How To Eat Sweet Potato Leaves?

How To Eat Sweet Potato Leaves
General Information – Sweet potato greens are the mildly flavored leaves of the sweet potato plant, often eaten in Asia and Africa. While sweet potatoes are more often grown for their edible tubers in the United States, in many parts of Asia and Africa, sweet potatoes are grown, at least in part, for their edible greens.

  • The greens are edible raw, but are a bit strong in flavor.
  • Try sautéing them in the place of spinach, adding them to stir-fries, or chopping them finely and adding them to salads.
  • The sweet potato dates back to prehistoric times, likely originating in the tropical climates of Peru and Ecuador.
  • These vines have a delicate texture and can be used similarly to spinach or turnip greens.

Like turnip greens, sweet potato greens are slightly bitter and tough, so are best prepared in a way that reduces that bitterness. In southern cooking, bitter greens are boiled for ages; you can vary this by using only enough water to cover the greens, bringing it to a boil, throwing in some salt and the cleaned, roughly-cut greens, and boiling for 5-7 minutes.

How do you cook sweet potato leaves for consumption?

Prepare sweet potato leaves by boiling, steaming or stir-frying to preserve nutrients. While cooking vegetables leads to slight nutrient losses, heat also helps activate some plant enzymes, vitamins and antioxidants. Get the most from your sweet potato leaves by storing them properly and cooking them for short periods of time while reserving cooking liquids for later use.

    Purchase sweet potato leaves at farmers markets or ethnic food stores, because they are usually available at supermarkets. Choose sweet potatoes with dark flesh and deep green leaves to get the most nutrients. Avoid wilted or blemished greens. Wash your greens using a small amount of water, then wrap them in a damp paper towel and cover them with a plastic bag. Use a plastic bag with holes for ventilation, and refrigerate in the crisper drawer. Rinse and chop sweet potato leaves into large chunks before cooking. Use a small amount of water to prevent nutrient loss. Slice the sweet potato leaves to remove the stems. Keep the stems to enhance fiber content, slicing them into 1/2 inch chunks. Heat the oil in the saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the greens and stir to coat them with oil to prevent sticking. Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of filtered water to the pot and stir briefly. Cover the pot and turn the heat down to medium, or use a heat setting that gives you a steady but gentle boil. Simmer just until the leaves wilt, approximately three to five minutes, depending on your altitude and type of sweet potato leaves. Remove the leaves from heat. Drain and reserve the cooking fluids and use them in soups or sauces to conserve nutrients. Drink the fluids if you prefer, but wait until they cool to a comfortable temperature. Broth from sweet potato greens is slightly bitter but also savory due to the leftover vegetable oil. Eat the leaves immediately to get the most nutrients. Serve them over brown rice or whole grain pasta and lean protein for a complete meal.

    • 1 bunch sweet potato leaves
    • Paper towel
    • Plastic bag
    • 1 tbsp. olive oil
    • Large pot with lid
    • 1/4 to 1/2 cup water
    • Alternatively, stir-fry your sweet potato leaves with fresh ginger, sesame oil and lemon juice. Stir-frying cooks foods quickly so helps reduce nutrient loss. One 100 g serving of sweet potato leaves contains 32 calories and more than 1/3 of your daily vitamin A requirement. Sweet potato leaves also have 5.8 percent of your protein needs as well as 10.6 percent of your daily riboflavin and 6 percent of your daily phosphorous intake. New Zealand Maori people traditionally used sweet potato broth to treat acne.

References Writer Bio Kristin Dorman has been writing since 1999 and has had work featured in “The Stylus,” the University of Maryland’s literary journal. She is a certified yoga instructor and teaches a “Yoga for Runners” course through community education.

Is sweet potato leaves good for health?

