We Made TikToker Hailee Catalano's Charred Sweet Potatoes With Brown Butter Vinaigrette & They're the Perfect Festive Side
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, SheKnows may receive an affiliate commission.
There are a lot of different reasons why I use TikTok, from keeping tabs on my favorite celebrities to watching cute animal videos and getting cleaning tips. But my favorite thing to scroll through on TikTok is recipe videos, hands down. There are lots of creators that I end up following religiously, and one of my favorites is Hailee Catalano. Catalano trained at the Culinary Institute of America and used to work in restaurants, but now, she’s a recipe developer and cookbook author (pre-order her book here!) and shares her amazing-looking dishes on TikTok. When she recently shared a video about making charred sweet potatoes with a brown butter vinaigrette, they looked so good I literally had to try them for myself. The results? One family member said they were “the best sweet potatoes I’ve ever had.”
Catalano’s charred sweet potatoes recipe is pretty easy to make, and uses a handful of holiday cooking staples: sweet potatoes, pecans, dates, sage, and butter. First, she “steam roasts” the sweet potatoes, enclosing them in a tight foil packet and cooking them in the oven until tender. I just lined a baking pan with foil, poked a few holes in my washed sweet potatoes, then covered the pan in foil, and cooked them for about 1.5 hours in a 375 degree oven (your oven time might vary — I checked mine after 45 minutes and they weren’t tender all the way through, so I popped them back in).
Once the tender cooked sweet potatoes cool down, Catalano slices them in half length-wise, then sears them in olive oil in a skillet. You want to get some dark charred marks on your sweet potatoes, which adds a depth of flavor that boosts the whole dish. This part was pretty simple, though one of my smaller potatoes was slightly softer than the others and crumbled a bit in the pan. But I scraped it out just the same and put it on the platter with the rest while I made the pan vinaigrette.
The chunky vinaigrette is the true star of the recipe. Catalano adds butter to the skillet the sweet potatoes were seared in, along with chopped pecans, chopped pitted dates, and fresh sage. As the butter bubbles and melts, it crisps up the sage, toasts the pecans, softens the dates, and takes on its own nutty flavor. I pretty much made this part just like Catalano, though I added some fresh rosemary from my sister-in-law’s herb garden, removing the rosemary along with the sage to drain on a paper towel once the herbs were crispy.
Next comes the acid element. Catalano adds apple cider vinegar and swirl of maple syrup to the butter-date-pecan mixture; I added rice vinegar (it was all my mother-in-law had), orange zest and juice, and some whole grain-mustard for extra zing. Just before everyone was ready to eat, I spooned the vinaigrette on top of the seared sweet potato halves, topped them with the reserved crispy sage and rosemary, and dug in.
The sweet potatoes were sweet, tender, and had a smoky, caramelized flavor thanks to the bits of char. The topping added a nutty crunch, the texture of chewy dates, and the herbal buttery note of crisp sage and rosemary, along with enough acid to really balance out the sweetness of the potatoes. One family member said it was the best sweet potatoes they’d ever had, and as a sweet potato-lover, I’d have to agree that it’s one of my favorite preparations, and one that I’ll definitely be making again.
If you’re bored of the same old mashed sweet potatoes or marshmallow-topped sweet potato casserole on your holiday table, try making Hailee Catalano’s charred sweet potatoes with brown butter date vinaigrette this year instead. You just might have a new family favorite on your hands.
Before you go, check out our gallery: