Sweet Potato Tempura

Learn how to make crispy Sweet Potato Tempura using only three ingredients! Tempura is one of the most iconic Japanese dishes and is easy to make. I'm sure your whole family will love it!

If you love Japanese sweet potatoes, you have to try this tempura! The starchy, sweet, and rich flavor pairs well with the tempura's light and crispy texture.

I'll show you how in this recipe with some helpful tips for success!

This recipe is for you if:
• You love Japanese sweet potato.
• You want to make sweet potato tempura.
• You are looking for easy sweet potato tempura recipe.
• You want to know how to make crisp tempura.

Let me walk you through the ingredients and the instructions. If you want to check the recipe, jump to the recipe. Let's get started!

Jump to:

• About This Recipe
• 📋 Ingredients
• 🔪Instructions
• Helpful tips for making crispy Tempura
• How to Make Tempura Batter 3 Ways!
• How to Eat
• Vegetable Tempura Moriawase
• Best vegetables for Tempura
• Thanks For Stopping By!
• 📖 Recipe
• Sweet Potato Tempura
• 💬 Comments

About This Recipe

• Easy sweet potato tempura recipe
• Tips for making crispy Tempura
• The batter without egg
• Vegetable variations

📋 Ingredients

Here are the ingredients (amounts are in the recipe card below).

• Sweet potato - Cut sweet potato into thin slices with the skin on.
• Oil - I love using White sesame oil (taihaku) or rice oil to get an extra crispy texture. You can use your regular cooking oil, like vegetable oil, or olive oil.
• Batter - This recipe uses water, cake flour, and baking powder. No egg is required.
• Tentsuyu (Tempura sauce) - This is the tempura dipping sauce. Put grated daikon radish in mentsuyu (noodle soup) in this recipe.

Tempura batter mix

The fastest way to make tempura batter is by using tempura batter mix or tempura flour. You need to add water and mix it up.

But we won't use it as we can easily make the batter with simple ingredients.

🔪Instructions

Let me show you how to make it. Click here to watch the recipe video.

1. Cut the sweet potato into thin slices or thick rounds.
2. Make a batter to mix water, flour, and baking powder in a bowl.
3. Put oil about 2 cm (1 inch) high in a pan and heat it to 170C (335F). Dip the sweet potato in the batter and put them in the pan.
4. Deep fry until cooked about a couple of minutes. The skin will be light beige color (not golden brown).
5. Place them on a wire rack or paper towels to drip excess oil.
6. Dilute mentsuyu (noodle soup) with water according to the bottle instructions and add daikon oroshi.

Here you go! Dip them in tempura sauce and enjoy these crispy sweet potato tempura for a delicious appetizer or main dish for dinner!

Helpful tips for making crispy Tempura

Tips for batter

The batter is the key to the success of your Tempura. It is important to avoid gluten development in the batter! Otherwise, you will get a pancake-like heavy texture, not crispy!

So, let's check the following easy and simple tips to make your Tempura perfect!

1. Use cake flour - Use cake flour with a lower gluten content (about 7%). You can substitute it with all-purpose flour, which is 8%. Do not use bread flour with a high gluten content (about 13%).

2. Use Cold water - Prepare cold water rather than lukewarm water because gluten is easily formed at high temperatures. It's also better to chill the flour if possible. By the way, fizzy water works well for making crispy tempura.

3. Shift the flour - Shifting the flour makes the texture finer and lighter as air comes in.

4. Do not mix it until smooth - If you combine the batter ingredients too much, the gluten will be formed, and your Tempura will be heavy and chewy.

5. The timing to Make the batter - The batter will become sticky over time, so making it right before frying is better.

Other Tips

1. Dust flour on the ingredients - If you dust ingredients with flour, the extra surface will reduce the water content of vegetables and keep them from getting soggy. In addition, the batter sticks to vegetables, and you can fry them without the tempura skin coming off.

2. Do not fry too many at once - You will lower the oil temperature by adding many ingredients to the pot. Then the moisture in the batter will not evaporate well, and your Tempura might become soggy. To keep the oil temperature consistent, put the ingredients in less than ⅔ of the pot and save some space open.

3. Remove Tenkasu (Agedama) - Tenkasu (or agedama) is crunchy bits made from the leftover batter during cooking tempura. If you leave them in the pot, old tenkasu stick to the new Tempura and ruin the texture. Remove them with a fat skimmer spoon before adding a new Tempura to the pot.

4. Drain off the oil - Place cooked tempura on a wire rack or paper towel to remove any excess oil. Keep them upright as much as possible, and do not stack them.

How to Make Tempura Batter 3 Ways!

Get creative in the kitchen with three simple tempura batter recipes - from traditional Japanese to gluten-free with rice flour or vegan options.

How to Eat

If you go to a Japanese restaurant, Tempura serves commonly with tentsuyu (tempura sauce) or just salt.

But at home, you can enjoy more options. Here are how to eat Tempura!

• Tentsuyu: A dipping sauce for Tempura made from soy sauce and dashi. See the following section for more details.
• Salt: Add a little salt on top and eat it; then, enjoy the simple taste. You can also use flavored salts such as matcha, spicy, citrus, etc.
• Soy sauce: Add a bit of soy sauce. Do not dip in it as it is salty and overpowers the taste of Tempura.
• Chuno sauce (Japanese Worcestershire-style sauce): Add the sauce to your taste.
• Or without any condiments.

When I was a child, I would eat Tempura with soy or tonkatsu sauce, but now I like tentsuyu with grated daikon radish, which helps digestion.

Tentsuyu

Tentsuyu is a special dipping sauce for Tempura made from dashi (soup stock), soy sauce, and mirin.

Mentsuyu (noodle soup) is made from the same ingredients, and it's easier to get at a store, so I use store-bought mentsuyu for this recipe. (You can also check my homemade mentsuyu recipe here)

Adding grated daikon to tentsuyu is common as it helps digest fatty food like Tempura. You can also add lemon juice or grated ginger for the same reason.

If you are a vegetarian

Store-bought tentsuyu or mentsuyu include dashi stock made from fish, so you should avoid using them.

Vegetable Tempura Moriawase

Moriawase is a dish that has many different ingredients on one plate. This one has kabocha, Japanese sweet potato, eggplant, and bell peppers.

Once you know how to cook tempura, try other vegetables as well. Here is my recipe for making vegetable tempura.

Best vegetables for Tempura

Let's make more vegetable tempura!

Shiso, asparagus, and okra are all delicious. There is so much variety in this Japanese dish that you could try something new every time!!

• Kabocha squash
• Sweet potato
• Eggplant
• Bell pepper
• Okura
• Shiso
• Shishito pepper
• Asparagus
• Zucchini
• Onion
• Carrot
• Shiitake mushroom
• Maitake mushroom
• Eringi mushroom
• Enoki mushroom
• Lotus root
• Kale

Thanks For Stopping By!

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog♡ . If you've tried this recipe (or any other recipe on the blog), please give it a star rating below!

Also, feel free to leave comments if you have any questions. I love hearing from you!

Chef JA Cooks is a Japanese food blog that shares simple and healthy Japanese home cooking recipes, including vegan and vegetarian. From traditional Japanese recipes to modern recipes with step-by-step instructions.

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