The sweet, smoky flavors of roasted fajita veggies baked into a soft, melty sweet potato with a crispy cheese topping… these vegetarian sweet potatoes are completely irresistible. Easy to cook (entirely in the oven) and fun to eat with your favorite Mexican style toppings and side dishes!
Why Fajita Sweet Potatoes are such a winner
Sweet potatoes are just so perfect in Mexican inspired / Tex Mex cuisine, their sweetness offsetting the spicy / smoky flavors. Today we’re going to give baked sweet potatoes a fajita filling, and wonder why we ever felt the need to buy tortillas for such things.
It’s actually kind of shocking how delicious this plate of veggies is, but I feel like it comes down to the fact that everything is its very best self here.
- The sweet potatoes? They are baked in halves, until they are soft and melty…. And then we add butter. Yesss.
- The peppers, mushrooms and onions? They are roasted, sweet and juicy with the smoky flavors of fajita seasoning. The roasting is crucial! I have tried this with sauteed veggies, and it’s just never the same. The oven is on anyway for the sweet potatoes so it just makes sense.
- The cheese? Melted with crispy bits. Perfection has been achieved. 10/10.
Ingredients: What You Need & What You Can Swap
- 3-4 sweet potatoes: It depends on the size of the sweet potatoes, but this is fairly flexible. You can have fewer sweet potatoes and really pack on the filling, or more sweet potatoes with the filling spread a little thinner.
- Peppers, mushrooms and onions are my choice for fajita veggies. You could use different colored peppers if you wish. Note that my veggies are on the smaller side here – you may only need one of each if you have larger veggies (I find that US supermarket veggies tend to be larger than what we find in UK supermarkets, for example).
- Fajita seasoning: Maybe controversial, but I used a packet of store bought seasoning today. You could of course use a homemade blend – there is a recipe in my Halloumi Fajitas recipe if you wish to do that.
- Cheese: I am using plain old grated bagged cheese here, but anything works. You could even use crumbled cojita or feta if you wish.
- Toppings: Avocado, salsa and sour cream are the classics here. You could go a little fresher with some pico de gallo, you can also add chopped herbs like cilantro (fresh coriander) or chive. Finely diced red onion or sliced green onion is also nice for crunch.
This is a simple recipe where everything bakes together in the oven
There is a fair bit of chopping, but then it’s all just assembling and baking. The sweet potatoes are baked face down, in halves, which aligns their cook time really well with the veggies. It’s all ready in 30-35 minutes.
This does depend on the size of your sweet potatoes and how high your veggies are piled in your baking dish, but if either element is ready before the other, it doesn’t matter too much if it needs to come out and wait for the other dish to catch up.
Tip: Use Baking / Parchment Paper for the Sweet Potatoes
Sometimes the sweet potato will stick to the bottom of the pan a little when you go to flip them over. Not usually a big deal, but in this recipe you need to flip the sweet potatoes over and bake them again for the cheesy topping. So you don’t really want to put them back down over the sticky mess. Using baking paper means you can change up the baking paper instead of the whole pan if you need to.
I didn’t follow my own advice here, which is why you can see I ended up having to change baking pans once it came time to flip the sweet potatoes over. 🙃 So learn from my mistakes, OK?
Suggested Variation: Bulk them out with Black Beans or Chickpeas
If you’d prefer to make a bigger batch of these sweet potatoes, you can mix a can of drained black beans or chickpeas + a few spoonfuls of salsa into the vegetables when they are finished roasting. This filling could stretch to top a few more sweet potatoes without changing any other aspect of the recipe.
If you’d prefer to keep to 3-4 sweet potatoes but want to bring the beans in, just halve the amount of veggies you prepare. (Note that the cook time for the veggies will be shorter with less in the pan.)
Serving Suggestions
- Two halves of these Fajita Stuffed Sweet Potato make a light but filling enough meal, depending on the size of your sweet potatoes. You could add a side salad for some fresh crunch.
- One half of a sweet potato + some rice and beans would be another option that brings in more carbs and protein, and can feed a crowd.
- You definitely need a knife and fork to eat these, given how high we pile them with veggies and the fact that sweet potato skins don’t hold up as robustly as regular potato skins – so I wouldn’t recommend this recipe for a party appetizer or finger food.
- Leftovers reheat well in the microwave. The sweet potato skins and cheese lose their crunch, but the flavors and other texture are intact.
Vegetarian Fajita Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients
- 3-4 sweet potatoes
- 2 medium portobello mushrooms, sliced into strips
- 2 medium peppers, sliced into strips
- 1 medium red onion, sliced into strips
- 1 packet fajita seasoning
- 1 cup grated cheese
- olive oil, for roasting
- Suggested toppings: salsa or pico de gallo, avocado, sour cream, chopped cilantro, diced red onion, cherry tomatoes, black olives, chili flakes, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200C / 390F.
- Prepare the sweet potatoes. Slice the sweet potatoes lengthwise in half, then place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper facing down. Poke a few holes in each sweet potato and brush with oil. Place on the lower shelf of the oven.3-4 sweet potatoes
- Prepare the veggies. In a deep sided roasting or casserole dish, toss the veggies with fajita seasoning and enough oil to coat them. Some overlap is OK because we aren't looking to crisp them and we want them to stay a little juicy, but don't pile them too high. Place on the top shelf of the oven.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes, stirring the veggies at the halfway point, or until everything is ready. The sweet potatoes should be tender throughout. The veggies should be browned and reduced, juicy but not watery. If one pan is done before the other, that's OK, remove it from the oven and set aside until the other pan catches up.
- Once everything is ready, you can start to assemble the stuffed sweet potatoes. Flip the sweet potatoes over, lightly mash them with butter.
- Spoon the topping over the sweet potatoes.
- Add grated cheese to the top and then bake for another 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted / crisped to your liking.
- Serve with your choice of toppings.
