As you already know, my husband loves sweet potatoes. He’s also Italian. We also love having yummy, warm, hearty suppers on Sundays (duh). SO, put all of those together and we get: sweet potato gnocchi for dinner last night.
These turned out so well. I am so pleased with them. I plan to make them often. All that being said, my gnocchi shapes need a little work. However, we can add these to the rotation of my made from scratch Italian meals!
For those of you who don’t know, gnocchi is the Italian dumpling. Made with potatoes (or sweet potatoes), they are often an alternative to pasta in the first course of a traditional Italian meal, or they can be served as a side for a protein. They can come in special shapes, with ridges or rolls to hold sauce, or you can do what I did and just leave them as little lumps.
Like most Italian cuisine, gnocchi is way easier to make than you think. There are only four ingredients to make the dumplings, and although it can be time consuming, the process is super simple as well.
I tossed our gnocchi’s in a butter, parsley and truffle dust blend, but you can really serve them with any sauce; store bought or home made. Because they are pretty hearty, they can hold up to a red sauce or cheese sauce. I also served it with spinach chicken sausage, but again, feel free to serve it with meatballs, or alongside chicken or steak!
Enough rambling, let’s get to it.
Sweet Potato Gnocchi
Servings: 6
Time: 1 hour
Ingredients:
-2 sweet potatoes
-2 cups flour (plus extra to flour your work space)
-1 egg
-1/2 cup crushed parmesan
-Pinch of salt
- Poke holes in sweet potatoes. Wrap in a damp paper towel and microwave for ten minutes. Let cool, then pull the skins off.
- Using a potato masher or fork, mashed the sweet potatoes until lumps are gone and smooth.
- Fold in the egg, then the cheese and salt.
- Slowly begin to fold in flour, little by little. Once the flour is incorporated, transfer the mixture from the bowl to a floured surface.
- Kneed the dough with your hands until the mixture is smooth and no longer sticky. Cut the mixture into four equal parts (if you are only serving one or two people, wrap two of the sections and freeze for later use).
- Cut a section in half, and begin to roll the dough into a long, snake like form, about 1/4-1/2 inch thick. Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to a boil.
- Once you have your “snake”, use a knife to cut into small lumps, about 1/4 inch long. You can stop here, or roll each piece down a fork or cheese grater to create ridges (I stopped here).
- Continue until you have finished cutting gnocchi’s out of all the dough.
- Put gnocchi into boiling water. Once they are floating, they are done!
- Transfer to sauce and toss. I like to toss them in a butter/oil based sauce, to give the outside of the gnocchi’s a little color and texture (shown above), but totally up to your preference!
Serve and enjoy!!
Sunday Supper 