If you’ve never had a jicama, imagine a giant turnip with a brown skin, white inside like a potato, with a crunch like a water chestnut – sort of. As it is low in carbs, it can be eaten on Atkins. One cup has 5 grams of net carbs, so it’s an option on induction, though you need to determine if it works for you.
They can be found only at the larger food stores in the area – the ones that stock the odd items.
I bought one on a whim and didn’t know what to do with it. I thought it potato-like and left it on the counter, but it began to look sad after a week (note to self: refrigerate jicama) so I was prompted into action.
I don’t know where these ideas spring from, but a glance through the fridge made me think about baking a pan of the stuff with cheese.
THE EXPERIMENT: I took the Jicama and peeled it – bit of a pain – and then cut it in quarters and scalloped those. I then laid them in a baking pan with olive oil and butter, salt and pepper, then added a layer of american cheese – about 8 slices. I added another layer, then more cheese. I added parm cheese to the top of this and placed it in a 400 degree oven until the chesse on top was browned in places – I think this took about an hour.
THE VERDICT: Unlike potatoes, jicamas don’t lose their crunch, so the scallop shape doesn’t yield to a fork like scalloped potatoes might. When I took it out of the oven, I found this out, and used a knife to make the pieces smaller.
One of the Low Carb Confidential Taste Panel tried it and asked: “Is this cooked?”
One hour at 400 degrees should cook anything – it’s the comparison to potatoes – what it most looks like – that would lead one to this conclusion.
The taste was pretty good, in my estimation. We sometimes are misled by what we already know and since it looked like potatoes au gratin, you expect it to be potatoes au gratin. It isn’t, but if you allow your mind to accept it as jicama au gratin, I thought it stood the taste test.
I was going to try some later in the week with some low carb ketchup (Heinz reduced-sugar ketchup tastes good and is readily available in my area), but found that the jicama I cooked up was gone – apparently someone in the household found it good enough to eat.
Low Carb Confidential 
My wife and I have recently become quite fond of jicama (hic-uh-muh). I find them much easier to peal with a sharp knife than with a potato pealer.
My favorite is to simply make hash browns out of it.
My wife likes jicama French fries. I think these fries taste kind of like sweet potato fries.
Last week, we used a zucchini sechuanne recipe as the basis for yet another jicama dish. We grated the jicama on a coarse cheese grater and used it instead of the zucchini. Wonderful! It had very similar texture to the noodles in dishes such as pad Thai. But, this was quite a bit higher in carbs than if we’d used zucchini. I had thought of posting it on my own blog but wanted to figure out how to reduce the carbs a little further… perhaps less peanut butter?
We also have tried to make moc fresh apples by slicing the jicama and soaking overnight in lemon juice, water, and sweetener. These were pretty good. But when we tried to make moc baked apples out of them, the results were not all that great.
Keep experimenting with them! I think that the jicama has tons of potential!
American Cheese is not the best choice of cheeses on Atkins or Keto!!
Jicama has become my new faux potato fries and gratin. Secret is to microwave the jicama. Makes it easier to peel and cut. Cut into either fries or rounds salt and boil 20 minutes. Wow worked quite well. Think I will use this method to dice and use as potato’s in hash browns or as a potato sub in chicken pot pie. Daikon radish also works well diced.
Microwaved Jicama 3 minutes
I read a blog that was quite helpful. Worked great for frites may work good for gratin. Instruction says to microwave whole jicama 3 minutes. Made peeling much easier. Then I cut to desired shape and boiled for 20 minutes prior to usage in recipes. Was delish as frites
Jicama tip. To get a more potato like product. Microwave whole jicama 3 minutes makes it much easier to peel. Cup up and boil 20 minutes the slice for gratin