The making of vegan and delicious gnocchi is really easy. You just need some potatoes and flour, and maybe a pinch of salt. This recipe is a Basic gnocchi recipe, ready to be personalised to you!
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
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🥘 Basic ingredients
- Potato
- Flour
- salt
🥔 Which potato
For gnocchi it is best to use starchy and floury potatoes. Check your own local area which work best for you. Normally the russet (also known as idaho) potatoes work best, as they are very starchy and low in water.
The less water you will have in your potato mash, the less flour you will need to use and this will make the fluffiest gnocchi ever. This is also the reason why it is better to bake your potatoes instead of boiling. Which doesn't mean that boiling doesn't work. I still sometimes boil my potatoes if I just want to be a bit quicker.
The best thing to use for mashing your potato is a ricer. Again this just makes for a fluffier end result. If you don't have a ricer, just mash your potatoes as fine as you possibly can. Some of the larger garlic presses might work as well to rice your potato.
🍲 The Boil
The most important thing while boiling is not to over crowd your pan. Use a large pan with steady boiling water. And cook your gnocchi in batches. There is no better way of having your gnocchi fresh, but if you want you can let them cool down and they will keep in the fridge for 3 - 4 days.
💭 Serving suggestions
So now you have your own home made fluffy gnocchi, ... How to make them a delicious Lunch or starter?
Gnocchi's are Italian, and the Italian cuisine is praised for its beautiful simplicity with high quality produce. I love my gnocchi's in a salad with summery tomatoes, quality olive oil and fresh basil. Or for a more nutty option I would use; avocado, olive oil, and topped with toasted seeds or nuts.
If you are more into Gnocchi with creamy and flavoursome sauces you could add a vegan cheese sauce, or make a home-made fresh Italian tomato and basil sauce. For this use firm de-skinned and seeded tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and add the fresh basil only at the end. For all the pesto lovers among us, add a good spoonful of your favourite vegan pesto, or go for the healthy cheesy vegan Alfredo sauce.
There are many different options on how to use your gnocchi. You could just make a lovely vegetable mixture, like a ratatouille style dish, and serve that with your delicious home made vegan gnocchi's. A Heavenly lunch or dinner!
This is my favourite way of eating fresh gnocchi. I made a little salsa of Olive oil, Capers, sage, garlic and lemon zest and juice, and tossed the gnocchi's through that. Served on a bed of fresh spinach.
For the salsa take a good spoonful of capers (washed and dried) fry them in a bit of olive oil until they open. Add about 10 sage leaves, lemon zest and a large clove of garlic (sliced). When the garlic softens and the sage starts getting crispy, add a good spoonful of lemon juice. YUMMY! serve straight away.
Another one of my favourites!! I made a vegan cashew 'cheesy' sauce . With the use of extra shallots, and white wine. I tossed all the gnocchi's through the sauce. And separately pan fried some mushrooms with garlic, and added at the end some spinach on top of the super rich 'cheesy' gnocchi. YUMMY!
I truly hope you will all enjoy your own gnocchi making. A great way to be creative and enjoy good food at the same time. Bone appetit! Please add @haricoco1 to your home made vegan gnocchi creations, so we can all learn, share, and spread inspiration!
📋 Recipe
Ingredients
- 250 g 1 ⅔ cup potato,baked and peeled
- 120 g 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- First bake your potatoes on 180C / 350F until well cooked (approx. 45 minutes depending on size), Let them cool down a bit, so you can work with them (without burning your hands). Peel the baked potatoes and mash them with 1 teaspoon of salt until very finely mashed (best to use a ricer).
- Then slowly start adding a bit of the flour and combine it with the mash potato, using your hand.
- Only when the flour is well combined, add some more of the flour.
- Repeat this until all the flour is used, or until you have a nice soft dough which is not sticky any more.
- Divide the dough in 3 or 4 equal parts, and roll each part into a long 'sausage' of about 1cm - 1,5cm thickness. (depending how large or small you like your gnocchi).
- With a dough scraper, or knife cut 'the sausage' into little 1cm parts (like little cushions)
- You can leave them like this, or make some grooves in the dough cushions by rolling them over the backside of a fork.
- Boil water in a large pan, once the water boils steady (not vigorous) add some of your gnocchi, making sure not to overfill the pan.
- When the gnocchi's start floating on the surface leave for 1 more minute (in total the boiling will take max. 5 minutes) and then you can remove them using a slotted spoon.
- Repeat this with the rest of the gnocchi.
- You can serve straight away, or let them cool down and keep in the fridge for 3 - 4 days.
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