Shakarkandi (Sweet Potato): Picking, Roasting and Storing

Don’t put raw sweet potatoes in the fridge. The cold gives them a hard core and a flat, off taste that no amount of roasting fixes. Keep them in a cool, dark, airy basket instead, and pick smooth, firm shakarkandi with no soft ends. That’s the short answer to sweet potato in the fridge or out; below is how to store sweet potatoes for a long time, why some look veiny inside, and how to get the street-cart angeethi taste at home.

Sweet potato in the fridge or out?

Out, as long as it’s raw.

Sweet potatoes come from warm climates. Below roughly 10 °C, their cells get damaged (growers call it chilling injury). You won’t see it straight away. Then you cook it, and the middle stays hard and pale, the taste is dull, and dark spots may appear inside. A home fridge runs at about 4 °C, which is well into the damage zone.

Cooked sweet potato is different: once it’s cooked it behaves like any other cooked food, so cool it and get it into the fridge within about 2 hours, because a tray of roasted shakarkandi left out on a warm kitchen counter overnight is an easy way to end up with a bad stomach the next day.

The short version

Season: November to February, the roadside angeethi season in Pakistan and North India.
Raw: cool, dark, airy place, not the fridge. About 2 to 3 weeks in a cool room, around a week in a warm kitchen.
Cooked: fridge, covered, 3 to 4 days.
Pick: firm all over, smooth skin, no soft or dark ends, no sprouts.
Nutrition: eat the skin; orange-fleshed kinds carry far more vitamin A than white-fleshed desi ones.

Prefer to listen? This post as a 5 min video · Video page with transcript

How to store sweet potatoes for a long time

Don’t wash them before storing. Damp skin rots.
Pick out damaged ones and cook those first. One rotting sweet potato spreads to the rest.
Use a basket, cardboard box or paper bag with some air flow. Never a sealed plastic bag.
Keep them dark and cool, ideally around 13 to 15 °C: a cupboard away from the stove, under a bed in a cool room, or a storeroom. Light makes them sprout.
Keep them away from ripening fruit, because bananas, apples and other ripening fruit give off ethylene (the ripening gas), which wakes up the buds on the skin and speeds up sprouting, so give the basket its own shelf well away from the fruit bowl.
Check weekly. Use any that start to wrinkle or grow little shoots.

In a cool winter room, sweet potatoes last 2 to 3 weeks this way, sometimes longer, but in a warm kitchen next to the stove and the geyser, plan on about a week before they start to wrinkle, sprout or go soft at the ends.

Long term: for storage of months, cook first; bake or boil, cool, mash or cube, and freeze in bags. Frozen cooked sweet potato keeps about 10 to 12 months.

How to pick shakarkandi at the stall

Squeeze both ends. Tips go soft first. Any give, wetness or a dark, sunken end means rot has started.
Check the skin. Smooth and tight, with even colour. Wrinkly skin means it’s been sitting and has lost water.
Look for damage. Skip ones with deep cracks, holes, mouldy patches or white fuzz.
Skip sprouts. A few small shoots are safe to rub off, but sprouting sweet potatoes are older and more fibrous.
Size and shape. Medium, evenly shaped ones cook evenly, while very long thin ones burn at the tips long before the fat middle is done, which is why the cart wallah sorts his stock by size before it ever goes near the coals.
Buy the colour you want. Desi shakarkandi usually has pink-red or purple skin with pale cream flesh. Orange-fleshed kinds (often sold as “sweet potato” in bigger stores) are moister and more carroty in taste.

Sniff it. Fresh ones smell faintly sweet and earthy; sour, musty or alcohol-like means it’s going bad.

Why is my sweet potato veiny?

Veins? Usually harmless. Here’s how to read what you see.

Thin pale or light brown lines running lengthways: these are its water pipes (vascular bundles), which carry water and sugar; every sweet potato has them, and older, larger or dry-grown ones show more and cook up stringier; safe to eat.
White milky drops on the cut surface: natural sap. It’s harmless and dries dark on your knife.
Dark spots or brown streaks after cooking, hard pale core: often chilling injury from a fridge or cold truck. Safe but unpleasant; cut out the bad part.
Black, wet, soft or bitter areas, or a bad smell: rot or fungal damage; cut away generously, and if a lot of it is affected, throw it out. A bitter sweet potato isn’t one to finish.

The angeethi roast at home, and other ways to cook it

Street carts roast shakarkandi slowly in hot sand or over coals until the skin chars and the inside turns soft and syrupy, and that slow heat is the whole secret, because it gives the sweet potato’s own enzymes time to turn starch into sugar before the heat switches them off, which is why a slow-roasted one tastes so much sweeter than one boiled in ten minutes.

Oven or air fryer “angeethi” shakarkandi

Scrub 4 medium sweet potatoes under running water. Don’t peel. Dry them.
Prick each a few times with a fork.
Roast whole at 200 °C for 45 to 60 minutes, turning once, until juice bubbles out and a knife meets no resistance. In an air fryer, about 35 to 45 minutes at 190 °C.
Split open. Squeeze on lemon juice, then sprinkle chaat masala and a pinch of black salt.

Tawa or pressure cooker

No oven? Put whole sweet potatoes in a heavy pan or on a tawa, cover with a lid, and cook on the lowest flame for 40 to 50 minutes, turning every 10 minutes. The skin chars a bit, like the cart version. Or pressure-cook with a cup of water for 2 to 3 whistles, then crisp the skin on a hot tawa for a few minutes.

Shakarkandi chaat

Cube 2 cooked sweet potatoes; add half a chopped onion, 1 chopped green chilli, lemon juice, chaat masala, roasted zeera and a spoon of imli chutney, and top with coriander.

