This holiday season, serve this super simple but beautiful and colorful dish to ‘wow’ your family and guests at your upcoming family dinner, potluck or large holiday party gathering. This plant-based Tangy Cinnamon Sweet Potato Bake will bring back all the warm fuzzy thoughts about the holidays, as the fragrant smell of sweet potatoes bathed with cinnamon and nutmeg baking in the oven spreads through the house. In fact, the first thing my step-father said when he took a bite was, “This tastes like Christmas!” I thought to myself, “Yes, bingo!” Jump to Recipe
With only seven ingredients, the secret to this festive allergy- and freezer-friendly Tangy Cinnamon Sweet Potato Bake dish is the special glazing sauce combination. It has a refreshingly light taste from the fresh orange zest that pairs beautifully with sweet potatoes and complements all the other dishes on the table!
Serve this eye catching vegan dish to complement your next celebratory meal or bring as a crowd pleaser at the next potluck or party function!
- 2 medium sweet potatoes [combined weight of 700 g]
- ½ cup dried cranberries
- ½ cup fresh orange juice with pulp (freshly squeezed orange juice and pulp from one large orange)
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 tablespoon fresh orange zest (approximately the zest from one large orange)
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup (or honey or agave nectar)
- Fresh orange slices or clementine wedges to decorate the sides of the baking dish
- Handful chopped or whole pecan nuts
-
Preheat oven to 400 F (or 200 C) and set the rack in the middle position.
-
Wash, peel and slice up the sweet potatoes into thin round pieces.
-
Slice the orange in half, squeeze out the juice, and then use a small fine holed grater to get the orange zest from the rinds.
-
Prepare the glaze sauce by whisking together the orange juice, zest, maple syrup, cinnamon and nutmeg.
-
Using an 8 inch x 8 inch glass bakeware dish (20 cm x 20 cm), place the thin sweet potato rounds to make a first layer covering the bottom of the bakeware dish. Then use a spoon to drizzle on the glazing sauce so that each sweet potato round gets some of the sauce. Finally sprinkle on a small handful of the dried cranberries.
-
Add more pieces to make a second layer of sweet potato rounds. Then repeat with drizzling the glazing sauce and sprinkling on dried cranberries.
-
If there are any sweet potato round pieces left, make a third layer and drizzle on the remaining amount of the glazing sauce and add the rest of the dried cranberries.
-
Seal the bakeware dish well with aluminum foil and then bake for approximately 40 – 45 minutes. At the 40-minute mark, remove the dish from the oven and carefully uncover the foil cover, then pierce a sweet potato round piece with a fork or knife to see if it goes through easily. If it does, the dish is done. If not, replace the foil cover and bake the dish for another 5-10 minutes or until done. Then remove the bakeware dish from the oven, uncover the aluminum foil and let cool slightly before serving.
At the 40-minute mark, you can uncover the foil carefully (to avoid hot steam escaping) and sprinkle on the pecans (optional). Then bake the dish uncovered for the last 5 minutes.
what a great idea for a sweet potato bake , this looks really awesome!
Thank you Nisha – it is a healthy and tasty festive option compared to many traditional sweet potato traditional dishes! 🙂
Great recipe Anna. Keep up the good work.
Thank you Tara for your postive feedback and support. I’ll do my best!