Sweet Potato Foil Packet Tacos
Update 4/11/11: These little foil packet tacos won first place in the Kid-Friendly category in the North Carolina Sweet Potatoes “Sweet ‘n’ Healthy” Bloggers Recipe contest! Click on the badge below for the details and other winning recipes. . .
We loooove sweet potatoes around here. My kids could eat “orange fries” until they turned orange themselves. One day I had some leftover taco meat in the fridge and decided to experiment a little. HUGE success! It’s basically a taco on a bed of sweet potato cubes instead of wrapped in a tortilla (which is a great nutritional trade-off.) Calling this a “taco” is using the term very loosely, but I wasn’t sure what else to call it.
These little packets are a cinch to assemble — your kiddos could practically do it themselves. First convince them that the potato cubes don’t have to be perfectly arranged on the foil. I swear, my three-year-old gives a whole new meaning to “slow food.” She’s very thorough and careful, but quickness isn’t her forte.
Anyway, pile some sweet potato cubes in the middle of a 12 inch piece of foil. I put a little smudge of butter and a pinch of salt over top, then a (3-year-old-sized) handful of chopped fresh spinach.
(Yes, they eat it. I’ve been sticking chopped spinach in almost everything they’ve eaten since they were babies. They’re used to it. And they’ll notice it’s missing and ask for it if I forget.)
Next comes a couple of spoonfuls of taco meat, followed by a couple of pinches of shredded cheese to the mouth. And THEN over the meat.
Um, not really.
Seriously, though… try these out on your kids!
P.S. I highly recommend using my Homemade Taco Seasoning on these!

Sweet Potato Foil Packet Tacos
My little ones loved assembling these foil packet tacos and sweet potatoes make a great base for a taco! You can even take these camping!
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound ground beef or turkey
- 2-3 Tablespoons Homemade Taco Seasoning
- 1/2 cup tomato sauce (4 ounces)
- 1 can black, kidney, or pinto beans, drained (optional)
- 2-3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (about 6 cups total)
- 2 Tablespoons butter
- salt
- 1 1/2 cups chopped fresh spinach
- 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (optional)
- sour cream, salsa, and/or guacamole for garnish
- 6 12-inch long pieces of aluminum foil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
- Brown ground meat in a skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in taco seasoning, tomato sauce, and beans. Set aside.
- To assemble packets, spray the foil with non-stick spray. Place 1 cup sweet potato cubes in the center of each piece. Top with a small piece of butter (about 1 tsp) and a pinch or two of salt. Sprinkle some chopped spinach over the sweet potatoes, followed by about 1/3 cup of taco meat and sprinkle of cheese.
- Fold the sides in, then bring the top and bottom ends of the foil together in the center and fold, sealing the packet. Repeat with remaining ingredients, placing the packets on a rimmed cookie sheet.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes until the sweet potatoes are tender. Serve with sour cream, salsa, and/or guacamole. Makes 6 servings. Nat's Notes: 1. For the taco meat, I used some leftover Hidden Veggie Chipotle Taco Meat I had in the fridge. (It's in the index.)
Notes
Nat's Note: For the taco meat, I used some leftover Hidden Veggie Chipotle Taco Meat I had in the fridge.
Oh wow I love this idea!! I have a thing for sweet potatoes and am always looking for ways to get my kids to eat them. I think this could work.
Great idea! I need more tacos in my life – Mexican flavours are my fave!!!
Love this idea! It's making my tummy growl. or maybe it's just time for lunch. Either way, I'm going to try this!
What a great idea! I love sweet potatoes and tacos – now the two can go together in a healthy way!
Love this idea!
Wow! Great idea!
And I'm with you on the no camping bandwagon! I work hard to pay my bills and sleep indoors, thankyouverymuch!
Happy Friday!
Lots o' love,
Christina
I love how healthy and fun these sound. We will be sure to try these!
This sounds great. I bet you could assemble these on the weekends and refrigerate them until you're ready to cook/eat them… or freeze them and reheat them after you've cooked them. (As if they weren't already easy enough.)
Wow this sounds very cool-I'm going to print and give it a try;)
when you followed me the other day (on twitter), I was super surprised because I thought we were already twitter friends! This explains it :P
I love the sound of these packets. Tacos are fun and all but sweet potatoes are better. Just saying.
Joanne – Ya. I'm super late to the Twitter party. I put it off for so long because I thought Twitter was lame. :) I think my mind's changing!
