I wake up and my very first thought is usually: food. More specifically: sugar. And if you're like me, you need some sort of strategy to avoid giving in to your desire to eat sugary, cake-like muffins every morning. My salvation came when I realized that if you mash up a sweet potato and add some coconut milk, nut butter, seeds, and fruit on top, you've got a deliciously sweet breakfast on your hands—without resorting to refined flour or sugar.
How to Make Healthy Baked Oatmeal Cups
I must have realized that you could eat a sweet potato for breakfast in a bowl like oatmeal when I saw it on someone's paleo blog. Like cauliflower, sweet potatoes are one of those foods that can be a tremendous consolation when you've removed all pleasure in the form of grains and legumes and dairy from your life. But frankly, I couldn't care less that sweet potatoes are paleo-friendly. I prefer not to think of a sweet potato bowl as a substitute for oatmeal, but as a beautiful, healthy breakfast in and of itself.
And while a bowl of warm mashed sweet potato is deliciously comforting with just a sprinkle of salt and a pat of butter, it also takes really well to the pumpkin spice flavors that are floating around this time of year. Add a dash of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, and/or clove and it's like you're eating sweet potato pie for breakfast. Best of all, it doesn't take much effort to throw together at all. If you, like me, have a ton of trouble getting out of bed every morning, a warming bowl of food that's sweet and delicious and will make you feel good too might be just the enticement you need. Here's how to make a sweet potato breakfast bowl:
1. Roast a Sweet Potato (or Microwave it)
Scrub a medium sweet potato (or a few), pierce all over with a fork, and then place on a foil-lined baking sheet and roast at 400F until nice and soft and perfectly mashable, 45 to 55 minutes. You can do this as soon as you wake up in the morning, but if you're setting 5–10 alarms and ultimately only rousing yourself from your bed with exactly enough time to put on clothes, this breakfast still isn't off limits to you! Simply roast your sweet potato the night before and then stash in the fridge. A quick reheating in the morning via the microwave at home or at work will do just fine! You can also just poke holes in your sweet potato and cook it in the microwave on a plate—8 to 12 minutes on high (turning once halfway through) should do the trick.
2. Mash your sweet potato
Once your sweet potato is cooked, slice it open and scrape the fresh into the bowl you'd like to eat it in, then mash to your desired texture. Of course, eating the sweet potato skin is nutritious too—just place the whole cooked sweet potato, skin and all, into your bowl and mash just the insides.
3. Pour milk on top and add toppings
Just like you'd pour some milk over the top of your oatmeal, you can add it to your sweet potato to make it feel like a nice, warm breakfast cereal. I like coconut milk best, and nut milk is my second choice. But, you can definitely add dairy milk as well. Stir in a drizzle and swirl it in as much as you desire. Then, you're free to add whatever toppings you'd like. As I mentioned before, this breakfast gets a boost of autumnal flavor if you add spices like cinnamon, or nutmeg, or even a homemade pumpkin spice mix. I like adding any kind of nut butter, or chopped nuts. I also love unsweetened coconut flakes, and chopped dried dates or figs. But, you can add sliced banana, diced apple, or even blueberries if you want (strawberries and raspberries seem weird to me with sweet potato, but you do you). Dried fruit like currants or raisins would also be nice.
Most things that you'd throw in your oatmeal for added nutrition and deliciousness would work here, like chia seeds or ground flax. And of course, if you want to add in some healthy whole grains, you could totally cook up some oatmeal and stir it into the sweet potato for an extra-rich bowl of autumn goodness.
