sweet potato pie. However, even using that guide, it’s impossible to know from the exterior whether or not you’re buying stringy sweet potatoes.

That’s because sweet potatoes can turn out stringy off the vine. Or, if stored at the wrong temperature may become stringy when cooked at home. Check out this post HERE for the best way to cook sweet potatoes for sweet potato pie.

So, you want to store sweet potatoes at temperatures between 55 to 60 degrees F to avoid this. Temps above this may be too hot and humid for these root veggies, causing them to shrivel and become dry and stringy.

Was this post about strings in sweet potatoes helpful?

Perfecting the removal of sweet potato strings is a level of detail in preparation that reflects the care and thought put into a meal, leaving a lasting impression on those who enjoy it. By embracing these kitchen hacks and culinary techniques, you not only refine your cooking skills but also enhance the overall eating experience for everyone at the table.

Whether baking, mashing, or incorporating them into a gratin, the absence of strings in sweet potatoes makes a notable difference.

Make my best sweet potato pie recipe with the best flavor! 

Like this post? Pin the below image to your Pinterest “Soul Food Recipes” board!