By Jodee Weiland

There are so many wonderful ways to cook a sweet potato, but around this time of year everyone is thinking about eating healthier. An oven roasted sweet potato is a great way to have a healthy sweet potato with your meal. These sweet potatoes are so delicious, you won’t miss the brown sugar, butter, or marshmallows at all. Sweet potatoes are definitely sweet enough on their own, so why not roast them with a few seasonings and have my Delicious Oven Roasted Sweet Potato Slices with Thyme!

It doesn’t take much to make a delicious oven roasted sweet potato. All you need is some extra-virgin olive oil and the right seasonings. Thyme is an excellent seasoning to add flavor to a sweet potato. Add some garlic and onion powder as well, and the flavor is outstanding! Lightly use some sea salt, but ever so lightly, and ground pepper to taste, and the result is perfection!

Delicious Oven Roasted Sweet Potato Slices with Thyme

2 to 4 sweet potatoes peeled (depending on the number of people and size of the potatoes)
Extra virgin olive oil
Garlic powder to taste (1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon)
Onion powder to taste (1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon)
Ground thyme to taste (1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon)
Sea salt lightly and black pepper to taste

These are the basic seasonings, but you can add any other seasonings you may like. Preheat your oven to 475 degrees. Prepare your baking sheets with parchment cooking paper. Cut the each potato in  ½” slices to create your oven roasted sweet potato slices just before you are ready to cook. You may do this sooner and leave in cold water, but I prefer to do it just before baking.

Put the slices in a large bowl and pour some olive oil over the slices. Toss the slices until all of them are coated with some olive oil. They do not need to be drenched, but just coated. Once coated in olive oil, season the slices with the above seasonings to taste. It does not take much of any of the seasonings to add flavor, so add seasonings carefully. Place the slices evenly on your baking sheets. You may add any additional seasonings you may like, but if serving guests, I suggest you always ask about preferences as some people may not like or tolerate well certain seasonings. When done seasoning, place the baking sheets in the oven for about 16 to 20 minutes or until fork tender. Watch them carefully when baking so that you do not burn them.

My Delicious Oven Roasted Sweet Potato Slices with Thyme are so good, you will want to eat sweet potatoes like this forever! Not only are they delicious, but they are healthy as well. What more could you want? We love these sweet potato slices, and we are seriously considering doing the sweet potatoes this way next Thanksgiving as well. Give them a try and see what you think! Enjoy!

By Jodee Weiland

Some people feel that having a potato with a meal is going to cause weight gain, but the reality is that it isn’t the potato that does this. What does this is what we put on those potatoes and how much we have. One way to avoid adding the wrong things to potatoes is a healthy hasselback potato made using olive oil and seasonings that will add all the flavor you need. A hasselback potato done right needs very little salt or none at all because the flavor will come from the seasonings. And if you want a potato with some cheese flavor, have a hasselback potato sprinkled with grated Parmesan Reggiano cheese. Done this way, my Healthy Parmesan Hasselback Potatoes are both delicious and healthy!

Eaten as baked and seasoned in the recipe, these hasselback potatoes will be both delicious and healthy. It’s when people add sour cream, butter, bacon bits, some higher calorie cheeses, and more that you have problems. Hasselback potatoes done using this recipe don’t need all those additional toppings, because they will taste wonderful without them. You won’t even miss the idea of butter when you use an extra virgin olive oil, as I do in this recipe. You really don’t even need extra salt, and if you do use the sea salt, be sure to do so lightly because the Parmesan cheese has salt as well. Once you try potatoes this way, you will be a believer for sure!

Healthy Parmesan Hasselback Potatoes

• 4 large russet potatoes or potatoes of your choice
• 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste
• Paprika to taste
• Onion powder to taste
• Garlic powder to taste
• 4 tablespoons Parmesan Reggiano cheese grated to taste
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped chives

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Wash and scrub the potato skins well with a vegetable brush. Dry the potatoes and slice them across the width 1/8″ to 1/4″, but do not cut through the potato. Stop your slice before cutting all the way through creating a sliced potato with the bottom still in one piece. Place the potatoes in a baking dish that has been sprayed lightly with olive oil. With a food brush, brush about half the olive oil over the top of the four potatoes. Lightly sprinkle the potatoes with sea salt and black pepper to taste. Bake at 425 degrees for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, remove the potatoes from the oven to brush them once again with the remainder of the olive oil. Sprinkle the onion powder, garlic powder, and paprika over the potatoes to taste. Remember to season lightly because a little bit goes a long way with flavor.  Bake for another 20 minutes or longer if needed to bake thoroughly.

After 20 minutes, check to see if the potatoes are almost done. If not, bake for 5 to 10 minutes longer. Then remove from the oven and sprinkle the potatoes with Parmesan Reggiano cheese. Put them back into the oven and finish baking for another 10 minutes longer. When done, sprinkle the tops with fresh chopped chives and serve.

My Healthy Parmesan Hasselback Potatoes are both delicious and healthy! Serve them with a few fresh chopped chives sprinkled across the top. These potatoes go well with any meat, poultry, or fish entree and another vegetable. We love them because they are very tasty and healthy at the same time. We never need to add on any extras to these potatoes because they are full of great flavor. Give them a try, and enjoy!