How to Cook Sweetpotato: A Baby Led Weaning Guide
- September 26, 2021
- Updated: April 27, 2026
- 0 Comments
It’s no surprise that sweetpotato baby led weaning recipes are a favorite in our house, so using sweetpotatoes as baby led weaning first foods was natural for us. Sweetpotatoes are chockfull of nutrition and can mold into many other recipes, making it a great first food for babies!
As an Amazon Associate, I may earn from qualifying purchases. You can read more here on our Disclaimer and Privacy Page.
Please note that sweetpotatoes is spelled as one word throughout this article, which is the proper spelling. You can learn more here.
Sweetpotatoes are just one of those foods that we always have on hand and use and re-use in just about everything. You can re-use sweetpotato leftovers in so many ways.
As a Registered Dietitian who loves baby led weaning, sweetpotatoes are always one of the first foods I introduce. They taste great, are extremely nutrient-dense, and are easy to introduce to little mouths.
There is no shortage of uses for sweetpotatoes, and many baby led weaning sweetpotato recipes are easily modified, through texture, using less sugar (because sweetpotatoes are naturally sweet) and more.
This post will:
- Demonstrate how to cut sweetpotatoes in different shapes and textures for baby
- Emphasize the nutrient benefits of sweetpotatoes for babies, toddlers and up
- Share what to pair them with if you choose to introduce sweetpotatoes in your 6 month foods baby led weaning journey
What To Eat With Sweetpotatoes
If you need some out-of-the-box ideas for advanced and older eats for what to eat with sweetpotatoes, check out this roundup.
Serving Sweetpotatoes for Baby Led Weaning
When deciding how to serve sweetpotatoes for baby and start baby-led weaning, you first want to choose something to pair it with that your family regularly eats.
You want to be eating what baby eats, or more so, have baby eat what you eat. This is a great habit to start early!
For our family, blw sweetpotato recipes are so commonplace that it was a no-brainer.
Sweetpotatoes are a wonderful first food because they have a great nutritional profile. However, don’t stop at babies, kid friendly sweetpotato recipes are also wonderful!
How often you serve sweetpotatoes to babies is variable. The key is including a variety of foods in babies and kids’ diets, even if they don’t take to them right away. Keep offering them!
You can also try preparing the same food a different way or pairing it with a different side! It takes lots of exposure.
Sweetpotatoes also have a texture that can be modified in so many ways, as you will see with these easy sweetpotato recipes for baby.
Stressed about feeding your baby?
Unsure what foods to offer?
Check out our baby led weaning ebook that has several recipes for every time of day and a sample feeding schedule!
Sweetpotato Nutrition
Nutritionally, sweetpotatoes are high in Vitamin A, Vitamin C, potassium, fiber, carbohydrates, and a slew of antioxidants, which are great for overall health.
Sweetpotatoes also offer the perfect enhancement to make one meal and serve it in a variety of ways and textures for everyone at the table.
When preparing how to cook sweetpotato for baby led weaning, consider options such as baked, mashed, sauteed, or blended into other foods. We often mix some mashed or pureed sweetpotatoes into muffins, pasta sauces, popsicles or homemade baby puree as well.
Want More BLW Food Ideas?
Some other baby led weaning starter foods include beef (great iron source), blw carrots, pumpkin, avocado or eggs.
How To Cook Sweetpotato for Baby Led Weaning
When introducing sweetpotato for baby led weaning, you have a few options for how to cook and prepare it.
As babies become more accustomed and familiar with feeding themselves, you can advance the texture and serve more complete combination foods and meals to babies.
With starting, many families prefer pureed or mashed sweetpotato, or serving sweetpotatoes as finger foods.
Here are some options.
Sweetpotato Fries for Baby
It is helpful to serve sweetpotatoes for babies in a handheld fashion for early eaters. We often make sweetpotato fries for 6 month and 7 month old baby led weaning foods.
Sweetpotato fries for babies are soft and easy to chew, even without teeth.
To prepare, cut sweetpotatoes into fry shape, and cook with your favorite choice of fat (olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil) and serve to baby.
You can add some herbs (be careful on the salt), and serve with a dipping sauce, like full fat greek yogurt, peanut butter, butter, mashed avocado, hummus or oil.
Sweetpotato Baby Wedges
You could also cook sweetpotatoes as wedges and serve them that way, which would also fall within the self-feeding realm.
Wedges are a little thicker and may be easier for younger, more immature babies to hold. We love these air fryer sweetpotato wedges – just moderate or omit the salt when serving to baby!
Remove most of the skin – you can keep some on for grip at the bottom if you want, since they can be slippery or overly mushy.