Sweet potato and dahi smoothie (1 glass)

Blend half a cup cooled mashed sweet potato with 150 ml cold milk, 3 tablespoons dahi, a pinch of cinnamon and 4 soaked almonds. No sugar needed; roasted sweet potato is sweet enough.

Good combos: with dahi, eggs, chana or nuts for protein, which makes it more filling and slows the sugar rise. With a little oil or ghee if it’s the orange kind, because fat helps you absorb its beta-carotene.

Skin-on nutrition: what sweet potato gives you

A medium sweet potato (about 130 g, cooked in its skin) has roughly 110 to 120 calories, about 4 g of fibre, potassium and vitamin C.

The big difference is the flesh colour. An orange-fleshed sweet potato gives more than a full day’s vitamin A as beta-carotene, while the pale-fleshed desi kind sold from most carts has only a little, so if you’re buying partly for vitamin A, it’s worth hunting down the orange ones in a bigger store, though both are filling, starchy vegetables either way.

Eat the skin; much of the fibre sits in and just under it, and a well-scrubbed, roasted skin is tasty. Throw away any skin that’s green-black, mouldy or damaged.

What’s hype: sweet potato isn’t a “fat-burning” food and doesn’t flatten your belly; it’s a good carb, not a magic one. If you have diabetes, our piece on shakarkandi and diabetes covers GI and portions in detail.

Leaves and skin

Sweet potato leaves are edible and eaten as a green in parts of Asia and Africa; cook them like palak, using only leaves from a plant you grew or know hasn’t been sprayed. Sweet potato leaves aren’t potato leaves, which are not eaten.

What elders did

Shakarkandi came home in winter wrapped in newspaper, still hot from the cart, and was seen as a “warming” food and an easy snack for children after school. In Unani and desi thinking it’s filling and heavy, so elders said not to eat too much at once. That fits: it’s a dense starch. It’s also a traditional fasting food in many Hindu homes because it isn’t a grain.

Myth: sweet potato is just a sweeter potato

The truth: sweet potatoes aren’t related to potatoes at all. They belong to the morning glory family, while potatoes are in the tomato and brinjal family. Why people believe it: the name, and the fact that both are starchy tubers sold side by side.

Myth: diabetics must never eat shakarkandi

Not true. A small portion eaten with protein works for many people, and portion size, the cooking method (boiled tends to be gentler than slow-roasted and syrupy) and what else is on the plate matter far more than the vegetable itself.

In American shops, orange sweet potatoes are often labelled “yams”. True yams are a different plant altogether.

Surprising sweet potato facts

Stand a sweet potato half in a glass of water on a sunny sill and it sends up leafy shoots (slips), which is how farmers start a new crop.
Slow roasting really does make it sweeter; the enzymes turn starch into sugar while it heats.
Purple-fleshed sweet potatoes get their colour from anthocyanins, the same pigment family as jamun and black carrot.

Who should limit sweet potatoes

When to be careful

Diabetes: keep portions to about half a medium sweet potato with a protein food, and go easy on the syrupy, slow-roasted ones and the imli chutney. Check your own sugar response if you use a meter.

Kidney disease: sweet potato is high in potassium. If you’ve been told to limit potassium, ask your kidney team before eating it regularly.

Kidney stones: it contains a moderate amount of oxalate. People with oxalate stones should keep portions sensible and ask their doctor.

Babies: from 6 months, soft mashed sweet potato is an excellent first food, with no salt, sugar or chaat masala. Street-cart ones are too salty and spicy for small children. See our first foods plan.

Street food: choose carts where the sweet potato is roasted fresh and hot, not left sitting cut and uncovered.

More winter guides live in the Fruits and Vegetables hub and in Season Shift. Pair this with our gajar guide for the rest of winter’s roots.

Shakarkandi questions people ask

Should sweet potatoes be kept in the fridge or out?

Keep raw sweet potatoes out of the fridge, in a cool, dark, airy place. Cold gives them a hard core and dull taste. Cooked sweet potato does go in the fridge.

How do you store sweet potatoes for a long time?

Unwashed, in a basket or paper bag in a cool, dark room, they last 2 to 3 weeks. For months, cook, mash or cube and freeze them.

Why is my sweet potato veiny inside?

Thin lines are its natural water pipes and are safe to eat; older ones show more. Dark spots with a hard core usually mean cold damage, and black, wet or bitter areas mean rot.

How long do cooked sweet potatoes last in the fridge?

About 3 to 4 days, covered. Cool them within 2 hours of cooking before refrigerating.

Is it OK to eat sweet potato skin?

Yes. Scrub it well and eat it; it adds fibre and flavour. Cut away any mouldy, green-black or damaged patches.

Can I eat a sprouted sweet potato?

Yes, if it’s still firm. Rub off the sprouts and cook it soon. Unlike potatoes, sweet potato sprouts don’t make the tuber toxic, but it gets more fibrous.

How do I roast shakarkandi like the street carts?

Roast whole, unpeeled, at 200 °C for 45 to 60 minutes, or covered on a tawa on low for 40 to 50 minutes. Finish with lemon and chaat masala.

Is shakarkandi good for weight loss?

It’s filling and high in fibre, so a moderate portion fits a weight-loss plan. It doesn’t melt fat; the rest of your day’s eating matters more.

Can diabetics eat sweet potatoes?

Yes, in a small portion with protein. Boiled tends to raise sugar less than slow-roasted. Our diabetes piece goes through portions.

Can babies eat sweet potato?

Yes, from 6 months, mashed smooth with no salt, sugar or masala. It’s one of the easiest first foods.

Why is my sweet potato hard after cooking?

Most often it was kept in the fridge or chilled in transport before you bought it. Undercooking is the other cause, so test with a knife before serving.