These sweet potato dog treats are fun to make and dogs love them. All you need is a sweet potato, some oats, unsweetened applesauce, and eggs.
The recipe is based on one from All Recipes. It was easy enough to tweak to suit ingredients and equipment I had available.
How to make oat flour
Since we had a lot of oats in the pantry, I decided to use oat flour instead of some sort of wheat flour for this project. Oat flour is easy to make if you have a food processor, blender or stick blender with a slicing bowl.
Just add oats to the bowl and pulse several times until you get as fine a flour as your machine will make. In my machine, it’s still pretty coarse, but it works well for this project. Repeat until you have the amount of flour needed for the recipe.
How to microwave a sweet potato
Microwaving is the fastest way to prepare the sweet potato for this recipe, but boiling or roasting will also work. First, wash the outside well and cut away any bad spots, then prick the sweet potato several times with a fork.
Microwave on high for 5 – 6 minutes, then at 30 second intervals until the sweet potato is soft.
Let it cool, then cut it and scoop out the flesh. Mash it without any added ingredients. You’ll need a cup of the plain mashed for the sweet potato dog treats, the rest can be prepared how ever you like.
Why unsweetened applesauce?
When buying the applesauce, be sure to read the labels. Unsweetened applesauce will only have the naturally occurring sugars from the fruit itself. Others will have added sugars or other sweeteners which can be harmful to dogs.
If you can’t find unsweetened applesauce, make your own by cutting one large or two small apples into wedges. Remove the seeds and stems, then dice up the wedges. Put them in a small saucepan with a couple tablespoons of water. Cook the apples over very low heat until the pieces are soft. Add more water if needed. Mash or blend the apple pieces into applesauce.
How to shape your sweet potato dog treats
My son 3D printed the bone shaped cookie cutter from a file he downloaded. If you don’t want to print your own, you can find them on Etsy, or I’ve linked to a few below to give you an idea of what’s available.
Alternately, you can cut the dough with a knife into squares or rectangles to suit your dog.
Ingredients
- 1 sweet potato
- ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce (I used about half of a snack sized cup)
- 3 – 4 cups oats (I used quick oats)
- 2 eggs
Instructions
- Cook the sweet potato using any method you like. I pricked mine with a fork and microwaved it on high for about 6 minutes. When cool enough to handle, cut in half, scoop out the flesh and mash it. You'll need 1 cup of mashed sweet potato for this recipe.
- While the sweet potato is cooking, make the oat flour. Working in batches as needed, pulse the oats in a food processor to make a coarse flour. It takes me somewhere between 3 and 4 cups of whole oats to get 2½ cups of flour.
- Add all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and combine into a dough. If it's wet and sticky, add more oat flour. If it seems too dry, add water a teaspoon at a time. Let the dough rest for half an hour to allow the oat flour to absorb the liquid.At this point the dough can be stored in the fridge for several days until ready to bake.
- To bake: preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C. Roll the dough on a floured surface to between ¼ and ½ inch thickness. Use a cookie cutter to form the dog treats. Alternately, you can cut the dough with a knife into squares or rectangles to suit your dog.
- Arrange the treats on a baking tray and bake for 30 – 40 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack. You want the treats to be hard, dry and crispy so they'll stay fresh for a long time.
- Store the treats in a cool, dry place or freeze them until needed.
This was a Christmas present for my furry grandson. I used a cookie tin I picked up from the Dollar Tree. They had lots of cute tins available before the holidays. I’m glad I picked up more than I needed, because they went fast!
What a great canine treat! Fun way to use sweet potatoes, too. 🙂