The lowly “talbos ng kamote ” or “sweet potato leaves” is a kind of plant (scientifically called Ipomoea Batatas ) that we always see growing in vacant lots and on the roadside anywhere we go in the Philippines. It grows all year round and doesn’t need that much maintenance because it grows wild most of the time. According to a study of the Louisiana State Agricultural Center, sweet potato leaves or “talbos ng kamote” provide ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) and Vitamin B to the body. But it also offers other vital nutrients like Vitamin A, Vitamin K, B-Carotene, B6, Thiamine, Niacin, Zinc, Riboflavin, Iron, Folic Acid, Calcium, and Protein.

  • It is an all-season vegetable with so much more to offer.
  • Here are some of the health benefits of sweet potato leaves: * Anti-Diabetes They said foods like sweet potato leaves are desired for its anti-diabetes properties and for diet therapy.
  • Several studies have already proven that this plant has anti-diabetic compounds that lower blood glucose content.
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This is advantageous to know considering that the Philippines was reported to be a diabetes hotspot now with 6 million Filipinos having diabetes in the country today. * Helps in Heart Health Sweet potato leaves have lots of Vitamin K which helps in de-calcifying arteries of hard and harmful plaque deposits, a major cause of heart attacks.

Vitamin K in sweet potato leaves also helps reduce inflammation of the cells lining the blood vessels along your veins and arteries. Including sweet potato leaves in your daily diet helps you maintain a healthy blood pressure and reduces the risk of having heart attacks. * Anti-mutagenic and Antioxidant Now, this is the most interesting quality of sweet potato leaves: they have antioxidants and antimutagenic compounds or substances that reduce the rate of mutation of cancer cells.

In fact, a study of the effects of 82 kinds of vegetables and plant compounds on the mutation and replication of cancer cells indicated that sweet potato leaves are the one with the highest cancer checking rate. * Anticoagulant The vitamin K component of sweet potato leaves facilitates the blood clotting abilities of our blood.

Sweet potato leaves are known to have this particular quality, assisting the body to help recover fast from cuts, bruises, and blood clotting problems. * Enhances Eye Health Sweet potato leaves are proven to be high in lutein and zeaxanthin (xanthophylls) which is supposed to contribute to the prevention of cataracts and Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD).

Lutein is also an antioxidant which means it prevents oxidative damage to eye lens muscles that contribute to cataracts due to old age. * Anti-bacterial An extract from the lyophilized sweet potato leaf powder from a variety of sweet potato provided antibacterial properties.

Do you have to cook sweet potato leaves?

How to cook Sweet Potato leaves – When it comes to cooking sweet potato leaves, treat them like other dark leafy greens. Here are a couple of ways that you can cook with them:

1. Raw : just like any dark leafy green you can add them to your salads 2. Sauteed : roughly chop them up and sauté them with some butter and garlic 3. Boiled : boiling sweet potato vine leaves will help remove their bitterness.4. Juiced : add them into your daily juice for a vitamin kick.

Here is a collection of our favourite sweet potato recipes,

What do sweet potato greens taste like?

Description/Taste – Sweet potato leaves are medium to large in size and are cordate, or heart-shaped with pointed tips. The leaves grow in an alternate pattern and may be palmate or known as having multiple lobes depending on the variety. Sweet potato leaves range in color from dark to yellow-green or purple and tend to be darker on the surface and lighter on the underside.

Can sweet potato leaf be eaten raw?

General Information – Sweet potato greens are the mildly flavored leaves of the sweet potato plant, often eaten in Asia and Africa. While sweet potatoes are more often grown for their edible tubers in the United States, in many parts of Asia and Africa, sweet potatoes are grown, at least in part, for their edible greens.

  1. The greens are edible raw, but are a bit strong in flavor.
  2. Try sautéing them in the place of spinach, adding them to stir-fries, or chopping them finely and adding them to salads.
  3. The sweet potato dates back to prehistoric times, likely originating in the tropical climates of Peru and Ecuador.
  4. These vines have a delicate texture and can be used similarly to spinach or turnip greens.

