Your favorite bar snack is now dinner. You're welcome.
At some distant point in time, someone somewhere decreed that a proper dinner must have a meat and two sides. Now, years later, we’re still struggling to cook dinner according to this rule . . . even though it’s flat-out impossible for vegetarians and completely ignores the delicious culinary traditions of major food cultures (Spanish tapas? Middle Eastern Mezze?) Are we always in the mood to fill our plates with homemade versions of compartmentalized TV dinners? If we’re honest, no.
“Today’s dinner can take a lot of different forms,” Melissa Clark writes in the introduction to Dinner: Changing the Game, “. . . the conundrum . . . is that we haven’t defined what those forms are.” Melissa spends the next 225 recipes solving that conundrum. My answer isn’t nearly as extensive.
Have you heard of Sweet Potato Dinner Nachos?
Crackling sweet potato crisps, loaded with juicy hunks of chorizo sausage and sprinkled with onion, jalapeno, and crumbles of queso fresco. Crunchy, salty, spicy . . . this delicious mash-up of the well-loved bar snack and the perennially popular sheet-pan meal is sure to become your new favorite dinner! It’s perfect for movie marathon nights when you’re craving something “snack-ey” but substantial. It’s a great alternative when you’re bored of your usual go-to and need something to liven up your routine. And (assuming we allowed to invite people over again someday) it would make an impressive and fun buffet dish, too!
A “proper dinner” is whatever you want it to be. For me, that’s usually some type of protein, a carb, and some type of vegetable . . . preferably a green, crunchy one to lighten the heavier portions of my meal. These nachos definitely bring the protein and the carb, with a little dairy sprinkled on for good measure. If I’m eating them, I might throw some crunchy Romaine or celery on the plate too. But when you’re eating? Totally up to you. It’s your dinner.
Enjoy!
Sweet Potato Dinner Nachos
(Serves 4)
2 large sweet potatoes
4 tbsp plus 1 teaspoon vegetable oil, divided
2 ½ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt, plus additional, divided
1 tsp chili powder
½ onion, diced
1 jalapeno, seeded: half diced and half thinly sliced
½ lb fresh chorizo sausage
4 eggs
4 oz queso fresco, crumbled
Cilantro leaves, plucked and washed
Special equipment: 2 baking sheets, foil
Method
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F, racks arranged on the top and bottom third. Line two baking sheets with foil.
Slice sweet potato thinly (your slices should be 1/8- ¼ inch thick). Toss in a large bowl with 4 teaspoons vegetable oil, 2 teaspoons kosher salt, and chili powder. Arrange on the baking sheets in a single even layer, making sure they don’t overlap. (If your baking sheets aren’t big enough to fit all of them, roast them in batches.)
Bake until spots of brown appear on the bottom and the edges are curling up and crisping, about 10 minutes. Flip the slices, swap oven racks, and continue to cook until crisp and starting to brown on the other side, about 5 minutes more. Remove sweet potato crisps from the pan and cool on a wire rack. Repeat with any remaining sweet potato slices.
Meanwhile, heat a saute pan with 1 tablespoon vegetable oil over medium heat. Add onion, diced jalapeno, and ½ teaspoon kosher salt, and cook until translucent, about 2 minutes. Crumble in chorizo sausage and cook until just cooked through. Keep warm.
Just before serving, heat a nonstick pan with 1 tablespoon vegetable oil over medium high heat. Crack in two eggs, one on each side of the pan (try to keep them as separate as possible); season with salt and cook until set, basting the egg white with the pan oil to ensure that the top white is cooked. Remove to a plate and keep warm, then repeat with the remaining eggs and tablespoon oil.
To serve, pile the sweet potato crisps on a single baking sheet (now you can stack them!) and sprinkle with chorizo mixture. Top with eggs and sprinkle with queso fresco, sliced jalapeno, and cilantro.
Originally posted February 4, 2021.
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