Can you eat sprouted sweet potatoes?

What you see: Purple sprouts and stalks emerging from your sweet potato.
What it is: A sprouting sweet potato.
Eat or toss: Eat! A sweet potato with a small bunch of sprouts is still safe and will taste fine. Even the sprouts themselves are edible (unlike regular potato sprouts).

Sprouting sweet potatoes are different from sprouting “regular” potatoes

Yumi R. of Washington, D.C. forgot about this sweet potato on an open shelf, discovering two weeks later that it had sprouted a crown of little purple vines.

Like Yumi, you may be concerned about such a sweet potato, especially if you’re aware that when “regular” potatoes (say, Idaho russets) produce sprouts this size, you definitely want to cut them off. Potato sprouts contain toxins that can sicken people.

It’s safe to eat a sprouting sweet potato

But, sweet potatoes, despite their name and appearance, come from an entirely different plant.

Sweet potatoes are thickened storage roots, cousins to morning glory flowers. Potatoes, by contrast, are underground “thickened stems” and are more closely related to tomatoes and eggplants.

So, great news for Yumi and her purple moptop root! Louisiana State University horticulturist David Picha assured me that not only are sweet potato sprouts free from dangerous loads of toxins, they’re also edible.

What to do with a sprouted sweet potato

Eat it! A sweet potato that’s just starting to sprout, like Yumi’s pictured above, is perfectly fine to eat. But don’t wait too long.

Developing sprouts drain nutrients, sugars and water from the roots, ultimately leading to dry, pithy sweet potatoes. They might start to look dehydrated and leathery, sort of collapsed–at that point you won’t want to eat the potato. Older sweet potatoes are also more vulnerable to microbes that cause rot.

You can even eat sweet potato sprouts!

Sprouts like these may not be culinary stars, but chop up the purple bits and they could add crunch to a salad or blend into a stir fry. (And full disclosure: we haven’t sampled them yet ourselves, but reader Graham W. reported that they were “tasty.”) Just make sure the sprout is still tender. They toughen up with time.

Why do sweet potatoes sprout?

Much of it comes down to the local weather. After a couple of weeks at about 70 degrees Fahrenheit, a sweet potato’s biological clock will say, “Hey! It’s time to sprout!” At higher temperatures, that clock ticks faster.

A sweet potato will not sprout if it’s stored between 55 and 57 degrees, a range that would hardly be possible (or worthwhile) for the average home cook to try to replicate. A root cellar might come close. But a fridge is too cold for sweet potatoes and will mess with their flavor and texture—don’t do it!

You’re best off storing your sweet potatoes in a cool, dark, dry, well-ventilated space, according to SaveTheFood. That website estimates their shelf life as one to two weeks in those conditions; here at EatOrToss headquarters, we’ve found that they can last much longer. But, as the temperature warms they’re more likely to sprout.

Eating the fresh sprouts is a fine option. But Picha notes that it’s a small amount of food and the nutritional value of the early shoots won’t be as high as the leaves they might one day develop. Check out the sweet potato below, in all her leafy glory.

How to plant a sprouted sweet potato

If the sweet potato has sprouted so much it’s past edibility, Picha suggests burying the potato horizontally in moist potting soil and leaving it in a container in a sunny, warm (75 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit) spot. In a few weeks you should have some sweet potato vines in the works, as well as some tender leaves ready for harvest.

Picha’s lab found that sweet potato greens are high in vitamin B6, as well as vitamin C and other nutrients. Nutritionally comparable to spinach, they’re said to be great in salads.

In certain regions in Africa and Asia, people often eat sweet potato greens. Because they can be harvested repeatedly without disturbing the starchy roots below, the sweet potato plant makes efficient use of the land.

For recipe inspiration on cooking up your very own sweet potato greens, check out these ideas from Better Homes and Gardens and Tufts! Let us know how it goes!

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This post was published on May 1, 2020, and updated on Jan. 10, 2024.