Skip to main content

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Latin Spice Mix

Roasted sweet potatoes with a spicy, flavorful Latin spice mix. A healthy and super-simple recipe.

By tastykitchen · From Open Recipes · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cumin and sweet potato work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 232 recipes mention both. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 6
Prep15 min
Cook15 min

Ingredients

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

  2. Peel the sweet potatoes if desired, then cut them into 1-inch (2.5 cm) cubes.

  3. In a small bowl, stir together the cayenne pepper, ground cumin, dried Mexican oregano or oregano, and sea salt.

  4. Put the sweet potato cubes in a large bowl, add the extra virgin olive oil, and toss until every piece is coated.

  5. Sprinkle the spice mix over the potatoes and toss again so the seasoning is spread evenly.

  6. Spread the potatoes in a single layer on the baking sheet, leaving space between the pieces so they roast rather than steam.

  7. Roast for about 15 minutes, turning the pieces once halfway through, until tender when pierced with a fork and browned at the edges.

By tastykitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Cumin + sweet potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together232 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Cumin + mexican oreganotop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + cumintop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,382 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Cumin + olivetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,309 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Sweet potato + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together868 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the mexican oregano

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cumin, sweet potato, olive):

  1. Corianderbetter flavor fit
  2. Oreganobetter flavor fit
  3. Turmericbetter flavor fit
  4. Mexican oreganothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cumin, sweet potato, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).