Like turnip greens, sweet potato greens are slightly bitter and tough, so are best prepared in a way that reduces that bitterness. In southern cooking, bitter greens are boiled for ages; you can vary this by using only enough water to cover the greens, bringing it to a boil, throwing in some salt and the cleaned, roughly-cut greens, and boiling for 5-7 minutes.

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How do you clean sweet potato leaves?

Recipe Instructions – Take your yam / sweet potato leaves and pinch off each leaf, including the stem, from the main stalk and any other tender parts of the vegetables. Wash and rinse thoroughly a couple of times and set aside to drain off any excess water before cooking. Heat the oil in a wok over medium heat. Add the garlic and ginger, and cook for about a minute. Now turn the heat to high, and add in the sweet yam leaves. Stir and add in the sesame oil, Shaoxing wine (optional), ground white pepper, water, salt (to taste) and a pinch of sugar. Stir to cook for a couple of minutes until all the leaves are wilted. Serve your healthy stir fried yam leaves immediately.

Can you freeze sweet potato leaves?

Storing Sweet Potato Leaves – The two best methods of preserving sweet potato leaves are freezing and dehydrating. In both cases, the leaves should be blanched and then shocked in ice water. Shake off any water remaining on the leaves, then freeze or dehydrate. Although it’s possible to pressure can them just as you would spinach, the taste and texture are not as good as when frozen. Text:

What parts of the sweet potato plant are edible?

The sweet potato ( Ipomoea batatas ) is a perennial herbaceous vine, usually grown as an annual in the UK. It belongs to the Convolvulaceae family. It is also known as kumara, camote, Brazilian arrowroot, kau kau and yam. Please note that the name yam is also used for a variety of other plants, particularly other edible tubers from the Dioscorea genus (Dioscoreaceae family).

How To Eat Sweet Potato Leaves
Sweet potato ( I. batatas )

The sweet potato is one of the most widely cultivated staple crops in the world. The botanical origin of its domestication remain unclear. Some suggest wild tuber-bearing populations may have been domesticated independently in South America and the Caribbean/Central America.

  1. Growing methods Plants are grown from ‘slips’ which are cuttings taken from the mature sweet potato itself.
  2. In the UK these are quite widely available for purchase from plant catalogues.
  3. More recently cell grown plants have become available which have already been rooted.
  4. Once the slips arrive they should be placed in pots with multi-purpose compost.

Keep them watered and cover with a polythene bag until they are rooted. They can then be potted on as required and planted out in May or June when the soil is warm and the risk of frost has passed. Plants do well in neutral or acid soils rich in potash.

How To Eat Sweet Potato Leaves
Once the slips have rooted plant them up in pots.

Foliage can be left to grow along the ground or trained up canes, string or frames to save space. If planting outside, cloches and fleece provide extra warmth which helps the plants thrive. Alternatively they can be grown through slits under a polythene film.

  1. Temperatures of between 23 º C and 26 º C are best for tuber production.
  2. Plants require less than 11 hours daylight to flower but daylength has little affect on the production of tubers.
  3. Plants can be overwintered in a frost-free greenhouse, polytunnel or windowsill.
  4. Tubers take four to five months to mature.

They rot if they are frozen. They don’t store very easily and so should be consumed once they have been lifted which is when the leaves turn yellow and die back. Species have been developed for growing in temperate areas such as the UK. Supermarket tubers may not produce slips as they are often treated with an anti-sprouting spray.

What happens if you trim sweet potato vines?

How To Eat Sweet Potato Leaves How To Eat Sweet Potato Leaves Cathy Isom fills you in on why you should be growing sweet potato vines for a double food harvest.

Are you supposed to trim sweet potato vines?

When to Prune Sweet Potato Vines – Sweet potato vines are grown as annual plants in most climates. They are only hardy to about 45 degrees F. Prune them back anytime their length becomes excessive. Also, cut off any damaged stems and ones that have become leggy with little foliage. If healthy, the trimmings can be placed in water and left to root to create more plants.

