Sweet Potato Varieties (<i>yams</i>)

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Sweet Potato Varieties

World-wide there are about 6,500 sweet potato varieties including wild accessions, farmer varieties, and breeding lines. Source - International Potato Center (CIP)

Sweet potato skin colors come in various shades of creamy white, yellow-orange, tan, reddish-purple and red.

Sweet potato flesh colors come in shades of orange, yellow-orange, white, purple and red.

Below are descriptions for some sweet potato - yam varieties found in North America. Link to a chart that shows skin colors and flesh colors for over 100 popular sweet potato varieties.

Sweet Potato - purple skin - yellow flesh

Sweet potatoes come in many different shapes and sizes too!

Some orange-flesh sweet potato varieties include:

Nemagold, Centennial, Southern Delite, Hernandez, Regal, Bush, Travis, Excel, Vardaman.

Some cream-colored or white-flesh sweet potato varieties include:

Star Leaf (known generically as Boniato), White Delight, Nancy Hall, Sumor, Picadita, Campeon.

Most of the sweet potatoes produced in the U.S. are either Beauregard or Jewell (see descriptions of these and some other popular sweetpotato varieties in chart below).

Sweet Potato Name & Origin / Skin Color / Flesh Color

Allgold (Oklahoma) / Tan / Orange

Apache / Pale Orange / Pale Orange

Beauregard (Louisiana) / Rose / Orange

Brinkley White / Creamy White / Creamy

Bunch Porto Rico / Yellow-Orange / Yellow-Orange

Carolina Ruby (No Carolina) / Dark Red-Purple Red / Dark Orange

Centennial / Copper / Pale Orange

Cherokee / Bright Copper / Orange

Continental Red / Pink-Red / Light Orange

Cordner (Texas) / Copper / Medium Orange

Cordner's Red (Oklahoma) / Purple Red / Orange

Dianne / Reddish / Dark Orange

Garnet / Red / Orange

Georgia Jet / Purple Red / Light Orange

Hayman (Eastern Shore) / Cream-Tan / Yellow-Greenish (cooked)

Hernandez (Louisiana) / Burnt Orange / Deep Orange

Jewell (No Carolina) / Copper / Deep Orange

Porto Rico (No Carolina) / Rose-pink / Orange Mottled

White Delight (Georgia) / Purplish-pink / White

Pictures - Photos of Sweet Potato Varieties and Types

Sweet Potato - purple skin - purple flesh

Sweet Potato - orange skin - orange flesh

Sweet Potato - Japanese - Satsuma - Kintoki

White Hamon Sweet Potatoes

Here's a picture of White Hamon sweet potatoes at a local market. I was delighted to discover these White Hamon sweet potatoes because rarely do city food markets provide varieties other than Jewel or Beauregard. I bought several and made a root vegetable dish with them. The recipe, which includes sweet potatoes, parsnips, rutabagas, sweet onions, carrots, white radishes, white beets and turnips, in varying combinations, is featured on this site's recipe page. I've included a photo of the sauteed root vegetables, which are delicious roasted too.

The Duck Creek Farms' website provides descriptions of many of the 150 varieties of sweet potatoes that they are now providing for shipment from late spring till early summer. See some of Duck Creek Farms' 150 sweet potato varieties for 2010.

Email them at duckcreekfarms@aol.com for more information about ordering.

The Wayne E. Bailey Produce Company's website provides some more background, description and pictures of other sweet potato varieties including several Asian ones.

What is Your Favorite Variety of Sweet Potato?

Which variety of sweet potatoes do you like to eat? Share what you like about them!

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What Other Visitors Have Said

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Hayman/VERY sweet and moist
Although they will win no awards for size or beauty, their flavor/sweetness is unequaled. Although they are not included in your varieties list they should ...

All Types Not rated yet
I like them all because of their colors, and the origins they have.

O-Henry Not rated yet
I love this white flesh sweet potato. They (O Henry) bake dryer than most varieties; butter and brown sugar are absorbed nicely into the flesh.

Boniato Sweet Potato Not rated yet
They have a red skin and white flesh. Their texture is in between a dry white baking potato and a moist orange sweet potato. I like them because they ...