Make Sure It’s the Proper Texture
Sweetpotato wedges should be long enough for the baby to hold them, and thick enough that they don’t mash or crumble when baby is holding them.Make sure they aren’t too hard or circle shape, but thick enough that baby can hold them and soft enough that they can mash with their gums or teeth.
You can even pair with other starchy vegetables, like carrots or parsnips. We have several ideas for a parsnip baby recipe and love roasted sweetpotatoes and carrots.
You can even add some spices if your baby is more advanced. Don’t go crazy on the salt, as babies kidneys are immature and can’t filter out high amounts of salt.
Baked Sweetpotato for Baby
To make a baked sweetpotato for baby, just bake a sweetpotato and top with butter, peanut butter or a little oil (for healthy fats and better nutrient absorption), and let baby get their hands dirty and dig in, literally.
Proper Texture Here
Make sure that the sweetpotatoes are not too crisp or burnt. You want the interior to be very soft (similar to a mashed consistency).
Another way to cook a baked sweetpotato is in the microwave, which I do often.
Take a fork and put a few holes in the sweetpotato, and then microwave for 6-8 minutes, depending on the size of the sweetpotato. It is cooked through when it’s no longer hard and a fork mashes it easily. Let it cool for the baby!
Mashed Sweetpotato Puree
Mashing sweetpotato and serving with butter, yogurt or avocado is also a great way to serve sweetpotatoes to babies.
This baby oatmeal cookie recipe uses mashed sweetpotatoes. You can even mash in flax seeds or chia seeds with it, and combine it with salmon for healthy fats and protein. We love the nutrition of salmon for babies!
I’ll often use mashed sweetpotato in my favorite baby pancakes recipe. This is one of my favorite easy sweetpotato recipes for babies.
You can even add mashed sweetpotatoes into baby led weaning muffins and baked goods.
No matter how I serve sweetpotatoes to babies, I like to have a dipping sauce, like full fat plain greek yogurt, mashed avocado or even applesauce.
Mashed Into Popsicles
I love serving popsicles to baby. These are my favorite baby popsicle molds! Just blend any foods in a blender, and then pour into popsicle molds and freeze.
They work great for teething, like in these breastmilk popsicles, or even sweetpotato pineapple coconut popsicles.
As Spaghetti
When the baby is able to pick up thinner items, including sweetpotato spaghetti could be another fun and nutrient-dense option.
Not only is pasta for babies adorable to watch, serving sweetpotato as spaghetti provides a huge increase in nutrients for baby. Pair with some beef or beans!
With Other Finger Foods
Beyond pureed sweetpotato baby food combos, using sweetpotato for baby finger food just makes sense.
You can pair it with chicken strips for baby, or mash it over the chicken strips.
Sweetpotato fries are wonderful as a finger food, as well as other baby finger foods.
They blend well with nearly everything and are great for babies, kids and adults alike and are a great option for how to get veggies into toddlers.
These sweetpotato recipes for baby also make great baby breakfast foods.
Sweetpotato Baby Food Combinations
Sweetpotatoes, thanks to their versatility, are also wonderful options for making your own baby food.
For example, this sweetpotato spinach baby food has just 4 wholesome ingredients with fiber and healthy fats for babies’ growing brains.
Sweetpotato also meshes wonderfully with other vegetables, like broccoli, carrots or pumpkin, as well as fruits, like pureed apples or applesauce, avocado and mashed blueberries.
Nutrition Tips for Feeding with Sweetpotato
When using sweetpotatoes in baby led weaning recipes, here are some tips to keep in mind:
- Pair with fat – Serving sweetpotatoes with a fat source, like butter, olive oil, coconut oil, or nut butter, will help Vitamin A, D, E and K absorption. Fat is important in protecting the growing brain of babies.
- Pair with iron – When starting with blw sweetpotato, make sure to pair with an iron source, like beef (baby led weaning meatballs), poultry or legumes (lentil hummus). The Vitamin C in sweetpotatoes can help the baby better absorb iron. We have several high iron recipes for babies.
- Keep in mind baby’s age – When babies are younger and just starting blw, try to prepare sweetpotatoes in a longer, fry shape so they are easier to grip. As babies get more proficient with the pincer grasp, you can offer smaller shapes and sizes.
- Cut the sugar – Babies are recommended not to have added sugars until age 2, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Try your best to omit sugar or at the very least, cut it down extensively.
- Avoid honey – Babies under 1 shouldn’t have honey due to the food borne risk of botulism.
- Reduce salt – Babies’ kidneys can not yet handle high amounts of salt. I usually add my salt to taste after serving sweetpotatoes to baby.
Tools for Baby Led Weaning
You don’t need a ton of supplies for baby led weaning, as you can keep it as simple as you’d like.
However, that being said, there are some products that make it easier and reduce the mess associated with babies learning to feed themselves.
