Sweet Potato Gratin With Coconut Milk and Chipotle Chile

After reading Melissa Breyer’s excellent article on the wonders of root vegetables, I knew I wanted to make something with sweet potatoes right away. To my delight, I found this recipe from Experience Life. I love that it asks for coconut milk rather than heavy cream, making it healthy and vegan! And that it asks for chipotle–combining sweet and spicy is always a great idea to me!

3 pounds sweet potatoes (about six medium), peeled and cut into 1/4-inch rounds
One 15-ounce can unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 chipotle chile in adobo sauce, seeded and minced
1 tbs. fresh lime juice
1 tsp. salt
1 tbs. maple syrup
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium bowl, mix together the sweet potatoes, coconut milk, chipotle chile, lime juice, salt, maple syrup and garlic. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish (8 x 11-inch Pyrex is ideal). Cover with aluminum foil. Bake 45 minutes to one hour, until the sweet potatoes are just tender. Uncover and bake an additional 30 minutes, or until the tops are browned.

Recipe excerpted from The Healthy Hedonist Holidays by Myra Kornfeld (Simon & Schuster, 2007).

For other healthy foods for the season, check out Melissa’s article Top 10 Superfoods for Fall.

Experience Life magazine is an award-winning health and fitness publication that aims to empower people to live their best, most authentic lives, and challenges the conventions of hype, gimmicks and superficiality in favor of a discerning, whole-person perspective. Visit www.experiencelifemag.com to learn more and to sign up for the Experience Life newsletter, or to subscribe to the print or digital version.