Does steaming sweet potatoes remove nutrients?

Water. Cooking a sweet potato with water quickly begins to diminish its store of water-soluble vitamins. Boiled vegetables lose up to 30 percent of their vitamin C content and steamed vegetables lose about 20 percent, according to Iowa State University’s “Food Science” publication.

In contrast, convection oven technology uses a fan to force air movement and heat up the full interior of the microwave to cook food from the inside out. That’s why you can use convection microwaves to bake and roast things that would otherwise be cooked too quickly (and not thoroughly) with just a regular microwave.

First, take three sheets of aluminum foil and roll them up into baseball-sized balls. Place them on the bottom of the pot, and pour in about an inch of water. Then rest the plate on top of the foil balls, and add whatever food you’re trying to steam to the plate. Cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid and steam away.

In a convection oven, bake the potatoes at 375 for 45 to 50 minutes and turn them halfway through the cooking time. Split open the potatoes and scoop out the cooked potato, being careful to keep the skins intact.

After Brazilian researchers analysed 21 studies that looked at how different cooking methods affected vegetables’ levels of antioxidants, as well as the compounds that may fend off cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, osteoporosis and neurodegenerative disease, they found that steaming vegetables is your best bed.

Steamer vs. Oven Steam cooks at 212 degrees while an oven cooks at higher temperatures however a steamer will cook faster because steam transfers heat 100 times more efficiently than air. You cannot bake foods or brown meats with a steamer so a steamer will not replace an oven.

It’s much better to have a soft, fluffy, overcooked sweet potato than a hard, crunchy one. If you prefer to boil your sweet potatoes before baking or grilling to cut down on cook time, you can overcook them this way. Since sweet potatoes absorb water, they will become too watery and mushy if boiled for too long.

All cooking methods cause foods to lose some of their nutrients, but the quicker your potato cooks, the more nutrients it will retain. Baking a sweet potato in the microwave preserves far more nutrients (folate, vitamins A and C) than boiling it, for example.

Boiling sweet potatoes retains more beta-carotene and makes the nutrient more absorbable than other cooking methods such as baking or frying. Up to 92% of the nutrient can be retained by limiting the cook time, such as boiling in a pot with a tightly covered lid for 20 minutes.

The technique is simple: fill a medium pot with 1/2 inch of water, place three golf ballsized balls of aluminum foil on the bottom, rest a heat-proof plate on top of the foil balls, cover the pot, and bring the water to a boil. Add vegetables to the plate, cover, and steam until crisp-tender.

Spuds absorb water, so make sure they don’t become too saturated. Simply Recipes says that steaming potatoes is better than boiling them because the spuds aren’t actually submerged in the water. This results in a more robust flavor because the spuds aren’t absorbing water like they do when they boil.

Therefore, from a nutritional standpoint, boiling rather than baking should be recommended for cooking sweet potato. Boiling may theoretically be best, but sweet potatoes are so incredibly healthy that the actual best way to prepare them is whichever way will get you to eat the most of them!

Do sweet potatoes take longer to bake than regular potatoes? Sweet potatoes generally cook faster than russet potatoes. However, the size of the potato and cooking method will affect the cooking time.

Place a metal colander or a strainer inside, leaving enough room so that the boiling water won’t touch the strainer. If your strainer doesn’t rest on the rim of the pot, you can hold it in place. In that case, we’d recommend using a strainer with a heat-proof handle or protecting yourself with an oven mit.

A convection oven heats the food from the outside to higher temperatures than a microwave oven. While a microwave oven is great for uniform reheating, cooking and defrosting, a convection microwave is great for grilling, baking, roasting, browning and crisping foods.