Kid-Friendly Sweet Potato Hash with Maple Bacon

Kid-Friendly Sweet Potato Hash with Maple Bacon | The Driven Mama

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The Dinnertime Battle with Toddlers

When I first has kids, I told myself I wasn’t going to make a special meal for the kids just because they didn’t like what we were having… gosh, there is nothing like the well-set intentions of a new mom who hasn’t experienced her first week’s worth of toddler meltdowns at dinner time. Right?!

Since that day, I’ve loosened up my expectations quite a bit a realize there are just going to be some meals where the kids get mac and cheese with hot dogs and once they are down, we get to enjoy our fully adult-worthy meal.

Finding Flexibility in Dinnertime

That being said, family meals are some of our only time as a family to sit down, have a conversation (as much as a conversation a 3 and 5 year old can have with you), and connect as a family. So, I love being able to find quick meals that can be made kid-friendly with a few simple variations, while still being able to feel like I’m enjoying a full flavor meal that feels nourishing to me as an adult.

One of my favorite dinner options is using breakfast foods, because during the week, we’re a quick breakfast family, which meals cereal and yogurt along with a morning smoothie are our ” go to’s”, but I also love breakfast potatoes and eggs – and let’s not forget a little bacon, because like is all about #balance.

Sweet Potato Hash the Kids will Love

Sweet Potato Hash with Maple Bacon – Kid-Friendly Meals Summer Series

Sweet Potato Hash with Maple bacon – I mean, it pretty much makes my mouth water as soon as I think of it. 

A few years before we had kids, Adam and I decided to do the Whole 30. It was a really enlightening experience and I learned a lot about myself and food, as well as picked up on some new recipe ideas. Because Whole 30 is all about eliminating certain foods from your diet for a period of time and then re-introducing them to see if you notice a difference in your body, we always struggled with breakfast options, as our usual “go to” items were off the list during those 30 days. We ended up finding a sweet potato hash recipe, and I fell in love.

The best part was that I could roast up a whole bunch of sweet potatoes at the beginning of the week and use them for all my meals throughout the week. During that time, I learned that sweet potatoes are pretty much good for everything – Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Add a poached or over-east egg and it was perfection to me. 

Prepping Sweet Potatoes

Even though we don’t follow Whole 30 anymore, we still have kept some of the recipes handy and use them regularly. 

Alternatives to Sweet Potatoes

I fully realize not everyone has a crazy obsession over sweet potatoes like I do, so if that’s the case, there are several ways you can mix up this recipe. The most obvious one is to use while potatoes or red potatoes instead. 

However, you could also easily make this into a grain bowl and use quinoa and whole-grain brown rice – the options are endless. 

Lastly, after I was done making this meal, I realized having it all on a bed of spinach would have been an awesome way to get in some additional veggies, so I’ll be trying that next time. 

 

It’s All About Balance

In anticipation for someone to reach out to me and let me know that bacon isn’t a healthy food, I’ll let you know that first, none of the meal options I’m posting this summer are focused on any dietary purpose – That’s the job of a dietitian, and I’m a wellness coach. (If you’re not sure how that’s different, I wrote a post all about the things you might be surprised to learn about a wellness coach.) So, if you have a specific dietary need, feel free to reach out because I have a great list of dietitians I trust with my clients when it comes to specific needs.  

Second, I believe life is all about balance. We don’t have bacon every night for dinner. In fact, I probably make bacon about once a month, and you could totally use other proteins with this recipe, so use whatever works best for you and your needs. I will say that having a little maple bacon in this dish made it extra yummy. I’m also a savory/salty lover over a sweet lover, so this is my way of working in a little treat that satisfies me. 🙂 

Top It Off

This isn’t a sponsored post for Trader Joe’s (I wish it was!), but I absolutely love the Everything But the Bagel Seasoning they have, and try to think of creative ways to add it to food. It’s usually on my lunch with avocados, cherry tomatoes and spinach with a hard-boiled egg, but it was amazing with this dinner as well. If you haven’t tried this seasoning yet and you love everything bagels, you need to give it a try. 

That being said, my kids throw anything across the room that has black specks in it (you think I’m kidding), so they preferred a little ketchup to dip their sweet potatoes in. So many options for this, too! 

