Types of Sweet Potatoes: A Variety-by-Variety Guide
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There are hundreds of named sweet potato cultivars grown worldwide, but the types of sweet potatoes you will actually meet at a grocery store fall into four practical groups: orange-flesh varieties like Beauregard and Jewel, white and cream-flesh varieties like Hannah and O'Henry, purple-skin and cream-flesh varieties like Japanese satsumaimo and Korean goguma, and fully purple-flesh varieties like Stokes Purple and Okinawan. The group matters more than the exact cultivar name, because flesh color is the single best predictor of how sweet, how moist, and how starchy a sweet potato will be once cooked.
The Four Groups That Actually Matter
Sweet potatoes are all the same species, Ipomoea batatas, and they are not related to regular potatoes at all. Breeders have selected them for centuries, mostly for color, sweetness, and moisture level. Here is how the groups break down.
Orange flesh, copper skin
This is the default sweet potato in most of North America. Beauregard, Jewel, Garnet, and Covington all fall here. They are moist, they turn creamy and almost custard-like when baked, and they are the sweetest of the bunch in terms of perceived sweetness. Confusingly, many stores label these "yams," which they are not. A true yam is a completely different plant with rough, bark-like skin.
White or cream flesh, tan skin
Hannah and O'Henry are the common names. These are drier and starchier, with a flavor closer to a chestnut than to caramel. They hold their shape better and taste less candy-like, which makes them a favorite of people who find orange varieties too sweet.
Purple skin, cream flesh
The Japanese and Korean market varieties live here. Murasaki is the most widely available in the United States. The flesh is pale yellow, extremely dense, and dry enough to be almost fluffy, with a nutty sweetness that develops slowly during long cooking. If you want the full story on these two, we have written about Japanese sweet potato and Korean sweet potato separately.
Purple flesh, purple skin
Stokes Purple, Okinawan (which actually has tan skin), and Molokai are the well-known ones. The flesh is a deep violet that stays vivid through cooking. They are the driest and least sweet of the four groups, with a slightly floral, grape-like note. Our purple sweet potato guide goes deeper on this group.
Types of Sweet Potatoes Compared
Flavor notes are subjective, but moisture and texture are fairly consistent across a variety. Use this to pick the right one for what you are doing.
| Variety | Skin | Flesh | Moisture | Sweetness | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beauregard | Copper rose | Deep orange | Very moist | High | Baking, mashing |
| Jewel | Light copper | Orange | Moist | High | All-purpose |
| Garnet | Dark red | Bright orange | Very moist | High | Baking, purees |
| Covington | Rose | Orange | Moist | Medium high | Roasting, storage |
| Hannah | Tan | Cream | Dry | Medium | Roasting, cubes |
| O'Henry | Tan | White | Dry | Low medium | Savory dishes |
| Murasaki | Purple | Pale yellow | Dry, dense | Medium high | Baking whole |
| Stokes Purple | Purple | Deep purple | Very dry | Low medium | Long slow baking |
| Okinawan | Tan | Violet | Dry | Medium | Steaming, desserts |
Why the Same Variety Tastes Different Week to Week
Two Beauregards from the same bin can taste noticeably different, and that is normal. Sweet potatoes are cured after harvest, held warm and humid for a week or so, which converts some starch to sugar and toughens the skin for storage. A freshly cured potato is sweeter than one that skipped curing. Storage time adds more sugar too, so a January sweet potato often tastes sweeter than an October one.
Cooking method matters at least as much as variety. Slow, gentle heat gives an enzyme in the flesh time to break starch into maltose, which is why a 90-minute bake tastes like dessert and a fast boil tastes flat. That same enzyme activity is part of why cooking method shifts how the carbohydrate behaves, something we cover in our piece on sweet potato glycemic index.
Nutrition Differences Between Varieties
Across the groups, the basics are similar. Sweet potatoes are a whole vegetable with fiber, potassium, and vitamin C, and they are naturally fat free. The real differences show up in pigment. Orange flesh is loaded with beta-carotene, the compound your body converts to vitamin A. Purple flesh gets its color from anthocyanins instead, the same family of pigments found in blueberries and red cabbage. White and cream flesh has the least pigment of all, which does not make it nutritionally worthless, just lower in those specific compounds.
Calorie and macronutrient differences between varieties are small enough that they rarely matter for everyday eating. If you are choosing sweet potatoes as part of a specific health or nutrition goal, talk with your doctor or a registered dietitian about what fits your situation. For general numbers, our posts on sweet potato fiber and sweet potato calories lay it out.
How to Pick and Store Any Variety
The selection rules are the same regardless of type. Look for firm potatoes with smooth, unbroken skin and no soft spots, sprouts, or shriveled ends. Medium potatoes cook more evenly than the giant ones, and uniform sizing means everything finishes at the same time. Skip anything with a wet or moldy patch, because that spreads fast in a bag.
Store them somewhere cool, dark, and dry with a little air circulation, ideally around 55 to 60 degrees. Do not refrigerate raw sweet potatoes. Cold storage turns the texture hard and gives them an off flavor that cooking will not fix. A paper bag in a pantry beats a plastic bag on a counter every time. And do not peel out of habit, because the skin is edible and worth keeping, as we explain in our post on sweet potato skin.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a sweet potato and a yam?
They are unrelated plants. Sweet potatoes belong to the morning glory family and have smooth, thin skin. True yams are tubers from the Dioscorea family, common in West African and Caribbean cooking, with rough, bark-like skin and starchy white flesh. American grocery labeling has muddled the two for decades, so an orange "yam" in a US supermarket is almost always a sweet potato.
Which type of sweet potato is the sweetest?
Orange-flesh varieties like Garnet and Beauregard read as the sweetest, mostly because they are moist and their sugars are more noticeable. Murasaki and other pale-flesh Japanese types are actually high in sugar too, but their dry, dense texture makes the sweetness feel more restrained and nutty.
Can I substitute one variety for another?
Usually yes, with one caveat about moisture. Swapping a dry variety like Hannah or Stokes Purple into something built for moist orange flesh will give you a stiffer, less creamy result, and you may want a little extra liquid or fat. Going the other direction, moist orange varieties can turn soggy where you wanted firm cubes.
Are purple sweet potatoes healthier than orange ones?
They are different, not better. Purple flesh brings anthocyanins, orange flesh brings beta-carotene, and both are whole vegetables with fiber and potassium. Eating a mix across the week gets you the widest range of compounds. For personal nutrition questions, check with a doctor or registered dietitian.
Do different types of sweet potatoes cook at different speeds?
Yes. Dense, dry varieties like Stokes Purple and Murasaki need noticeably longer than a moist Beauregard of the same size, sometimes 20 to 30 extra minutes when baking whole. Test with a knife rather than trusting a clock, and expect purple varieties to be the slowest of the group.
One Sweet Potato, No Oven Required
Once you have worked through the varieties, the honest problem is time. Getting the best out of any type of sweet potato means a long, slow bake, and most weekdays do not have room for that. That is the gap Yammy fills. Our chewy sweet potato sticks are made from real sweet potato, never deep-fried, and they land somewhere close to fruit leather in texture, dense and chewy with that slow-baked sweetness already developed. Each serving carries 4g of fiber and 3g of protein, and they are naturally vegan and gluten-free. The Original, Salt & Pepper, and Sriracha flavors have no added sugar.
Browse the full lineup of sweet potato sticks, or if you want the whole picture on this vegetable, from growing regions to nutrition to cooking, start with our complete sweet potato guide.