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
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
I am really very terrible at frosting/decorating cake :\ This came out way better than anything I could make!
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:18 pm
Ha – I’m pretty bad too. That’s why I love putting stuff on the sides. Coconut does a good job of hiding my sloppy decorating skills.
Coconut and almond, you’ve already got me reeled in 🙂 two of my favorite flavors rolled into what looks like a moist, fluffy cake. YUM
This cake looks so beautiful and the texture is perfect! I love curd as a filling between cake layers but i never knew the trick for preventing it from seeping out – thanks!
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:19 pm
Yea, it’s definitely very helpful. Even more so when you ACTUALLY do it 😉
We’ve all had those cake experiences. It looks like it turned out well in the end! And it sounds delicious!
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:20 pm
Glad to hear I’m not the only one. I think it’s easy to get wrapped up in thinking we all need to project that all of our baking/cooking endeavors are hugely successful…
Regardless of any kitchen mishaps, this cake looks divine! Layer cakes always look so special, and the addition of fruit here makes me swooooon!
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:20 pm
I agree. Layer cakes always look special 🙂
Oh this looks amazing. And aren’t we all our own worst critics when we bake? I can’t tell you how many times I say something is terrible and my husband looks as me like I’m crazy.
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:21 pm
I agree. At the end of the day, it tasted delicious and no one knew about all the issues I had with the cake. I did want to keep it real on the blog and not give anyone any false sense that things are always easy for me…
I always shy away from layer cakes – yours always come out well, I need some more practice I think! Your “mistakes” are great learning points – did not know about the frosting damn, but it makes so much sense!
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:23 pm
That’s why I wanted to talk about them. I definitely could have posted about this cake without mentioning any of the issues I had. I’m hoping they’ll help someone (myself included) to learn something for the next time they tackle a layer cake. Yours will definitely improve with practice. Mine surely are. I really want to make that coconut cake you just posted!
i’m always hard on myself too, but you wouldn’t know by the taste i’m sure! looks absolutely wonderful, not to mention i’m drooling over the flavor combo 🙂
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:24 pm
I agree, I think we all are. I wanted to keep it real with this post in case anyone else found it to be a difficult set of recipes…
Yum, your cake looks so delicious and I really love the sound of the blackberry lime curd!
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:27 pm
Thanks!
I love coconut cake, and blackberries are my favorite fruit. Such a great idea to put them together. This cake is gorgeous! I would happily take a large slice . . . or maybe the whole thing 😉
beantownbaker — April 27th, 2013 @ 10:02 am
Then you would definitely love this cake!
Could anyone post the blackberry lime curd recipe? The link is no longer working.
Thanks!
beantownbaker — August 12th, 2013 @ 7:39 pm
Sorry about that. I updated the recipe link, but here it is as well: http://www.beantownbaker.com/2013/03/blackberry-lime-curd.html