When it comes to Italian comfort food, few dishes are as satisfying as homemade potato gnocchi! These tender, melt-in-your-mouth potato gnocchi are naturally vegan, made with only two ingredients: potatoes and flour, plus salt, and water to cook them in. Italians are maestri at creating the most spectacular dishes from the simplest of ingredients and potato gnocchi are testament to the art that is Italian cuisine.
Homemade potato gnocchi is a festive dish in Italy. You’ll often see these tender little potato dumplings served in restaurants with a simple fresh tomato sauce, ragù, sage and melted butter, or basil pesto.
Whether you’re a seasoned chef or a novice in the kitchen, making vegan potato gnocchi from scratch is an achievable and rewarding culinary adventure. In this blog post, I’ll guide you through the process of making perfect potato gnocchi, from selecting the right ingredients to the final flourish of your favourite sauce! Here, you’ll find everything you need to know in order to make perfect melt-in-the-mouth gnocchi that hold their shape before and after cooking and don’t stick to your palate! All the little (Italian) secrets to making perfect gnocchi!
All about gnocchi
Gnocchi hail from northern Italy, in particular from the regions of Piedmont and Lombardy. Today, every part of Italy has its own variation of gnocchi and its own specific serving style.
Homemade potato gnocchi is a festive dish in Italy. You’ll often find these tender little potato dumplings served in restaurants with a simple fresh tomato sauce, ragù, sage and melted butter, or basil pesto.
I like to get creative and go for more unusual gnocchi dishes using seasonal ingredients, such as sautéed porcini mushrooms or walnut sauce in autumn, vegetable ragù in summer, radicchio sauce in winter, or wild garlic pesto in spring.
Traditionally, homemade gnocchi might be on the menu for Sunday lunch, as an alternative to lasagne or other festive first course. A special weekend dinner at home with family or friends might feature some kind of gnocchi. Admittedly, they take a while to make, about an hour of hands-on time for four people, but they’re absolutely worth the time and effort! Shop-bought gnocchi are okay for quick weekday dinners but they can never compare to homemade ones!
About this homemade potato gnocchi recipe
Two ingredients – potatoes and flour – are all you need to make perfect potato gnocchi! Some recipes include egg, claiming that it helps to hold the gnocchi together. This is simply not true. If it becomes necessary to add egg to hold the gnocchi together, it means that either the ratio of potato to flour was wrong in the first place, or that the method used for making them is incorrect.
It took me a while to perfect this recipe – I think I made just about every mistake that it’s possible to make on the road to producing perfect potato gnocchi. Those experiences taught me the science behind the ingredients (see below) and when you’ve grasped that, it’s easy!
Once you’ve mastered the basic recipe, you can get adventurous and make different variations of potato gnocchi, like spinach, wild garlic, chestnut, sweet potato, carrot, courgette… Whatever the flavour, it all starts with a great basic recipe!
Learn how to create this extraordinary dish and leave your guests in awe of your cooking skills!
Important tips/notes – how to make perfect homemade potato gnocchi
Below, you’ll find everything you need to know on how to make perfect potato gnocchi!
Flour
One of the most important things to understand is that homemade gnocchi should be held together by flour alone – using eggs as a binding agent isn’t necessary or desirable. The trick is to use as little flour as possible – around 150 g per kilo of potatoes. This is easy to achieve using the right ingredients and methods. The more water there is in the other ingredients, the more flour you’ll need. The more flour you use, the harder your gnocchi will be. The less flour you incorporate, the better the consistency and taste. Get it? Aim for just enough to hold the gnocchi together. Approximately 15 – 20 % is ideal. Plain (all-purpose) white flour is perfect for making gnocchi. If you use a different type of flour, you may need to adjust the quantity slightly.
Potatoes
What kind of potatoes for homemade potato gnocchi?
By now, you’ll have figured out that the potatoes need to be as dry as possible. But how do you do that? First of all, choose potatoes with a high starch and low water content. Choose starchy varieties like Russet or Yukon Gold potatoes. Maris Piper and King Edward in the UK. If you live in Switzerland, the blue bag at the Coop or Migros are the ones you need (with the wording mehligkochend or farinose).
