Sweet potato vine tubers with Chinese lantern flowers
Can you eat a sweet potato vine tuber?
While taking apart my front porch container plantings this weekend, the question came to mind: Can you eat these cute little tubers that the ornamental sweet potato vine made?
Short answer: Yes, you can.
Longer answer: Yes, you can eat a sweet potato vine tuber, but you probably don’t want to. Ornamental sweet potato vines are selected for their foliage — the lush leaves that tumble out of pots and window boxes so decoratively. The tubers are not even a consideration, and so don’t usually taste very good. If you want delicious sweet potatoes, it’s best to grow plants designated for eating.
Thanks for letting us know! I always wondered, ’cause I’ve grown some doozies, but was always afraid to eat something I’m not sure of.
Has anyone had any luck storing these tubers? I tried it
once, but it didn’t work very well.
Yeah! Thanks for the answer to this perennial fall question. Now I can compost in peace.
Nice post. I know that if you eat them you have to “cure” them first. That and I wouldn’t eat them if they’re a nursery variety, only if I propagated them myself first!
How do you do you dig ortimental sweet potatoes?
I cut my tuner up like fries and baked it in the oven in olive oil and sprinkled with Lawry’s seasoned salt! Tasty! More like a regular potatoe!
I have roasted sweet poato vine tubers and then mashed them with butter and brown sugar. Had to add milk as they were quite starchy and thick. This preparation tasted even better mixed half and half with mashed potatoes.
Glad you made it work! Butter, brown sugar and half and half help anything taste better.
I think the reverse is what most people are wondering.. is there a variety I might already have in my pantry or would get off my grocery store shelf that when planted would produce purple foliage, rather than having to purchase from a nursery?
You can grow store-bought sweet potatoes but my understanding is the purple-leaved varieties are hybrids. The foliage would be green. Here’s an article on how to grow sweet potatoes/sweet potato vine from store bought tubers. https://www.redding.com/story/life/2021/04/16/how-grow-sweet-potatoes-backyard-grocery-store-tater/7100307002/
We bought Purple sweet potatoes and cooked up and ate most of them. However, my wife wanted purple sweet potato leaves to eat as greens. So we set aside 3 full sweet potato tubers. We cut each tubers into three section. We used clear disposable cups 3/4 full of water. With three toothpicks we suspended each section so they were mostly submerged. After one week in the dark, three of the nine sprouted shoots and small leaves. We planted the first three. After another week the other six sections did not sprout, but we planted them anyway. After about three months 5 of the 9 sections grew leaves and are flourishing. Every week we harvest about 40 leaves for greens. The greens taste a little more mild than spinach and have a fidgety but nice taste. Other than being mildly present I don’t know how to describe the taste. The leaves regenerate every week, so we can eat Sweet Potato Greens every week. Our sweet potato leaves look like the ornamental Marguerite purple sweet potatoes, but these can from the purple sweet potato tubers you buy in the grocery store to eat. The worked out nicely as a source of extra greens.
A great way to grow greens!