Vegan Sweet Potato Cakes
with Lime-Pickled Onion, Guacamole, Rice & Beans
- Wheat
Fresh out of vegan dinner ideas? We got you! Try these smoky, Mexican-spiced black bean and sweet potato cakes that are crispy on the outside, sweet and tender on the inside, and studded with zingy red onion. Shallow-fry them until crisp and golden and serve over a fluffy mound of rice and beans. Dollop with guacamole, and finish with a tangy tangle of lime-pickled onion, a drizzle of hot sauce, and a shower of cilantro. Keep us in your back pocket, and you’ll never run out of recipe ideas!
Ingredients
1 unit
Red Onion
½ cup
Panko Breadcrumbs
(Contains: Wheat)
½ cup
Jasmine Rice
2 unit
Sweet Potato
1 unit
Black Beans
1 unit
Lime
4 tablespoon
Guacamole
1 tablespoon
Mexican Spice Blend
¼ ounce
Cilantro
1 teaspoon
Hot Sauce
Not included in your delivery
2 tablespoon (tbsp)
Cooking Oil
teaspoon (tsp)
Salt
teaspoon (tsp)
Black Pepper
Nutrition Values
Utensils
Cooking Steps
• Wash and dry produce. • Peel and dice sweet potatoes into ½-inch pieces. Halve, peel, and thinly slice half the onion; finely dice remaining half. Drain and rinse beans. Halve lime.
• In a medium microwave-safe bowl, combine sweet potatoes, diced onion, half the Mexican Spice Blend, ¼ cup panko, 1 tsp water (all the Mexican Spice Blend, ½ cup panko, and 2 tsp water for 4 servings), and a large pinch of salt and pepper. Cover tightly with plastic wrap; microwave until fork-tender, 4-6 minutes. • When sweet potatoes are done, mash with a potato masher or fork until smooth. Taste and season with salt and pepper if desired. Allow to cool slightly.
• While sweet potatoes cook, in a small pot, combine rice, ¾ cup water (1½ cups for 4 servings), and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to low. Cook, covered, until rice is tender, 15-18 minutes. Fluff rice with a fork; stir in beans and ¼ tsp salt. • Keep covered off heat until ready to serve.
• While rice cooks, in a small bowl, combine sliced onion, juice from whole lime (both limes for 4 servings), and a pinch of salt. Set aside to pickle until ready to serve.
• Form sweet potato mixture into six ½-inch-tall patties (12 patties for 4 servings). • Place remaining panko in a shallow dish; press each patty into panko until coated on all sides. • Heat a 1⁄3-inch layer of oil in a large, preferably nonstick, pan over medium-high heat. Once oil is hot enough that a pinch of panko sizzles when added to the pan, gently add patties (it’s OK if they fall apart a little!). Cook until golden brown, 2-3 minutes per side. TIP: Don’t crowd the pan! You may need to work in batches. Lower heat if browning too quickly. • Transfer to a paper-towel-lined plate; season immediately with salt.
• Roughly chop cilantro; stir into bowl with pickled onion. • Divide rice and beans between shallow bowls. Serve sweet potato cakes on one side and pickled onion (draining first), guacamole, and as much hot sauce as you like on the other side.
Customer reviews
Review summary
Updated on Dec 2025- Flavor: Many loved the delicious combination of flavors, especially the sweet potato cakes with pickled onions and guacamole 🌶️.
- Ease of prep: Some found it time-consuming and messy, with patties often falling apart during frying.
- Suggestions: Consider baking or boiling sweet potatoes instead of microwaving for better texture and easier mashing.
- Portions: A few mentioned small sweet potatoes yielded fewer patties than expected; consider adding more potato.
- Rice & Beans: Some found the rice and beans bland; try adding extra seasoning or lime for more flavor.
Reviews from our home cooks
I love Mexican oregano, but the spice blend is heavy on the Mexican oregano. I added a little turmeric, cinnamon, and cumin (and a little honey though not vegan) to balance it. I pickled the onions with vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper to save my lime to squeeze over the whole dish. This dish was yummier than expected.
These were delicious. The rice and beans were a bit bland but once you mixed the pickled onions in the flavor was just right.
Really good flavors! I think my microwave wasn't working right because potatoes never got soft and and kept adding water. I think the extra water made it so the patties fell apart, but I ate it anyway, and the flavor of the patties with the pickled onions and cilantro was delicious!
As someone who is not typically a fan of sweet potatoes I was seriously impressed with how delicious this recipe was. Will definitely be coming back to this one.
Sweet potato with a tex mex seasoning was a great new flavor. I liked that the recipe was allergy friendly for milk, egg & nut allergies.
I'm not vegan and this was the best began meal I have had in my life. I recommend adding turmeric and or vegetable seasoning to the rice! This was delicious.
I like my sweet potatoes on the savory side so this is yummy to me. A bit more prep than I usually go for but, not difficult.
Delicious vegan dish. Felt like I was putting healthy food in my body and it tasted scrumptious.
It was rather long to prepare but honestly one of our favorite meals so far plus we didn't realize how yummy vegan could be. Great job!
This has potential to be good, and I still ate all of it! However, it was a little under-flavored (and probably leaned a little too heavily on the guac and Cholula for what flavor was there). But the main issue is that technique-wise, this is on the hard end of what HelloFresh demands of the cook. The directions should be clearer that really cooking through the sweet potatoes is critical to being able mash them smooth afterwards, which is in turn critical to being able to shape them into fryable cakes. I thought I would be ok with a few chunks in my mixture, but only two of 6 cakes survived the frying process intact, and there was a lot of free-floating bits and pieces.
