Monday, October 8, 2012

Sweet Potato Greens - Post 6


If you are like me, you probably never heard of sweet potato greens before. We have all had sweet potatoes, but who ever thought to eat the greens! These lovelies are in abundance in our Piedmont Biofarm CSA box each week. I love our CSA as they decided to harvest the greens and give them to CSA customers and sell them at their stand at the farmers market. How genius! I do not see these greens at the other stands that sell sweet potatoes.
It is difficult to describe the flavor of these greens as they do not taste like anything I have tried before. The texture of the leaf is soft and smooth and the leaf tastes smooth on your tongue. It does not taste like a sweet potato. While this green does not taste like spinach, it can certainly be used in place of spinach. We have sauteed it, eaten it raw, enjoyed it in smoothies, etc. They are very versatile and full of vitamins! They contain protein, potassium, vitamin A (a TON of it!), folate, just to name a few. 
 You will likely see several posts about the greens as we have a lot to use each week. Below is a picture of gluten free, vegan lasagna I made. I used rice noodles, vegan sauce, I made up a tofu ricotta from the cookbook Vegan Vittles, sweet potato greens, and of course Daiya
If you see these at your local market or grocery store, be sure to give them a try!

6 comments:

foodfeud said...

Oh, this is so interesting! I used to have a sweet potato vine and had no idea the leaves were edible! It never got big enough to produce a root to eat but wow, they look so delicate!

VeggieAmanda said...

Thanks for your comment! :-) The leaves do look delicate, but they aren't fragile and seem to hold up well to cooking. They are a lot like spinach in that regard.

GiGi said...

Great dish! Wow these are new to me too. And you used them in a smoothee even. Thank you for introducing me to a new green :)

Ingrid said...

I had not heard of sweet potato greens! Good to know! :) Is it a more herbal flavor? I'm curious to try them now.

VeggieAmanda said...

It does sort of have a floral flavor to it. I hope you get a chance to try them. :-)

x said...

Wow, I've never seen sweet potato greens, I guess they're always removed and chucked out before they're sold here. And I still need to try making vegan & gf lasagne, I've never tried!