These veggie-packed twice-baked sweet potatoes get a Thai twist that I know your taste buds will love! Nutrient-dense sweet potatoes are filled with steamed broccoli, protein-rich tofu or shredded chicken, and scallions, seasoned with garlic, ginger, pepper, and a pinch of salt, then drizzled with a perfectly sweet-yet-savory peanut sauce. Move over take-out!
The first time I had Thai food was in college. All my friends raved about pad thai and basil garlic chicken, but it wasn’t until someone mentioned “peanut sauce” that I was sold. I fully admit to having a peanut butter addiction, putting it on almost every breakfast, snack, and dessert item that I can think of, so realizing peanut butter can also be a dinner food was life-changing. Unfortunately, I could never replicate the peanut sauce at home. I don’t know how many recipes my mom and I went through and could never get it just right. The sauces either ended up overly peanut buttery (until that moment I didn’t know there was such a thing as “too much” peanut butter), overly salty, or overly just odd from the fish sauce.
For a few years I gave up on my quest, resigning to the idea of peanut sauce as a restaurant-only food. Then, the mom of one of our close friends introduced me to the best peanut sauce I have yet to come by. Seriously, this stuff is so addicting. The secret? Hot water. After making the recipe many times, the only changes I like to make are adding ground ginger and using chunky peanut butter (make sure to use natural peanut butter!).
After peanut butter, sweet potatoes have to be one of my favorite foods. They are jam-packed with vitamin A (almost 100% of your daily needs in 1 sweet potato), vitamin C, and many of the B vitamins, as well as filling fiber. Plus, just like peanut butter, they can be sweet or savory. In college, most of my meals started with sweet potato as the base then I’d layer on any leftover or frozen vegetables, some type of sauce (usually salsa or BBQ), leftover chicken or beans, and a sprinkle of cheese. Then bam – you have a healthy dinner that is budget friendly and delicious.
When putting together this recipe, I used that same college formula for a balanced meal: sweet potato base as my carbohydrate + veggies (scallions and broccoli) + protein (tofu or you can use chicken) + healthy fat (peanut butter). I also made this recipe after work one night, so I did a combination of microwave and oven cooking to speed things up, but if you have more time at night definitely make the whole recipe in the oven as I feel sweet potatoes taste so much sweeter when baked rather than nuked.
So here’s a toast to eating peanut butter at every meal 😉
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