I love sweet potatoes. They are delicious, versatile, and super good for you. The only issue (for me anyway) is sweet potatoes take about an hour to baked in the oven. This is a problem for 2 reasons. First, I don’t have an hour after work to bake a potato. Second, I don’t want the oven on for an hour in the summer. I guess I could make the potatoes on the grill, or ahead of time on the weekends, but again I just don’t have that kind of time to dedicate just on potatoes.
Anyway, all of these thoughts have been going on in my head over the last month or so. I really love sweet potatoes and wanted to find a way to conveniently add them to my weekly meal plan. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Why don’t I just cook them in the slow cooker? Duh! I don’t know why I didn’t think of this many years ago. Seriously, sometimes I truly wonder where my brain is. It only took a second of googling to find out that preparing “baked” sweet potatoes in the slow cooker can be done!
Sweet potatoes cook for 8 hours in the slow cooker, which makes it a perfect slow cooking recipe for when you’re out of the house all day. Also, they are incredibly simple to make. All you need is potatoes and foil. Poke a few holes in the potatoes, wrap individually in foil, place in crock, and cook for 8 hours. They turn out perfect! Soft, sweet, and delicious. Seriously, my sweet potatoes turned out better in the slow cooker than trying to bake them in the oven.
I used my 6 quart Hamiliton Beach slow cooker and was able to fit 3 medium and 1 large sweet potato in the crock. The large one was for hubby 🙂 I was a little worried about the potato on top not cooking evenly but it turned out great.
Knowing that I can cook sweet potatoes in my slow cooker is such a game changer for me. Now I don’t need to worry about carving out an hour or so just to bake my sweet potato and I can easily have them available any time I want. All I need to do is throw them in the slow cooker in the morning then set it and forget it.
Here is the simple almost non-recipe. Hope you find this as helpful as I do 🙂
- 4 medium sweet potatoes or yams, scrubbed and dried
- 4 sheets of aluminum foil
- Using a fork, poke holes in the sweet potato 3 or 4 times.
- Wrap each sweet potato in foil and place in the crock pot and cover with lid. You do not need any liquid in the crock.
- Cook on low for 8 hours or until tender. Mine were perfect at 8 hours.
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This recipe sounds great and convenient. I also use sweet potatoes often and prepare them in the microwave–either completely or start them there and finish up in the oven with something that is baked/roasted for a short time. I’ve been eating them year round for a long long time and have always been teased about it not being Thanksgiving; however, when guests had them, no matter when, they were pleased. I’m so glad they’ve entered food mainstream.
I tried this recipe today. The sweet potatoes turned out amazing in the crockpot! I put them on at 7:30 when I left the house and didn’t turn them off until 6:30. The skins pealed right off and I topped them with feta cheese, black beans, corn and a little red onion. My boyfriend (who was very skeptical) loved them too and used crumbled blue cheese instead of the feta. We’ll definitely be making these again. Thanks for the post!
This is a great idea! If I made a few of these for the week, how do you reheat them? In the microwave? Sorry if this is an obvious question. Just want to know how you incorporate them into your meal plan once they’ve been cooked.
I will have to try this. I don’t have, nor do I want, a microwave. This sounds like a nice alternative to heating up the oven, especially in the summer.
Do you think this would also work for regular potatoes?
yes it does
Yes cook them the same as the sweet potatoes
I bake potatoes in the crockpot all the time. I just lightly coat them in olive oil and cook for 3 hours on high or 6 to 8 hours on low. You can also season them with salt and pepper or another spice before cooking.
i think you mentioned on your blog that you were cooking butternut squash in the crockpot. How? Do you do the same as you do for sweet potatoes? Also have you tried other varieties of squash like acorn or buttercup? Love both sweet potatoes and squash. Love you blog, recipes and ideas. Thanks.
Why the foil?
So as they cook they don’t mush into each other. SOme people don’t use it but I prefer too.
Last year it was going to be just my husband and grown children so I made the whole Thanksgiving dinner. I used this crock pot recipe for the sweet potatoes,peeled them when cool enough, mashed them and made a sweet potato casserole. I then put them back in the crock pot to heat and then topped it with marshmallows. I also made my dressing and put it in another crock pot. They all turned out great. Since the Turkey takes up most of the oven all I had to do was the stove top vegetables, gravy etc.Everything was ready at the right time. Love my crock pots.
This is my absolute favorite way to cook sweet potatoes! They turn out amazing every time! I’ve been using this method for years and never poke them – just wash, foil and bake! I think they taste way better than when I’m in a pinch and use the microwave or oven. Thanks for posting!
Thanks so much for this post! My big questions has been whether the potatoes will cook only if they’re sitting on the bottom of the slow cooker or if they can be stacked, and I’m so happy to know they can!