Listen, I love sweet potato fries. SO much. And while of course, there's going to be a recipe for those here, this is actually an ode to another thing I love: dipping sauce for sweet potato fries. The most common is definitely the tried and true (and delicious) smoky chipotle dipping sauce. It's amazing, but there are many, many other combinations of interesting flavour to experiment with. So we're going to walk through (with video) how to create
your basic (base) sauce, and then talk about the flavor combinations you can use to build each different sauce. I'm so excited.
NINE different dipping sauces for sweet potato fries. I'm in heaven.
Make the Aioli for your Sweet Potato Fries
The aioli is going to serve as your base for *most* of these dipping sauces. And by the way, it's totally delicious and easy to make - you may never go back to mayo again.
What is Aioli?
Aioli can mean different things to different people, but I'm hear to tell you: it's the fancy gourmet word mayonnaise. For me, aioli is always a homemade version of mayo, but it doesn't necessarily have to be (see the shortcut versions below for making quick aioli). The other thing that has to be happening for me in aioli is different flavors - even if it's just garlic. Let's make it a little fancier than your traditional mayo no? Otherwise, what's the point?
Aioli is made by emulsifying egg, oil, and a little Dijon to help with that emulsification process. Basically, the trickiest part about making your own is making sure you add the oil incredibly slowly so the mixture thickens, rather than having all the ingredients sit on top of each other separately. It's the same idea of what happens with salad dressing.
We're using a neutral flavored oil here, but you can definitely use olive oil. Just keep in mind it will leave a distinct flavor behind, so make sure whatever you're combining it with is going to work. Also - aioli almost always contains raw garlic as flavoring. Again, we're not doing that here so we can have a blank slate for whatever other flavors we want.
What makes it the Best Dipping Sauce for Sweet Potato Fries?
Two things: the incredibly delicious base flavor, and versatility. This aioli is going to create the best base for your sweet potato dipping sauce, and I've provided lots of suggestions below. BUT you're going to then know how to create any kind of dip that your heart desires. If you can dream up the flavor combo, then you can do it here!
How to Make Aioli for Your Dipping Sauce
Let's do this together. I'm going to use my immersion blender. It literally takes 3.5 seconds to make your homemade aioli this way. You could also work with stand mixer, or hand beaters (although I haven't tried this yet). I do know you can whisk it by hand - it works, but it takes an incredibly long time (and arm strength, which lolz in my case).
If you're using a whisk in any fashion you absolutely have to add the oil super slowly. Almost a couple of drops at a time. If you add it too quickly, there's no going back. It won't all of a sudden thicken up for you. STAY STRONG.
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LOOK HOW EASY THIS IS!!!
Best Dipping Sauce Combos:
Here we go - these are some of my favourite combinations. They all start with the basic aioli we just made, and then we build from there. I've separated them into three categories: gourmet (this is The Gourmet Bon Vivant, after all), sweet and spicy. In my ideal world, if we were having sweet potato fries as an appetizer, at least three of these sides would be an option for variety. If it's serving as a side dish, one would be totally fine.
Gourmet Sauces
- Roasted Garlic & Parmesan: 1 cup of basic aioli + 1 bulb roasted garlic + ½ C grated parmesan
- Truffle & Black Pepper: 1 cup basic aioli + 2 teaspoon truffle oil + 2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
- Lemon and Dill: 1 cup basic aioli + juice of half a lemon + zest of one lemon + ¼ cup fresh dill
- Rosemary: 1 cup basic aioli + 3 tablespoon roughly chopped fresh rosemary + 1 teaspoon black pepper
Sweet Sauces
- Cranberry: 1 cup basic aioli + ½ cup burst cranberries (or ¼ cup cranberry sauce)
- Toasted Marshmallow: The only one that doesn't start with aioli! ¼ cup heavy whipping cream + 10 toasted marshmallows + a blow torch for the top at the end (note, this one MUST be eaten warm. The marshmallows start to firm up as they cool. *I'm going to put the recipe for this in the actual recipe card, along with the aioli.*
- Maple Cinnamon: 1 cup basic aioli + 3 tbsp. maple syrup + 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Spicy Sauces
- Smoky Chipotle: 1 cup basic aioli + 1 chili pepper in adobo sauce (finely chopped), + 1 teaspoon chipotle chili powder + juice of half a lime
- Wasabi: 1 cup basic aioli + 1 tablespoon wasabi paste + 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
And that's it! Other than the toasted marshmallow sauce, all you need to do is mix these ingredients together, and best dipping sauces ever are made!
FYI - in all of these sauces, feel free to experiment with the ratios. If you like a sweeter dip, then add more maple syrup. Craving spice? Throw another chipotle in there. These are really just guidelines to serve as inspiration to get you started.
How to Make Multiple Sauces from One Aioli Recipe
Ok, this may seem obvious, but I'm going to put it in here anyway. For the amount of aioli this basic recipe makes, I'm going to recommend you not try and split into more than three different sauces. That should leave about ⅓ cup for each of them. After that, you just need to roughly divide the other ingredients by three and you should be good to go.
The Hack for any Sweet Potato Dipping Sauce
The shortcut version (again, everything except the toasted marshmallow) is to replace the cup of aioli with a cup of your favourite mayo - and keep everything else the same. That's it! You're done!
Can the Sweet Potato Dipping Sauce be Made Ahead?
Yes, absolutely. In fact, the longer the flavors hang out together, the better it will be. You can definitely also make the aioli ahead of time, just make sure you store it in the fridge. It'll keep for about a week.
How to Make Sweet Potato Fries
Ok, now you have all these fabulous sweet potato fry dipping sauces, let's move on to the fries themselves. Baking sweet potato fries luckily isn't too difficult, but there's a couple things you can do to up your chances of crispy, crunchy exteriors with soft and creamy interiors.
Cutting the Sweet Potatoes
This is really important. We're going to cut the sweet potato fries as thin and skinny as we possibly can. This is going to allow us to cook them quickly and at a high heat - which is exactly what we need to get them crispy. No low and slow here.
Soaking
This is a really important part of any fry making process, sweet potato or not. Soaking the raw potatoes in cold water for at least an hour before they go in the oven draws out the starch, which is what causes them to go soggy in the middle and on the edges. Soaking helps the fries stay light and creamy on the inside, and crispy crunchy on the outsides. Don't skip this step, even if you're tempted (I am always temped to cut corners. And I am always burned for it).
Important: Once the fries are done soaking they also need to be as dry as humanly possible. I would suggest getting most of the excess water out with a dish towel, spreading them in an even layer on a cooling rack, and letting them air dry for at least 30 minutes (but the longer, the better).
Coating
If you've done the above steps right, we don't need much in terms of coating. We're going to use olive oil for the fat content, and cornstarch to give them a little bit of a crust. Oh, and salt, obviously. And that's it, we're not going to do anything else.
Baking
Like I mentioned before, we're going for high heat and a fast cooking time. 450F for 15 minutes should be perfect. If you've cut your fries to thick, this is not going to work. The insides will be raw and the outsides burnt.
Spread the fries evenly in a single layer on a large baking sheet. Use two if you have to. If we crowd the fries to much, they will start to steam, and they will never be crispy.
What to Serve
Sweet potato fries can be a great side to so many foods, or an awesome appetizer all on their own. Here's what I love pairing them with:
Simple and Flavorful Cilantro Chicken Soup with Lime
Classic Fish Sandwiches with Tartar Sauce
Chicken Bacon Ranch Burgers
Cast Iron Rib-Eye Steak with Blistered Grapes
Ok are we ready? Let's do this.
