How to Cook Sweet Potato for Dogs (The Plain, Simple Way I Make It for 3 Dogs)
How to cook sweet potato for dogs sounds like something that needs a recipe, but in our house it’s about as simple as dog food gets. I cook a plain Korean sweet potato with nothing added, let it cool, peel it, and tear it into small pieces. Each of our three dogs gets three or four pieces, and then we’re done.
I’m Korean, and to me, Korean sweet potatoes are simply the best tasting ones. My husband and I love them, and our dogs know that when sweet potatoes come out, they get a little too. It’s also one of the vegetables in the homemade dog food I’ve been making for about three years.
So here’s exactly how I do it: the sweet potatoes I buy, how I cook them, the cooking times to start with, how much each dog gets, why the skin always comes off, and the mistakes I’d skip.
| Sweet potatoes we use | Korean sweet potatoes from H Mart |
| How I cook them | Whole in the air fryer, plain. Steamed when they go into our homemade batch |
| Added | Nothing. No oil, butter, salt, sugar or spices |
| Done when | A fork slides into the center with no resistance |
| Skin | Always peeled off before the dogs get any |
| Serving | Small torn pieces, 3 to 4 per dog, then done |
| Our dogs | A 14-year-old Pomeranian and two 3-year-old boys, all small |
| Never | Raw, seasoned, or leftover sweet potato casserole |
| Best for / Skip if | Best for a healthy dog as a small plain treat or a food mix-in. Skip if your dog is diabetic or overweight until you talk to your vet |
The Sweet Potatoes We Buy: Korean Sweet Potatoes
I buy Korean sweet potatoes, and honestly that’s just because I think they taste the best. You can find them at H Mart. They have purple-red skin and pale yellow flesh, and once they’re cooked the inside turns fluffy and a little dry, almost like chestnuts. They’re very different from the orange, soft, wet kind most American grocery stores sell.
For the dogs, the type doesn’t really matter. Any plain sweet potato works the same way. I just buy one kind for the whole house, so the dogs get the same sweet potatoes we eat.
How to Cook Sweet Potato for Dogs, Step by Step
Here’s the process. It’s the same whether the sweet potato is a treat or going into their food, except for the cooking method.
- Wash it. Scrub the sweet potato under running water to get the dirt off. You’ll peel it later, but your hands and knife still touch the outside.
- Cook it plain. For treats, I put the whole sweet potato in the air fryer. For our homemade dog food batch, I steam it with the other vegetables. Either way, nothing goes on it.
- Check it with a fork. Poke the thickest part. If the fork slides in easily all the way to the center, it’s done. If you feel any firm spot in the middle, give it more time.
- Let it cool completely. I cut it open and leave it on the counter. The inside stays hot much longer than the outside, so don’t trust how it feels on top.
- Peel it. Once it’s cool, the skin comes right off with your fingers.
- Tear it small. I tear off little pieces by hand instead of cutting big chunks. Small, soft pieces are easier for small dogs and for a senior with fewer teeth.
Air Fryer Time and Temperature
I’ll be honest, I’ve never timed it. I just check with a fork until it’s soft. If you want a starting point, Primavera Kitchen’s air fryer sweet potato uses 400°F for 25 to 30 minutes for a medium sweet potato and 35 to 40 minutes for a large one, flipped halfway. Their recipe rubs the sweet potatoes with olive oil, but for the dogs I skip that and cook them completely plain.
Every air fryer runs a little different, and Korean sweet potatoes come in all sizes, so treat those numbers as a place to start and let the fork decide.
Steamed or Boiled Time
When sweet potato goes into our homemade batch, I steam it with the other vegetables until everything is fork-tender. I don’t time that either. As a general guide, peeled sweet potato cut into roughly 1-inch cubes takes about 15 to 20 minutes to soften, steamed or boiled. Smaller pieces cook faster. If you boil it, use plain water with no salt.
Air Fryer vs. Steamed: Which I Use When
| Method | When I use it | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Air fryer, whole | Treat days | Firmer outside, fluffy inside, easy to tear into small pieces by hand |
| Steamed | Our weekly homemade dog food | Soft and evenly cooked, mixes right in with the chicken and other vegetables |
If you only have one of these, either one works. Baking in the oven works too, as long as it’s plain. The method matters a lot less than keeping it plain, cooking it all the way through, and peeling it.
