Easy Gnocchi Recipe

Hey, I'm John Kanell, and today on Preppy Kitchen, we're gonna make some delicious and easy gnocchi. So let's get started. First off, you want about a pound of potatoes. That could be two giant ones like I have, or three medium ones. It's best to weigh out the final amount of potato because the proportions are kind of important for this recipe. I love making gnocchi in part because it's so versatile. If you had this with a little bit of brown butter, or fried sage, and some parm, delicious. But you could have this in basically any sauce, and it'll be light and fluffy on the inside, and so satisfying. I also think it's faster and easier than making pasta at home. That's fairly simple. This is even easier. Chop your potatoes into roughly one-inch-sized pieces. You just want them to cook quickly and evenly, so make sure that you don't have tiny pieces mixed in with some giant ones. As you go, just pop that into a pot, and we're gonna measure out 16 ounces, or a pound. We're gonna cover these with cold water, and have about an inch of extra water on top. We're gonna pop this onto medium-high heat, and bring it to a boil. Then cook for five to 10 minutes, or until your potatoes are fork-tender. So in case you haven't had them before, gnocchi are Italian dumplings, and there's two kinds. There are potato gnocchi, made with potatoes, egg, and flour, very easy, and then there's ricotta gnocchi, where ricotta is subbed in for the potato. Both are delicious. The potato ones are gonna be a bit denser, which I find pleasing, and it really helps make this a hearty meal, and the ricotta ones are on the lighter side. They're springier, and a little bit creamier on the inside. If you'd like a video showing you how to make ricotta gnocchi, let me know in the comments. I would be happy to do that. They are also quite delicious, and super quick and easy. In the meantime, just keep an eye on your potatoes. We wanna make sure they're fork-tender, and not overcooked, because then they'll be waterlogged. Once your potatoes are fork-tender, it's time to drain them. These are hot and steamy. We're gonna let them cool for about 10 minutes, and if you like my videos, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. There's two new recipes every single week, and always something delicious on the horizon. After 10 minutes of cool time, we're gonna press this through either a sieve or a ricer. You really want no lumps in this. It should be very finely sieved. Now we're gonna push this through. This is one of those recipes that really makes you think, what was Italian cuisine like before the Americas were discovered? The tomatoes, American. Potatoes, American. Noodles, Asian. If you look at ancient Roman cuisine, for me it's a big no thanks. There's like a lot of fermented fish sauces happening, which is not for me. If you're serving more people or wanna make some more for later, this is a really easy recipe to double. You can make half or none of these now and freeze the rest for later. So go ahead and we'll shape our gnocchi, lay them on a baking sheet, freeze them, and then transfer them to a freezer bag, and they're good for up to three months. You're gonna boil them like normal and just add an extra minute of boil time. Remove all that sieved potato. These are still a bit warm. We're gonna let our potatoes cool completely before we go on to the next step. To our cooled potatoes, we're gonna add two cups or 240 grams of all-purpose flour, along with two large eggs. The eggs will bind everything together. And two. So these aren't completely bland, we're gonna add a teaspoon of salt. Our scale's done. Now we're gonna use a fork and knead this together until a shaggy dough forms. Let's break those eggs up first. This is a really fun step for kids. Your mixture's gonna come together pretty quickly and you can see right now it's pretty shaggy, but I have some big pockets of flour. So let's just continue for a few seconds longer. So use that fork to kind of scrape the bottom of the bowl and give it a good mix. I have a shaggy mixture. I want it to look much better though, so I'm gonna knead this in the bowl. It's gonna get a bit messy, but that's totally fine. This comes together so quickly. And we're gonna knead this together until a nice ball forms. It's come together. I'm going to lightly sprinkle my countertop with flour. Lightly flour your hands too. And now we're just gonna knead this together. The problem is when you're mixing it in the bowl, if your hand gets really sticky at the beginning, it's not gonna ever come clean, so we wanna test the consistency of our dough mixture. Right now it's looking nice and smooth and it's not super sticky anymore. That looks great. It's time to divide this into six equal pieces and we need to keep everything covered that we're not working with. So we'll divide it, cover the rest, and work portion by portion. Divide it up. Does not have to be perfect. We're gonna cover our five pieces of dough with plastic wrap. The piece we're working on gets rolled into a half inch thick log. So roll this into a nice even-ish rope. And you have a couple choices on how to finish them off. It's really about how rustic you want this to be. Is it a weeknight meal at home? Is this gonna be for a fancy dinner party? Or do you just love beautiful things and you want your pasta to look perfect? Now we're gonna cut these into 3 1⁄4 inch pieces. If you're using a gnocchi board, just give it a nice flouring first. Tap off the excess. So my gnocchi are actually fairly sticky still and that's to be expected. We can give them a light dusting in flour and then just use your thumb to gently pull them down and you'll create this ridged shell-shaped pattern. The only purpose here is really to give you more grooves for whatever sauce you're using to hold onto. So if it's browned butter and parm, be really clinging onto all that surface area. Same if it's a red sauce, pesto, anything. As you work, your gnocchi are gonna cool completely on a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper and you'll wanna flour this lightly as well so nothing sticks. Continue that process, lightly flouring your gnocchi, pulling them down the board and placing them onto your baking sheet. Continue working until all your gnocchi are gone. This is really the easiest way. If you wanna use a fork, it's really simple too though. Lightly flour your gnocchi again and you're gonna gently pull on the back of the fork and you'll get a similar set of ridges. Just don't press too hard, otherwise your gnocchi will disintegrate. They're fairly delicate. When you're making a recipe like this, you wanna have as little flour as possible to hold things together and we're doing that, but the trade-off is they're less dense and you have to be a bit more delicate with them. I'm gonna continue this off camera for the rest of my gnocchi You can use extra hands in the kitchen to help you out. If you only have one of these, someone could use a fork or you could even have one just on a lightly floured countertop and you'd use your thumb to kind of pull it into this kind of shell shape. Still be delicious, it just won't hold onto the sauce quite as well. Once your gnocchi are all rolled up, we're gonna bring a big pot of water to a boil, add two teaspoons of salt and cook our gnocchi a handful at a time. These are gonna cook for three to four minutes until they float and you're just gonna cook them up in batches. Once they float, we're gonna transfer them to a bowl and continue cooking until they're all done. Remember, if you froze these, they just need one extra minute of boil time. And remember, you could finish this off with a red sauce, a pesto. It could have some roasted root vegetables. The world is your oyster here. This is beyond versatile, so make your favorites and try these gnocchi in them. My gnocchi are all cooked, so I'm just gonna finish them off in the easiest, most delicious sauce. A healthy bit of brown butter. We're gonna add our gnocchi in. Give those a good toss. Finish it off with a cloud of freshly grated Parmesan and some fresh basil or fried sage, and just like that, you're ready to enjoy. The gnocchi are substantial, but delicate and soft, and they are so delicious with that simple brown butter sauce. And if you like my videos, hit that subscribe button and check out my comfort food playlist.