My mother always made "sweetie fries" that we dipped in honey. Mmm. :D
I was just bickering with my fiance yesterday because he wants me to prepare more "paleo-friendly" meals for us, and I just plain don't want to (if he wants them so badly then he can start cooking)! However, this is something that I'm more than willing to add onto this weeks menu!
fun and full of flavors i love–rockin' idea!
I am with you about the camping thing. So not a fan. Sweet potatoes on the other hand are one of my all time favorites. Love seeing the kids help in the kitchen!
hehe, I'm totally with you on the camping thing – but we do have an outdoor fireplace so I could totally try them out there! (then come back inside and sleep in my own bed!)
I made this for dinner tonight and it was FABULOUS. Oh my heavens, we loved it – my seven month old couldn't get enough of it either!
Yummy! My hubby is not a huge fan of sweet potatoes but I think these could make him one! Thanks for the fantastic idea.
Janssen – So glad you liked them! (Especially the little one – they're always the toughest!)
We had these for dinner tonight and they were really fun, tasty, and easy to prepare. The kids were excited to open up their tacos and gobbled them up. Thanks!
Cindy – Yay! Success! I love it when kids get excited at dinner :) Maybe I'll start putting everything I make for them in foil packets. Ha!
Hi Natalie, Just wanted to say that I made these yummy packets last night. It's a real winner. Quick and healthy and really good. Thanks!
Hey Natalie! Thanks again for another great recipe that came just in time to salvage my questionably old sweet potatoes. Maybe from now on I can just go through my fridge/pantry and send you a list of what I have that is getting….past its prime, and then you can just come up with amazing recipes so I can use it all up. Perfect plan, right?
Thanks!
I just made this over the weekend! It was a hit. Although before looking at how much meat you said to put in I dumped a pound and a half of meat on the stove.
…ended up having a ton extra of course, good thing it was so delicious!
Thanks for the recipe!
Congratulations on the win. What a fun idea! Look liek teh kids enjoyed it a lot too.
Looks good! I'm definitely going to try it! I love the idea and it's so simple.
Oh man, were the delicious!! I won't be waiting long before I serve this up for dinner again :D I did add some corn to the taco meat mix… and sauteed an onion because there was no onion powder in the taco seasoning I put together (also your recipe… only because I don't have onion powder in my cupboard).
These are so yummy! 2 adults and 2 college kids lived them. We cooked on the grill at a little less than high (Weber – on, off, on), for 30 minutes. Added some sliced avocado & sour cream at the end. Will make again! dawnk777@gmail.com
OK, seriously? I don't know how i fed myself before I found your blog. These look amazingly delicious! And, they are going on my menu for this week. Absolutely. Maybe lunch today? That might be perfect. I love all the recipes that you post, I only read two food blogs because after I found yours I found a soul sister in the food department! I swear I pin 9 out of 10 things you make! Anyway… can't wait to make these!
I just made this for supper tonight, and everyone loved it! Even the lil girls! After cooking mine, I dumped the sweet potato mixture onto a bed of lettuce, then added avocado, salsa etc, and ate it like a salad… amazing!! Hubby already said I’ll have to make this again, and SOON!
Hey “Sister Perry,” (Haha! :) Just for some of us!)
Why do I keep reading this recipe and not seeing corn but I look at the pictures and I seem to see corn?
Also, flour tortillas?
I’m making this tonight. NOW, matter of fact. But there’s always time to run out for last minute add-ons, if you tell me they’re needed.
mj
Hey Sister Marti :) (I assume you’re LDS, too?) There’s corn in the photos because I used leftover Hidden Veggie Chipotle Taco meat when I made those. (I mentioned it in the recipe note, but it’s kind of small.)
Oh, and you can eat these with tortillas. We didn’t, though. Good luck! Hope you like them :)
Our family loves these tacos…and with a family of 9 that is hard to accomplish. The first time I made these I was out of ground beef, so I just omitted it. This makes for a very easy vegetarian meal. I also add fresh cilantro along with the spinach and then use more cilantro for a garnish after they are cooked. Mmmm!
I’ve made these twice in the past week and we have RAVED about them each time! We eat Paleo, so I omitted a few things, but this is one of the tastiest meals we’ve had! Thanks so much!
I LOVE this idea! Can’t wait to make it with my 2.5 year old! (I just linked over here from Cara’s Cravings… I’ll be adding you to my RSS feed now!) Thanks!