The first step in making good sweet potato toast: Accept that it’s not bread.

They’ve been all over Instagram for a couple years now: Bright orange planks topped with avocado (of course), or some combination of spread, fruit, vegetable, egg, nuts and more. The idea to use sweet potato slices as bread stand-ins came from the gluten-free, paleo and Whole 30 worlds, and the appeal was cute enough for the idea to spread. Now the hashtag #sweetpotatotoast turns up more than 23,000 Instagram posts (and counting), there are entire accounts devoted to the food, and at least one manufacturer is selling a pre-sliced, pre-roasted, frozen, ready-to-heat product.

I’ve resisted.

I don’t have to avoid gluten, I hate diets that cut out entire food groups and I couldn’t quite imagine that using a toaster to cook sweet potato slices would be efficient, or even possible. Besides, nothing beats the texture bread brings to “real” toast.

But while I adore bread, I’m also a sweet potato fan. I know that not only are they nutritious, but they are so versatile as to be compatible with just about any sweet or savory flavor I could imagine. My curiosity finally got the best of me, and I gave some toast recipes a whirl.

First, I was right to be skeptical about the toaster approach. I cut a large sweet potato into ¼-inch planks, slipped two of them in, set it to high, and … well, very little had happened by the time they popped up. A few rounds later, they were warm and sweating moisture, but not getting tender. A few more, and they started to burn on the edges but were essentially still raw.

I was not the first to discover this, but the fact is, the process works much better in the good old oven (or a countertop toaster oven), where you can “toast” (i.e., bake) dozens of slices at a time, for however long you need. The trick, then, is to bake just until they’re tender enough but not too soft to pick up and eat with your hands, which I think should be a requirement of anything called toast. One fine strategy is to bake a bunch, let them cool, refrigerate, then use the toaster to reheat a couple or three at a time before topping them – although they’re perfectly great at room temperature, too.

I’m a bean obsessive, so I spread mine with a quick homemade hummus and added spiced chickpeas, along with radishes and sunflower sprouts. I immediately understood the appeal of sweet and starchy meets nutty and creamy. Now I’m ready to try other toppings, but I’ll always include ingredients like those radishes and sprouts because they bring to the party something that toasted bread, but not toasted sweet potato, offers and that no diet could ever convince me to give up: Crunch.

Sweet Potato Toasts with Hummus, Radish and Sunflower Sprouts

Servings: 6 (makes about 18 toasts)

Ingredients

• 2 large sweet potatoes (about 1 pound each), scrubbed well
• Two 15-ounce cans chickpeas, drained and liquid reserved
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
• 1⁄2 teaspoon Spanish smoked paprika (pimenton; may substitute za’atar or ground sumac), plus more for sprinkling
• 1⁄2 teaspoon kosher salt, or more as needed
• Ice cube
• 3 tablespoons tahini
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• Water (optional)
• 3 small radishes, thinly sliced
• 1⁄2 cup loosely packed sunflower sprouts (may substitute pea shoots or other sprouts of your choice)

Steps

Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven; preheat to 350 degrees.

Trim the pointed ends from the sweet potatoes. Trim off a thin slice from one side of each sweet potato, turning those sides down on the cutting board for slicing stability, then cut the potatoes lengthwise into ¼-inch slices.

Arrange the slices in a single layer on two large rimmed baking sheets. Pierce each slice several times with a fork. (Place those sweet potato trimmings on the baking sheets as well; you can bake as well and save them to eat on salads and in grain bowls, or for dipping into the hummus.)

Scatter half the chickpeas (about 1 ½ cups) on a small rimmed baking sheet. Toss with the tablespoon of oil, the smoked paprika and ¼ teaspoon of the salt until evenly coated.

Bake the sweet potatoes and chickpeas for 10 minutes (upper and lower racks), then flip the sweet potato slices over, and continue baking until the sweet potatoes are barely fork-tender (but not soft) and the chickpeas are lightly browned, for another 10 to 20 minutes. (You want them to remain stiff enough to be picked up for eating.) Transfer them to a cooling rack.

Meanwhile, pour ½ cup of the liquid from the cans of chickpeas (aquafaba) into a liquid measuring cup and add the ice cube to it. Discard the rest or save for another use.

Combine the remaining chickpeas, plus the tahini, garlic, lemon juice, the remaining ¼ teaspoon of the salt and ¼ cup of the aquafaba in a blender or mini food processor. Puree until very smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides and continuing to blend for a few minutes.

With the motor running, slowly pour the remaining ¼ cup of the aquafaba into the chickpea mixture, stopping every now and then to scrape down the sides. The resulting hummus should be light, and about the texture of thick pancake batter. If it’s thicker than that, resume blending and slowly pour in a little water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until you reach the right texture. Taste, and add more salt, as needed.

Spread each sweet potato slice with a tablespoon or two of the hummus. Top with the baked chickpeas, radish slices and sunflower sprouts. Drizzle with a little more oil and sprinkle with more smoked paprika.

Based on a recipe in “The Greenprint: Plant-Based Diet, Best Body, Better World,” by Marco Borges (Harmony Books, 2018).

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