I don’t know about you but growing up, the only vegetables I remember having on my plate were fried.

While most families served broccoli and carrots as side dishes, we had yuca and tostones… and grilled onions on top of my palomilla steak.

If I had to choose a “favorite”, however, it would be plantains. Hands down!

Today, we’re making sweet plantains and I’m so excited to share this with you!

Sweet plantains (aka platanos maduros) are made from ripe green plantains that are sliced and fried to delicious perfection.

Sweet plantains vs Tostones

Plantains are starchy, versatile members of the banana family. You can boil, fry, bake, or grill them… I mean, the possibilities are endless.

When you buy green plantains, you can either…

• Make savory dishes out of them, like tostones or platanitos or…
• Wait a while until they ripen so you can make sweet plantains.

All from the same vegetable! So cool.

Let me show you how to make sweet plantains!

Ingredients You’ll Need

• Ripe plantains. You’ll know a plantain is ripe by the color of its skin. Tostones are made from green plantains and sweet plantains are made from ripe green plantains. Tostones are twice-fried, crispy, and salty while sweet plantains are sweet and tender. Both are delicious! The darker the skin, the sweeter the plantains will be. If their skin is more yellow than very dark in color, that works too! Click here to see how plantains ripen.

• Oil. Since we will be frying the sliced ripe plantains, you should use oil with a high smoke point like vegetable oil, canola oil, or avocado oil.

• Salt.

Step-By-Step Instructions

• Cut each ripe plantain diagonally and peel (remove the skin from) the plantains. Slice the plantains into 1/2-inch thick slices. Set aside.

• Place a paper towel on a plate. Set aside.

• In a nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Pan-fry the sliced plantains for 2-3 minutes per side until they’re golden brown and the edges are crispy.

• Transfer the fried plantains to the paper towel-lined plate to drain. Season them with salt and serve immediately.

Recipe Tips & Tricks

Need to ripen the plantains? It takes about 10 days for a green plantain to be fully ripe and ready for sweet plantains. If you need to ripen a plantain quicker, you can either place them in a brown paper bag for a few days OR you can place them in the oven, unpeeled, at 300ºF for 20 minutes.

Need to stop plantains from ripening? If it’s been longer than 10 days and you’re not yet ready to make sweet plantains, you can place the ripe plantains in the fridge to stop the ripening process.