Even with these products, there’s still a daily mess to clean up. But, in the long run, I totally think this way of starting solids!
Here are some of my most favorite used items.
- Silicone Bibs – We’ve used these and these. These bibs are great for the inevitable spills and dropped food. A smock covers their entire upper body, and we used this for messier foods, like mashed sweetpotatoes, oatmeal, pasta and some mashed fruits.
- Suction plates and bowls – We’ve used EZPZ and other iterations for something that sticks to the tray
- Sturdy high chair – You want a quality high chair that baby can sit upright in. It’s also nice to have something for them to put their feet on. Even better if the tray can be easily removed and wiped down
- Splat Mat – This isn’t a necessity but it sure does make cleaning the floor easier. It can be easily thrown into the wash. They have lots of cute designs so you can find one that fits your decor preference.
- Silicone or soft utentils – These are great for pre-loading food for baby at first, until they learn to use them by themselves.
- Ezpz cup- The ezpz is the perfect size silicone cup for introducing water or small amounts of milk.
That’s about it. We introduced the little cup around 7-8 months once baby figured that out.
A straw cup is helpful too. We would use it to serve water, and eventually breastmilk/whole milk after one year.
Sweetpotato Recipes for Baby Led Weaning
The great thing about sweetpotatoes is that they pair well with nearly everything.
Recent research has actually found a decreased prevalence of food allergies when allergens were introduced sooner and more often. You can introduce just about every allergenic food alongside sweetpotatoes!
These BLW sweetpotato recipes can be personalized to your family’s preferences. For example, leave out meat if you follow a plant-based lifestyle, reduce sauces, cut in smaller pieces if you feel more comfortable that way.
Sweetpotato Baby Led Weaning Recipes
These sweetpotato recipes for baby led weaning will help keep things fresh and flavorful fo your little ones, while introducing them to new, healthy foods and combinations!
These easy 4-ingredient baby led weaning meatballs are not only easy to prepare, but are the perfect, nutritious meatball recipe for baby led weaning and toddler feeding.
This spinach baby food recipe blends spinach, sweet potatoes, yogurt and peanut butter for a balanced and nutritious introduction for homemade baby food or baby led weaning. They can even be frozen as baby teething popsicles.
Baby oatmeal cookies are rich in fiber and nutrients and contain no added sugars. Oatmeal cookies are perfect as baby breakfast cookies or a healthy baby snack any time of day!
Baby waffles are a great first food for babies. These spinach waffles with sweet potatoes are free of added sugars and full of healthy ingredients for your little ones.
Whole Wheat Sweet Potato Zucchini Muffins are a tasty, portable snack option for your little ones. These zucchini and sweet potato muffins are full of veggies and provide a dairy-free option for those who need it
These Spinach Sweet Potato Tots are a fun way to offer nutrient dense toddler vegetable recipes to your little ones. Packed with iron, Vitamin A, Vitamin C and carbohydrates, this veggie tots recipe is great for meal prep and the side to any meal.
These easy ground turkey sweet potato burgers offer a delicious, flavorful twist on your original turkey burger. Sweet potato patties are chock full of antioxidants and can be made as a paleo turkey burger and gluten free turkey burger without the bun.
Pumpkin zucchini muffins are perfect for fall, and a healthy muffin recipe for babies, toddlers and adults! Who knew dairy free pumpkin muffins could taste so good!?
Sweet Potato Mac and Cheese is the answer to your cheesy pasta dreams. A mixture of whole wheat pasta, mashed sweet potato, cheese and kale make this savory sweet potato pasta dish a real winner.
This Sweet Potato Oatmeal Bake with Blueberries is the perfect quick and nutritious breakfast option, great for your meal prep oatmeal needs. It’s ready in 30 minutes, great for crowds, and the perfect pre- workout snack!
This Eggplant Breakfast Hash is a great way to add vegetables into your morning routine, or have as a side to any entree. Dress it up with eggs or bacon, or enjoy as is!
This Sweet Potato Breakfast Casserole is the perfect make-ahead breakfast or brunch option. Filled with protein, carbohydrates, and antioxidants, it's a quick and easy sweet potato egg bake and meal prep casserole.
These customizable sweet potato black bean nachos are great as a weeknight dinner, vegetarian nachos recipe, or football food. Easy to make for groups and great for kids!
This Sweet Potato Kale Hash recipe is an easy way to add veggies to your breakfast. With sauteed kale and sweet potato and veggies, this vegan breakfast hash will be a morning favorite!
Pumpkin sweet potato soup combines the hearty, nourishing flavors of autumn in an easy 30 minute vegan instant pot recipe. Leave the tiny bit of maple syrup out for babies!
Support Bucket List Tummy
Like This Content?
Support Bucket List Tummy