These sweet potato dog treats are a super simple chew that you can make in your dehydrator, or oven. These single ingredient treats are sure to get a paw’s up from your pup.
Sweet potato, like pumpkin, makes a great high fiber treat for your dog. It can help with their digestion, and is also a source of several valuable vitamins like vitamin b6, vitamin C, and vitamin A. This sweet potato dog treat recipe is a single ingredient recipe that you can make in a few hours, or with just a few minutes prep and then hand’s off dehydrator time.
Like other treats, it’s recommended to only give sweet potato treats one or two times per day. This will also depend on the size of the dog, and the size of the treat you make. For a smaller dog, you’ll want to cut the sweet potato smaller than for a larger dog. If you have a super sized sweet potato to work with, you can make quite large chews for a larger dog, with a smaller dog, you can work with smaller sweet potatoes too.
These sweet potato chews are a single ingredient, easy diy, pet treat to make. The single ingredient helps protect your pets from allergies, and can also help you avoid bringing allergens into your house if family members have allergies to common ingredients.
What Sweet Potato to Use?
Use a dark orange sweet potato. If you have a large breed dog, or a heavy chewer, you’ll want to get the larger sized sweet potatoes. If you have a small dog like a lap dog or toy breed, you can get smaller sweet potatoes. Your dog’s breed size will also determine how you want to slice up your sweet potato when you begin making the recipe.
Making Sweet Potato Dog Treats:
Start with choosing a large or medium sized sweet potato that is firm and has no mold spots or soft spots. If you have older, pre-purchased, sweet potatoes that you want to use up that do have soft spots or mold on them, make sure to trim it off before beginning the recipe. Trim off any mold or soft spots with at least a 1/4 inch margin. The remaining sweet potato will be safe to use.
Depending on the number of treats you want to make, you may want more than one sweet potato. If you’re using your oven, one cookie sheet will hold about one sliced sweet potato. So for an oven full, you’ll want at least two. If you’re using a dehydrator, and not running other foods at the same time, you may want from 1-6 sweet potatoes depending on the size of your dehydrator.
I recommend using a dehydrator over an oven, since the dehydrator uses less electricity and makes these treats even cheaper to make from scratch. Dog treats are also a great use of a dehydrator when it’s “off season” and there’s not much to put through a dehydrator. Making your own sweet potato dog treats can be a money saver. A bag of pre-made treats can be from about 9$ for 9 ounces to up to 25$ for 16 ounces. 1 pound fresh sweet potato will make about 5 ounces of dehydrated treats for just around $3.50 for the fresh sweet potato (Note: Canadian numbers, spring 2024).
Is it worth your time to make your own sweet potato dog treats? Yes! Homemade treats work out to $0.70 per ounce (or lower if you get a good sale) instead of $1-$1.50 per ounce. And the slicing only takes a few minutes with a sharp knife, and with a dehydrator the drying is 100% hand’s off.
Sweet Potato Dog Treats You Can Make
Description
A simple and quick to make dehydrated pup treat with sweet potatoes.
Ingredients
- 1–4 sweet potatoes
Instructions
- Scrub sweet potatoes with a potato brush, and rinse them with a light vinegar rinse. Then rinse again with clean water.
- Using a large, sharp, knife, slice into lengthwise strips, about 1.5″ to 2″ in width while raw, they will shrink by about half in the drying process.
- For Oven: Lay out on a parchment lined baking sheet, pieces can be touching but should not be overlapping. Heat your oven to 250F and bake the trays in the oven for 4 hours, flipping the treats at the two hour mark. These sweet potato dog chews should still have a bit of flex to them to keep them chewy for your dog. If they are crisp, you can make them chewy by soaking in pet-safe broth for 5 minutes.
- For dehydrator: Lay out on your dehydrator trays, pieces can be touching. Dehydrate at 135F for 6-7 hours, or until desired chew level is reached. You don’t want to over-dry. Again, if they do get too crisp, you can hydrate them a bit to restore the chew vs. crunch factor with a pet-safe broth.
- Remove from trays and place in a bowl. Chews should be semi crisp, but not mushy or cold feeling. Once you’ve checked the pieces to make sure they’re dry, bag them in an airtight container for storage.
Ingredients:
- 1-4 sweet potatoes
Directions:
- Scrub sweet potatoes with a potato brush, and rinse them with a light vinegar rinse. Then rinse again with clean water.
- Using a large, sharp, knife, slice into lengthwise strips, about 1.5″ to 2″ in width while raw, they will shrink by about half in the drying process.
- For Oven: Lay out on a parchment lined baking sheet, pieces can be touching but should not be overlapping. Heat your oven to 250F and bake the trays in the oven for 4 hours, flipping the treats at the two hour mark. These sweet potato dog chews should still have a bit of flex to them to keep them chewy for your dog. If they are crisp, you can make them chewy by soaking in pet-safe broth for 5 minutes.
- For dehydrator: Lay out on your dehydrator trays, pieces can be touching. Dehydrate at 135F for 6-7 hours, or until desired chew level is reached. You don’t want to over-dry. Again, if they do get too crisp, you can hydrate them a bit to restore the chew vs. crunch factor with a pet-safe broth. Note: If they over-dry the sugars may caramelize which will change the color of the dried sweet potato but does not affect it’s safety or edibility.
- Remove from trays and place in a bowl. Chews should be semi crisp, but not mushy or cold feeling. Once you’ve checked the pieces to make sure they’re dry, bag them in an airtight container for storage.
Note: For hydrating sweet potato chews, do not use broth prepared for human consumption. Onion and garlic, which is in many broths including homemade ones, is unsafe for dogs.
Storing Sweet Potato Dog Treats:
Your pet treats will be safe at room temperature for 1 week, and for longer storage can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 1 month. For even longer storage, store treats in the freezer for 6-12 months.
Discoloration can occur naturally. Since there are no preservatives, if treats develop mold or a mildew or mold odor, discard and do not feed them to your pet.
Treat Variations:
If you want a more traditional treat, you can make dog biscuits using sweet potato puree, or pumpkin puree, as you wish. Follow the instructions for this recipe for turmeric dog biscuits but substitute in some sweet potato puree. The turmeric dog biscuit recipe includes eggs for protein, and can be made with gluten free flour, all purpose flour, or whole wheat flour. You can also make your own treats with a base of oats, peanut butter, and pumpkin puree or sweet potato puree. Any dough based treat can be cut out to the desired size and shape with a cookie cutter.
Or you can try these freeze dried liver treats that are definitely high in protein, and are single ingredient and grain free. There are also many other homemade dog treats that you can make, like these anti-inflammatory gelatin based treatsย
Back To You:
What homemade dog treats do you make for your pet? What treats would you be interested in trying to make that you haven’t tried yet? Leave a comment!
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