Some potatoes are harvested while still relatively immature. These are called “new” potatoes. Others, known as “old” potatoes, are left to grow until they’re fully mature. This also affects the texture and flavour. Old (mature) potatoes are ideal for making gnocchi. They are starchier and tend to break up more easily (that’s why they’re boiled in their skins, so you get the farinaceous texture without them breaking up). Don’t use new potatoes because they have a higher water content and remain firm when cooked.
However, the most important things you need to know are how to cook and mash the potatoes. We’ll look at that next.
How to cook potatoes for gnocchi
Forget about people telling you to bake them. Italians don’t do it that way. They simmer them in abundantly salted water with the skins on. Remember, simmer – not boil! Furious boiling will probably cause the skins to rupture, leading to soggy potatoes. After 30 minutes, from when the water starts to boil, (40 mins for very large potatoes), put a knife through one of the potatoes to see whether it’s cooked. Don’t randomly stab all your potatoes – it lets water in! Choose similar-sized potatoes. When one is cooked, they all are. Drain them and leave them to steam dry in a colander. Potatoes should always be put in cold water and brought slowly to a boil.
As soon as the potatoes have dried off and are cool enough to handle, peel them. Put them through a ricer or vegetable mill (mouli) while they are still warm. Only add the flour once the potatoes have cooled down completely. Hot mashed potato activates the gluten in the flour and changes the consistency of the gnocchi dough, making it gooey. This translates to you needing to add more flour… resulting in hard gnocchi.
Never use a blender or food processor!
Whatever you do, don’t use a blender or food processor for the potatoes! This makes them gooey and glutinous. Mashing them won’t give you the desired texture either. If you only have a masher, you might get half-decent gnocchi if you use 100 % starchy potatoes. You’ll probably end up with some lumps remaining, though. Either that or you’ll risk over-mashing them to get rid of the lumps. Invest in a good ricer or vegetable mill (mouli) – you won’t regret it!
Salt
Salt causes vegetables to leak water due to the process of osmosis. For this reason, we won’t be adding salt to the gnocchi dough – only to the cooking water. Remember to simmer the potatoes in well-salted water. This will give them flavour – unsalted potatoes are tasteless. The finished gnocchi are also cooked in salted water.
How to mix the ingredients together
The ingredients just need amalgamating. You can mix the ingredients with a spatula or your hands. Don’t knead the gnocchi dough. Again, kneading activates the gluten in the flour. You just need to incorporate all the flour and amalgamate it so that you have a homogeneous, slightly sticky dough.
How to tell when potato gnocchi are done
Gnocchi are cooked when they come to the surface and float. This only takes a minute or two.
Prepare your sauce beforehand
Have your sauce ready and hot in a pan large enough to accommodate all the gnocchi.
How to make homemade potato gnocchi
Ingredients
For the exact quantities, see the recipe card below.
Potatoes – Use a farinaceous variety of “old” potatoes (see notes above). You can use a mix of 50 – 75 % starchy and 25 – 50 % waxy potatoes. Don’t use new potatoes.
Flour – Plain (all-purpose) flour is perfect for gnocchi. You will need approximately 2/3 of the flour for the gnocchi dough and the other 1/3 for dusting and rolling out etc.
Salt – You will need salted water for boiling the potatoes and cooking the gnocchi.
Method
For step-by-step instructions with photos, see the recipe card below.
How to cook and rice the potatoes
- Simmer the potatoes with their skins on in salted water for about 30 – 40 minutes, or until they are cooked through (see notes above).
- Drain the potatoes and leave them in a colander to steam dry.
- When the potatoes have cooled down enough to handle, peel the skins off.
- Put the potatoes through a food mill (mouli) or potato ricer. Whatever you do, don’t use a blender or food processor for this job! (See notes below and in the main blog post above for explanations.) Place the food mill / hold the ricer over a bowl to catch the mashed potato as it falls.
