Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes and chipotle is such a classic flavor combination. Bring that sweet and smokey flavor to your holiday table with these Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes.

When Hubby and I started living together in early 2004 (wow, that was almost 10 years ago), I decided to make an executive decision about the holidays. Since his family is in Connecticut, mine is in Illinois, and at the time we were living in Ohio, I decided that we’d do a 3-year rotation for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Since we obviously can’t split holidays, I wanted to just lay down the law so there wouldn’t be a discussion every fall about which family we were going to see.

The reason we do a 3-year rotation is simple. When I was young, we traveled every Christmas. I don’t think I ever woke up in my bed on Christmas morning. I wanted to make sure our future kids would have that opportunity. So for Thanksgiving and Christmas, we rotate between CT, IL, and not traveling. We made the rule at that time that if anyone wanted to come to us on the holiday we weren’t traveling, they were welcome to do so.

It has worked out well to have this plan in place as my siblings have since gotten married and had kids, there’s never a disagreement about when we’ll be where for the holidays. This year’s rotation is for us to not travel for Thanksgiving and go to IL for Christmas. So when we bought our house in the spring, I knew I wanted to host Thanksgiving at our house this year. We spread the word to our family that we were going to be hosting and people got really excited to come spend some time in our new home in Cincinnati.

These chipotle mashed sweet potatoes are one of the things I’ll be serving on Thanksgiving. They have a great smokey spiciness from the chipotles that is just strong enough to taste without being overpowering. These were really good the next day, so I might consider making them in advance and reheating them just before dinner.

Here’s a chipotle tip for you. I don’t use chipotles fast enough once I open the can. So instead, I freeze them. First, I put a layer of plastic wrap over a mini muffin pan. Then I put one chipotle with some of the sauce in each little cup. Pop it in the freezer until they’re frozen solid. Then pull the plastic wrap off the pan and put the chipotles in a ziplock bag. Now you can just pull out one chipotle at a time instead of buying a whole new can for a recipe!

Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes and chipotle is such a classic flavor combination. Bring that sweet and smokey flavor to your holiday table with these Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes.

Ingredients:

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 Tbsp butter
1 whole canned chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, chopped
1 tsp adobo sauce from can of peppers
1/2 tsp salt

Directions:

Put cubed potatoes into steamer basket and place steamer into a large pot of simmering water that is no closer than 2 inches from the bottom of basket. Allow to steam for 20 minutes or until the potatoes are fork tender.

Add butter to potatoes and mash with potato masher.

Add peppers, sauce, and salt and continue mashing to combine. Serve immediately.

Recipe from Alton Brown, via Food Network