Simple Cinnamon Roasted Sweet Potatoes | AIP, Paleo Side Dish Recipe

Welcome back to Flawed yet Functional! I am Emily Stauch, a Type 1 Diabetic maintaining stable blood sugar through the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) diet. Through AIP, I’ve identified sensitivities to gluten, dairy, and eggs. When I removed them from my diet, my blood sugar dropped dramatically and even allowed me to be insulin-free for 19 months! However, you might look at that list of sensitivities and wonder, “Just what DO you eat for breakfast??” Well, friends, today I’d like to show you my fall-back, easy breakfast when I’m at the end of a grocery shopping week: Simple Cinnamon Roasted Sweet Potatoes.

Egg-Free Breakfast

My diet is getting closer to Paleo with every new reintroduction, but eggs have evaded my grasp. Grrr. I love eggs, and I believe them to be totally healthy. A great addition to every diet…unless you are sensitive to them! If I eat any amount of egg, my blood sugar rises and remains elevated (even with additional insulin!) for about 2 weeks. Yes, it takes two weeks for my gut to heal from one exposure to eggs. So I am pretty motivated to keep my diet egg free.

So what do egg-free breakfasts look like? Here are some ideas:

• Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Kale Chips plus Sausage Patties
• Paleo Breakfast Cereal plus Bacon
• Butternut Squash Hash with Sausage and Mushrooms

See, there are many tasty alternatives to wheat, dairy, and egg-filled breakfasts! Now let’s take a look at another addition to my egg-free breakfast rotation: Simple Cinnamon Roasted Sweet Potatoes.

Hands-free Breakfast

Like you, breakfast can be a hectic time at our house. Daddy’s getting off to work, and the kids and I are either leaving the house for an activity or working to get to school.

So I love breakfasts that I can toss in the oven with little attention needed. In the instructions, you’ll see I say to stir after 15 minutes. This is ideal, but I’ve totally made these with no stirring. The bottoms of each cube are blackened, but personally, I love that charred flavor. So if you don’t mind some char, skip the stirring!

Protein

Just add your favorite breakfast protein to make this a complete breakfast (well, complete enough in my book!). In our house, we usually eat sausage or bacon with our veggies in the morning.

Cooking Tip: Maximize cooking spaces by using both the stove-top and the oven. If the vegetable dish is on the stove top, then I bake bacon. If the vegetables are being roasted in the oven, then I toss sausage into a skillet.

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Roasting Process

Like all vegetables, sweet potatoes are best roasted at 450° for 15 minutes, stirred, then continued cooking until soft. Total cook time is around 30 minutes. (And remember I give you permission to skip the stirring!) Easy peasy!

For a fat, a mellow oil like olive oil or coconut oil works best. The addition of cinnamon to the sweet potatoes will make them seem even sweeter. Coconut or olive oil will not fight with the sweetness of the potato or cinnamon. Avoid using rendered fat, like bacon or lard, as I think they compete with the sweetness of the dish.

In my morning routine, I toss these in the oven before I jump in the shower. When I’m ready for the day, I cook up some sausages or reheat leftover ones and breakfast is ready. Simple Cinnamon Roasted Sweet Potatoes are a sweet, easy edition to your breakfast rotation!