Prepare the homemade gnocchi dough
- Add the flour to the mashed potatoes and amalgamate with your hands or a wooden spoon without overworking the mixture. It should be a bit sticky but workable. If necessary, add some more flour (see notes below and in the main text above). Test the gnocchi dough by cutting a piece off, coating it in flour and rolling it out on the worktop into a sausage shape with your hands. If it really sticks to the worktop or your hands, put it back in the bowl and add some more flour. I don’t recommend exceeding 250 g of flour in the dough (1,3 kg of potatoes).
- When you’re happy with the consistency, sprinkle a generous amount of flour on the worktop and roll the gnocchi dough into long snakes the thickness of a standard sausage.
- Cut the sausages crosswise into lengths of about 2 cm. Make sure they are well coated in flour. Shape the pieces in your hands.
How to cook homemade potato gnocchi
- Bring a pan of salted water to a boil. Roll the gnocchi off the board, tipping them directly into the pan of boiling water. They might splash a bit, so be careful not to burn yourself. Aim for a single layer on the bottom of the pan, not more. You will need to do them in batches. Adjust the heat under the pan so that the water is constantly simmering but not boiling furiously.
- After a minute or so, the gnocchi will start to rise to the surface and float – that means they are cooked. Scoop them out with a slotted spoon as soon as they come to the surface. Continue adding raw gnocchi to the pan of simmering water to replace the ones you have taken out. Don’t overcrowd the pan.
- Put the gnocchi straight into the pan of hot sauce that you have prepared beforehand. If the sauce is a bit thick, add a spoonful or two of the cooking water until you reach the desired consistency. Coat the gnocchi in the sauce using a soft spatula – that way, you won’t break them up as you turn them. Transfer the gnocchi to a serving dish or individual plates and garnish to your liking.
How to serve homemade potato gnocchi
On the whole, Italians serve potato gnocchi as a primo piatto (first course), which is then followed by a main course (second piatto) of meat or vegetables. If you want to do the same, you’ll need to reduce the quantities. The quantities indicated in the recipe card below yield four generous portions of homemade gnocchi as a main course or about eight portions as a first course.
Considering how filling gnocchi are, and how long it takes to prepare them, I usually serve them as a single course. Nobody’s interested in what else is on the menu – all they want is the gnocchi!
I love to make tris di gnocchi, which is gnocchi served with three different sauces. Say, tomato sauce, basil pesto, and melted butter and sage, for example. You can either plate the gnocchi in the kitchen, reserving a section of the plate for each type of gnocchi or put each type on a separate serving platter (or in the pan) and let your guests help themselves at the table. This is a very popular way of serving gnocchi and making a complete meal of it without it being monotonous.
Serve your gnocchi with a simple garnish, like basil leaves for tomato sauce and basil pesto, sage leaves for melted butter and sage, parsley for mushrooms, etc. Put some vegan parmesan cheese in a serving bowl and let your guests help themselves if they want it.
Serve your homemade potato gnocchi as quickly as possible after lifting them out of the boiling water.
Sprinkle vegan parmesan cheese over the gnocchi for that extra special finishing touch!
It takes just 5 minutes to make this vegan parmesan cheese at home with four simple ingredients.
How to store homemade gnocchi
Store any leftover gnocchi cooked rather than raw. In their raw state, they don’t keep very well, unfortunately. The exposed surfaces of raw potato gnocchi may develop a greyish tint after a few hours. This is a result of oxidation. Shop-bought gnocchi have additives so they don’t oxidise.
Put any leftover cooked gnocchi in an airtight container in the fridge, where they will keep for 4 – 5 days.
To reheat, either plunge them into boiling water for a minute or microwave them. Alternatively, heat up the sauce or butter first and then add the gnocchi and slowly heat through with a lid on.
Can you freeze potato gnocchi?
You can freeze gnocchi, although I don’t recommend doing it – the texture is not the same after freezing. If you do need to freeze them, lay them out in a single layer so that they aren’t touching each other and freeze them like that. Once frozen, you can tip them into a freezer bag to save on space.
