Sweet potatoes are among the most versatile ingredients in the kitchen, and can be served for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and even a midnight snack. If you want to make your sweet potatoes even better, there's one surprisingly easy method of cooking that makes for a sweet-salty dish with a spectacular presentation.

Salt-crusted food is made by densely coating food in a mixture of either egg whites or water plus salt, and this crust acts as an insulator that evenly distributes heat, helping foods to retain moisture and seasoning them thoroughly. A salt crust works brilliantly with sweet potatoes for a perfectly-cooked, melt-in-your-mouth texture.

This method requires a lot of coating for the outside of the potatoes, so put your coating mix together using whole cups of ingredients, not mere teaspoons. When you take your salt-enrobed sweet potatoes out of the oven, use a kitchen mallet to shatter the salt shell, revealing the most buttery and well-seasoned tubers ever.