Are sweet potato leaves poisonous to dogs?

Symptoms of Sweet Potato Vine Poisoning in Dogs – Sweet potato vine is known for its toxic ingredients, with similar characteristics to LSD. Ingestion of the vine may have a poisonous effect on dogs. The vines are highly toxic and can adversely affect the kidneys, brain, heart or liver.

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Diarrhea Seizure Reduced heart rate Hallucination Dilated pupils Salivation and drooling Low blood pressure Numbness in the hands and the feet Drowsiness Difficulty with swallowing Liver or kidney damage Vomiting Irritation of the mouth Increased urination Gastrointestinal issues Nausea

Types There are some plants that may cause serious symptoms for pets allergic to the specific plant. There are others that may not be as toxic, but if sprayed with chemicals, it can be poisonous. For that reason, pet owners should keep pets away from gardens or areas where these plants grow. Top

Are all sweet potato vines edible?

Are ornamental sweet potatoes edible? – If you want sweet potatoes to eat, the tubers from your ornamental sweet potato vines are indeed edible. However, you’re better off choosing a variety that’s specifically developed as a food crop. That’s because sweet potato varieties for eating have a much better flavor and texture than ornamental types, which can taste bitter. PHOTO: Marty Baldwin PHOTO: Marty Baldwin

How do you clean sweet potato leaves?

Recipe Instructions – Take your yam / sweet potato leaves and pinch off each leaf, including the stem, from the main stalk and any other tender parts of the vegetables. Wash and rinse thoroughly a couple of times and set aside to drain off any excess water before cooking. Heat the oil in a wok over medium heat. Add the garlic and ginger, and cook for about a minute. Now turn the heat to high, and add in the sweet yam leaves. Stir and add in the sesame oil, Shaoxing wine (optional), ground white pepper, water, salt (to taste) and a pinch of sugar. Stir to cook for a couple of minutes until all the leaves are wilted. Serve your healthy stir fried yam leaves immediately.

Can you eat sweet potato vine leaves?

The sweet potato vine is an unexpected bonus when you’re growing sweet potatoes — sweet potato leaves are edible! And even if you don’t plan to grow them in your garden, sweet potato greens can be grown inside as an edible houseplant. For another unexpected edible green, get to know purslane ! Even if you don’t plan to grow and harvest sweet potato tubers from your garden, the leaves can be a valuable source of nutrition, especially during the cold months of winter.

What is the health benefit of yam leaf?

Yam leaves are the leaves of the perennial herbaceous vines grown for the consumption of their starchy tubers in many parts of the world, especially in West Africa, South America, the Caribbean, Asia, and Oceania. They are the edible leaves of the Ipomoea and Dioscorea families.

The leaves are harvested young and have a mild flavor and tender texture. Yam leaves are used for nutritious culinary or for medicinal purposes. These plants belong to the sweet potato family, which is why they share some of the same health benefits. Yam leaves are a good source of vitamins A, B6, C, and E, as well as minerals like potassium, phosphorus, and magnesium.

They also contain antioxidants that can help protect your body against disease. In this blog post, we will discuss the health benefits of yam leaves in more detail.

What can you do with potato leaves?

Are Sweet Potato Leaves Edible? – So, are sweet potato leaves edible? Yes, definitely! Next question: what are “camote tops?” The vines of sweet potatoes (especially the deep purple varieties), are known as camote tops (or kamote tops) in Spanish-speaking countries.

No matter what you call them – sweet potato leaves, camote tops, or kamote tops – the vines are rich and flavorful, although like most greens they may be somewhat bitter. The leaves are prepared much like spinach or turnip greens, Boiling the sweet potato vine leaves in a small amount of water removes any toughness or bitterness.

Once the sweet potato greens are tender, chop the leaves and use them in recipes or sauté them with butter and garlic, then splash the hot sweet potato greens with soy sauce or vinegar and a dash of salt.