Why I Always Peel the Skin
I always peel it before the dogs get any, and when I looked it up, the reason made sense. The American Kennel Club says to remove the skin because it makes sweet potato harder for dogs to digest. Our dogs are small, and our oldest has fewer teeth, so the soft inside is really all they need.
The good news is that peeling is the easiest step. Once a cooked sweet potato cools down, the skin slips off in a few seconds.
How Much Sweet Potato I Give Each Dog
All three of them show up when the sweet potato comes out.
Here’s my rule: small pieces, three or four per dog, and then I stop. I tear off a little piece at a time and hand it over, so nobody gets a big chunk to gulp down. Three or four of those, and that’s it.
Why so little? Sweet potato is a carb, and the AKC points out that carbs shouldn’t be a dog’s main source of nutrition. A common rule of thumb is to keep all treats under about 10% of a dog’s daily calories, and for small dogs like ours, that adds up fast. A few small pieces feel like a big deal to them anyway.
Our 14-year-old gets the same small pieces as the boys. She’s the one whose weight we watch the most, and soft, torn pieces are easy for her to eat with fewer teeth. If you have a senior too, I shared more about what our oldest eats every day in homemade dog food for senior dogs.
Sweet Potato in Our Homemade Dog Food
Most of the sweet potato our dogs eat isn’t a treat at all. It’s one of the vegetables in the homemade dog food I make every weekend, along with boiled chicken breast, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, kabocha squash and bell peppers. The chicken gets boiled, the vegetables get steamed until soft, and then it all gets pulse-chopped into small pieces, scooped and frozen. The full process is in my homemade dog food with chicken recipe.
That batch isn’t their whole meal, though. We mix it with kibble, about 70% homemade and 30% kibble, so they still get a complete diet. I explained how we do that in mixing homemade dog food with kibble.
When to Be Careful With Sweet Potato
Plain sweet potato is fine for most healthy dogs, but there are a few times I’d slow down and ask the vet first:
- Diabetic dogs. Sweet potato has a high glycemic index, and a vet quoted by the AKC says to use it with caution in diabetic dogs.
- Overweight or less active dogs. The extra carbs add up, so the AKC suggests only a minimal amount.
- Too much, too often. Sweet potato is rich in vitamin A, which is good in normal amounts, but too much vitamin A can cause bone and muscle weakness.
- Sweet potato as a main ingredient. The FDA has looked into a possible link between a heart condition called DCM and dog foods that list peas, lentils, or potatoes as main ingredients. That’s about what a whole diet is built on, not a few small treat pieces, but it’s one more reason I keep sweet potato as an extra and not the base.
- A brand new food. If your dog has never had sweet potato, start with one small piece and see how their stomach does.
I’m not a vet, so if your dog has any health condition at all, your vet is the right person to ask before adding something new.
Mistakes to Avoid When Cooking Sweet Potato for Dogs
- Feeding it raw. The AKC says never to feed raw sweet potato. It’s hard to chew and can upset the stomach or even cause a blockage.
- Adding anything. Butter, oil, salt, brown sugar, cinnamon sugar, maple syrup and marshmallows are for people. The dog version is plain.
- Sharing the holiday casserole. With Thanksgiving coming, this is the big one. Sweet potato casserole is loaded with sugar and butter, and some recipes have nuts. Set aside a plain piece before you season the rest.
- Leaving the skin on. It’s harder for dogs to digest.
- Big chunks. Some dogs swallow food without chewing. Small, soft pieces are safer, especially for small dogs.
- Serving it hot. The center holds heat much longer than the outside. Let it cool all the way.
- Sweet potato fries from a restaurant. They’re fried and salted. If you want to share, make a plain one at home.
For more of the seasonal foods I keep away from our dogs this time of year, I put together a list of fall foods dogs should not eat.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you remember just two things, make them these: keep it plain, and keep it small. Cook the sweet potato all the way through with nothing on it, peel it, and give a few small pieces instead of a big chunk. That’s really all it takes to share something you’re already eating with your dog.
Next up, I’m sharing how I deshed our dogs at home, with real photos of how much fur came out. Do your dogs love sweet potato as much as ours do? Tell me in the comments how you serve it. And with the holidays coming, here’s my list of fall foods dogs should not eat, so the sweet potato casserole stays on your plate.
