Once in a while I get a hankering for a meatless meal (after all, I was switching between being pescatarian and vegetarian for about a decade) and this hits the spot. My go-to method of cooking sweet potatoes in a jiffy involves nuking them in the microwave oven for 6 minutes. That’s just about the only thing I cook in there, really. However, baking sweet potatoes in this recipe is so worth it as the ingredients can be baked in succession on the same baking tray and assembled to create the whole meal. It’s great how it saves on washing up!
For those wondering about the use of red wine, the alcohol gets cooked off and the red wine gives a nice complex flavour to the mushrooms. Black salt gives it a slight hint of smokiness. I love the taste of balsamic vinegar and these mushrooms have a juicy and tangy bite due to the marinade, which contrasts well with the sweet potato. If you’re not a big fan of vinegar, feel free to reduce the amount or experiment without any but upping the red wine and let me know how it goes! Do you have a favourite topping for baked sweet potatoes?
Ingredients (Serves 2)
For the baked sweet potatoes (1 hour baking time)
- 2 large sweet potatoes
- 1 tbsp coconut oil or other solid fat/ oil of choice
For the marinated mushrooms (20 minutes baking time)
- 2 Portobello mushrooms
- 1/4 cup red wine
- 1-2 tbsp balsamic vinegar (Use 2 tbsp if you like it tangy)
- 2 tbsp avocado or olive oil
- 1/2 tsp black salt (or sea salt)
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp dried thyme
For the Swiss chard (3 minutes baking time)
- 2 cups red stemmed Swiss chard, loosely packed (approximately 6 leaves)
- Avocado or olive oil, to drizzle
- Sea salt, to taste
Method
- Preheat oven to 450 °F/ 230 °C
- Rinse, scrub and dry sweet potatoes and poke holes all over the sweet potatoes with a fork
- Place on a large foil-lined baking tray and brush with oil/ fat
- Bake for 30 minutes before flipping sweet potatoes over and baking for another 30 minutes
While the sweet potatoes are baking for the first 30 minutes, prepare the mushrooms
- Cut the Portobello mushrooms into small bite-sized chunks
- Mix the rest of the marinade ingredients together and toss mushroom chunks with marinade
- Allow to marinate for 15 minutes before draining excess marinade
Next, prepare the Swiss chard
- Remove the stem and chop finely (about 1/16″ or approximately 2mm thick)
- Chop leaves into 1/2 inch (slightly over 1cm) thick strips
- Toss lightly with a drizzle of avocado oil and a pinch of sea salt
By now the sweet potatoes should have been flipped over and started baking for another 30 minutes.
- Once timer counts down to 20 minutes, remove the tray of sweet potatoes from the oven
- Add the marinated mushrooms in a single layer beside the sweet potatoes before returning to the oven
- Continue baking until timer counts down to 3 minutes before removing the tray and adding the Swiss chard leaves and stems, distributing evenly over the mushrooms
- Return tray to oven and bake for 3 minutes or until Swiss chard are slightly wilted and bright/ever so slightly dark green
- Remove tray from the oven, slice sweet potatoes lengthwise down the middle and stuff with marinated mushrooms and Swiss chard. Enjoy!