Getting the Kids Involved

I find my kids are much more invested in dinner time when we have them help. So lately, they have been in charge of setting the table and for meals like this one, deciding what they would like to eat and how much. I usually will put one item on their plate that I choose, then they get to choose the rest. That way I know they aren’t just eating ketchup and bacon (because my daughter probably would). 

I like this recipe with the eggs a little more runny (be sure to back yours a little longer if you like cooked through eggs), and I haven’t had my kids try runny eggs yet, so in anticipation of them not being all about the eggs in this dish, they helped up make hard-boiled eggs before we started dinner. Basically, this means I make the hard boiled egg, and they crack and peel them. 

Try More Kid-Friendly Recipes

Looking for more ideas to make dinner a time everyone will love? Check out the other kid-friendly meal ideas here! 

 

Did you try this meal? What did you think and did you make any adjustments so that your kids would eat dinner with you and love it? Comment below! 

 

Yield: 4 (Plus extra for leftovers)

Kid-Friendly Sweet Potato Hash with Bacon

Kid-Friendly Sweet Potato Hash with Bacon

Make this delicious dish for breakfast or dinner. It's easy to pull out ingredients along the way and make a plate the kids will love while you get to enjoy the full-flavor of this meal!

Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 medium/large sweet potatoes - cut into 1/2 inch cubes
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 package maple bacon, cut into 1 inch sections (option for turkey bacon)
  • 4 - 6 large eggs
  • 1 Avocado (optional)
  • Everything but the Bagel Seasoning (I used the one from Trader Joe's)
  • Salt & Pepper - to taste
  • 2 tbsp Avocado Oil (or oil of choice)

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. Place cubed sweet potatoes in a large bowl and add 1 tbsp of avocado oil. Toss to coat the sweet potatoes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  3. Place sweet potato cubes on a baking sheet. Add chopped onion to large bowl and toss in left over/residual oil to coat. Spread onion over sweet potato. (Note: I chose to only layer 1/2 of the pan with onion to have some onion-free sweet potatoes for the kids).
  4. Bake sweet potatoes and onion for 15 minutes, then flip using a spatula to bake the other side. Bake for an additional 10 minutes.
  5. While sweet potatoes and onions are cooking. Cooked cut up bacon pieces in a pan until brown and crispy. Once bacon is crispy, transfer to a plate with paper towel and drain oil from bacon.
  6. Once sweet potatoes are easy to puncture with a fork, put oven to broil and and continue cooking, watching very carefully until browned on top. (the onion will cook really fast, so keep an eye on it!) Remove from oven to cool while bacon is finishing up.

For Assembly:

  1. Select which items your kids will eat (or allow them to choose what they want to eat), and assemble their deconstructed plate. (note: we also hard boiled a few eggs, which they ate along with their sweet potatoes.)
  2. Once kid's plates are assembled, place remaining sweet potatoes and onion in an oven safe pan (we love this Calphalon pan with handles instead of the 1 long handle)
  3. Layer maple bacon pieces on top of sweet potatoes and onions.
  4. Using a small bowl, break 1 egg at a time into bowl and carefully pour/place egg in the pan on top. Repeat 3 times with a few inches in between each egg in the pan.
  5. Put oven safe pan in oven and bake for 10 minutes, or until eggs are cooked through to your liking. (I like slightly runny eggs, so you may want to cook yours a little longer if you like yours cooked through all the way.)
  6. Remove pan from oven and allow it to cook for a few minutes and let eggs to set.
  7. Using a large spoon, scoop out an entire egg with other ingredients (careful not to break the yolk) and place on dish. Top with Avocado and Everything but the Bagel Seasoning.
  8. Enjoy!

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

4

Serving Size:

1

Amount Per Serving: Calories: 362Total Fat: 22.3gCarbohydrates: 15.7gProtein: 20.1g

Nutritional information may vary depending on exact ingredients used and products purchased.

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Hi, I'm Jen.

Jen Wright | The Driven Mama

I’m a Nationally Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach, Mayo Clinic Certified Wellness Coach, Certified Cycle Instructor, and healthy lifestyle advocate living in Southwest Minneapolis, MN.

But most of all, I’m a mom who believes you shouldn’t have to suffer just so everyone else around you can thrive.

You deserve to feel your best, and I can help. 

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