Baked Japanese Sweet Potatoes (Yaki Imo)

1. Gather all the ingredients. I‘m using four Japanese sweet potatoes; I will wrap and bake two in aluminum foil and leave the other two unwrapped (so I can show you the difference). Please read the post to decide which method you prefer.
2. Preheat the oven to 325ºF (163ºC). Meanwhile, gently but thoroughly wash 4 Japanese sweet potatoes (Satsumaimo) really well with a brush. I use this Japanese tawashi brush to scrub root vegetables.
3. Dry the sweet potatoes with a clean towel or paper towels. Poke a few holes in the sweet potatoes with a wooden skewer or fork so the hot steam can escape and keep the potatoes from exploding. Then, wrap the sweet potatoes in foil or you can leave them as they are.
4. Place the sweet potatoes on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 90 minutes, or until you can easily insert a wooden skewer through the sweet potatoes. Remove from the oven, unwrap the foil (if using), and let them stand for a few minutes. If you don‘t remove the foil, the sweet potato skins will become wet and sticky from the steam. If you don‘t mind the wet skin, you can keep the sweet potatoes in the foil. Their texture will be creamy and super tender. You can experiment to see what you like the best. Serve hot—be careful!
5. These images were taken right after they are done. The left image shows the sweet potato wrapped in foil while baking. The right image shows the sweet potato baked without foil.

To Store

1. Once you have finished baking, let them cool completely. You can store the sweet potatoes in the fridge for 3 days and in the freezer for a month.