How to reheat homemade gnocchi from frozen
Plunge the potato gnocchi, still frozen, into boiling salted water. Keep the heat on high because the frozen gnocchi will lower the water temperature considerably. They will take a little longer to cook than fresh gnocchi and they won’t be quite as compact.
Potato gnocchi
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minutesHow to make perfect potato gnocchi with just potatoes and flour – all the Italian tips and tricks!
Serve as a first course or a main course with homemade fresh tomato sauce, basil or wild garlic pesto, or a vegetable ragù.
Recipe by Deborah, veganhotstuff.com
The quantities indicated below are intended for 4 people as a main course, or 8 people as a first course.
Ingredients
1’300 g potatoes (1,3 kg). See notes below and above in the main blog post.
salt
300 g plain (all-purpose) white flour – approx. 200 g for the gnocchi dough and 100 g for rolling out etc.
- To serve
a garnish of fresh basil or other herb
vegan parmesan cheese (optional)
Directions
- Put the potatoes in a pan of cold water. Salt the water. Bring to a boil and simmer the potatoes with their skins on for about 30 – 40 minutes, or until they are cooked through.
- Drain the potatoes and leave them in a colander to steam dry.
- When the potatoes have cooled down enough to handle, peel the skins off.
- Put the potatoes through a food mill (mouli) or potato ricer. Whatever you do, don’t use a blender or food processor for this job!! (See notes below and in the main blog post above for explanations.) Place the food mill / hold the ricer over a bowl to catch the mashed potato as it falls.
- Add the flour to the mashed potatoes and amalgamate with your hands or a wooden spoon without overworking the mixture. It should be a bit sticky but workable. If necessary, add some more flour (see notes below and in the main text above). Test the gnocchi dough by cutting a piece off, coating it in flour and rolling it out on the worktop into a sausage shape with your hands. If it sticks to the worktop or your hands, put it back in the bowl and add more flour. I don’t recommend exceeding 250 g of flour in the dough. I use approximately 200 g.
- When you’re happy with the consistency, sprinkle a generous amount of flour on the worktop and cut the ball into four pieces. Take one of the pieces of gnocchi dough and sprinkle it with some flour.
- Roll the dough out with your hands into a long snake the thickness of a standard sausage, sprinkling flour on your hands, worktop and dough as necessary. Cut the sausages crosswise into lengths of about 2 cm.
- Shape the pieces in your hands to make gnocchi shapes. Coat them well with flour and lay them on the worktop, which you have also sprinkled with flour. Repeat with the other four pieces of dough.
- Bring a pan of salted water to a boil. Roll the gnocchi off the board, tipping them directly into the pan of boiling water. They might splash a bit, so be careful not to burn yourself. Aim for a single layer on the bottom of the pan, not more. You will need to do them in batches. Adjust the heat under the pan so that the water is constantly simmering but not boiling furiously.
- After a minute or so, the gnocchi will start to rise to the surface and float – that means they are cooked. Scoop them out with a slotted spoon as soon as they come to the surface. Continue adding raw gnocchi to the pan of simmering water to replace the ones you have taken out. Don’t overcrowd the pan.
- Put the gnocchi straight into the pan of hot sauce that you have prepared beforehand. If the sauce is a bit thick, add a spoonful or two of the cooking water until you reach the desired consistency. Coat the gnocchi in the sauce using a soft spatula – that way, you won’t break them up as you turn them. Transfer the gnocchi to a serving dish or individual plates and garnish to your liking. Serve immediately.
- Sprinkle with vegan parmesan cheese (optional).
Notes
- Use “old” farinaceous potatoes for this recipe.
- Whatever you do, don’t use a blender or food processor to “mash” the potatoes! (See important notes above in the main blog post.
- Read all the important notes in the main blog post above before attempting this recipe to avoid disappointment!
Did you find this post on how to make potato gnocchi useful? If you did, it would be great if you could give it a star rating and leave a comment below! It helps other readers to find my content and posts and ultimately makes my blog more successful! Thanks so much for your support! Deborah xx
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