One Incredibly Yummy Homemade Glaze
For a glaze that provides so much great flavor, it’s surprisingly easy to prepare. All you have to do is mix your maple syrup, coconut oil, and lemon juice together in a small bowl. Even though it’s made with only three simple ingredients, they were all carefully selected due to their fantastic synergy in this recipe.
As you would expect, most of the flavor will definitely be coming from the maple syrup. When using pure organic maple syrup, not only are you getting a tasty all natural sweetener, but it’s actually quite healthy as well. It’s jam packed full of amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and phenolic compounds. Maple syrup has even demonstrated an inhibitory effect on the growth of certain types of cancer cells. (1) It also helps to keep your glaze nice and sticky. The lemon juice is added to the glaze mixture to help offset the sweet flavor of the maple syrup. It gives your glaze a slightly tangy flavor that really helps to balance out the taste.
You’ll also be getting a pleasant coconut aftertaste with this glaze thanks to the melted coconut oil. Along with the maple syrup, the oil gives your glaze its consistency, and it also adds some healthy saturated fats in the form of medium chain triglycerides (MCT) fatty acids into the mix. Healthy saturated fats? Yes, you read that right!
Despite the fact that coconuts contain a high amount of saturated fats, MCT fats have actually been found to have a lot of beneficial effects when it comes to weight loss. In addition, researchers found no increase in your risk of developing cardiovascular disease with moderate consumption of these types of saturated fats. (2) That’s exactly the reason why coconut oil is such a staple ingredient in all kinds of different paleo recipes.
After preparing your glaze, you can place all of your sweet potatoes in a baking dish and then coat them in the glaze. Despite the fact that sweet potatoes are relatively high in carbohydrates, rest assured that they are definitely an excellent starchy carb to include in your paleo diet. In addition to having an abundance of vitamins and minerals, sweet potatoes also contain anti-inflammatory and anticancer properties thanks to their high antioxidant content. (3)
Sweet potatoes truly are a fantastic paleo superfood thanks to how nutrient-dense they are. They are made all the better thanks to the homemade maple syrup glaze in this recipe. While these baked sweet potatoes make for a tasty meal in their own right, they make an even better side dish when served along with a protein source for a well balanced dinner.
P.S. – If you love cooking your own paleo meals that feature a tasty homemade glaze, then we’ve got a few other great recipes that you should check out:
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
- 3 tbsp pure maple syrup
- 2 tbsp coconut oil, melted
- 1 ½ tsp lemon juice
- salt, black pepper, to taste
Directions
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- In a small bowl combine the maple syrup, coconut oil and lemon juice.
- Place the sweet potatoes in a baking dish and pour the maple syrup mixture over the sweet potatoes.
- Toss to combine.
- Season to taste with salt and black pepper.
- Cover with foil and bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes.
- Uncover and bake, stirring every 15 minutes, until tender and starting to brown, 35 – 45 minutes more.