How to bake gnocchi? Gnocchi is the Italian ‘pasta’ dish of potatoes and flour. The gnocchi is traditionally cooked and seasoned with herbs and sauce. Seasoning is also necessary because gnocchi has little taste of its own. That is why gnocchi is increasingly baked in Dutch kitchens.
How To Bake Gnocchi?
- Heat oil in a frying pan.
- Add the gnocchi to the oil and stir well.
- Brown on one side, flip the gnocchi and cook the other side.
- Baking takes 15 minutes.
- Serve the gnocchi with a sauce of your choice, pesto or vegetables.
Baking gnocchi can be difficult, but we can also keep it simple. That’s where we start, with the easy and simple way. Further on in the blog are several examples of gnocchi with other ingredients.
We also wrote a blog about making fresh gnocchi yourself; ” How to Make Gnocchi? you can read that here.
Baking Gnocchi
The gnocchi is usually cooked and then served with a pasta or pesto sauce. However, baking gnocchi is also very good. Gnocchi is mashed potatoes mixed with flour. When baked, gnocchi has a crispy crust. This crispy crust and soft inside make baked gnocchi increasingly popular in Dutch cuisine. But how can we bake gnocchi?
We use gnocchi that you bought in the supermarket. This gnocchi is ready to be cooked but we are going to bake it. What do you need for this?
- 1 pack of fresh gnocchi, approximately 150 – 200 grams per serving.
- Skillet or wok
- Oil or vegetable stir-fry butter for frying
- Salt and pepper
This is all! So baking gnocchi doesn’t have to be difficult. It goes like this:
- Place the frying pan on the heat source, together with the oil and heat the pan.
- Transfer the gnocchi from the pack to the skillet and turn the heat to medium-high.
- Mix the oil and the gnocchi well and let the gnocchi rest for a while.
- Stir the gnocchi once and a brown crust is on the bottom.
- Keep repeating this and after about 15 minutes the gnocchi is ready.
- Serve with salt and pepper.
If you have a lot of gnocchi to fry, use a second pan to fry the gnocchi.
The gnocchi, baked in this way, can be served immediately with, for example, a vegetable dish or a tasty Italian sauce.
If you want to keep it really easy, you can open a jar of tomato sauce and heat it up in a pan or the microwave and put it over the gnocchi. Enjoy your meal!
Gnocchi Baking In Oven
Baking the gnocchi in the oven is another variation of preparing and baking gnocchi. We can do this with just the gnocchi and add the sauce or other ingredients later. Or we can make a delicious dish out of it right away! This is what we’re going to do! Baking a gnocchi dish in the oven with vegetables. Easy and simple to make. What do you need for 4 people:
- 500 grams of gnocchi from the supermarket
- 200 grams white mushrooms, sliced
- 200 grams chestnut mushrooms, sliced
- Handful Cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 onion, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped or pressed
- 1 tsp paprika powder
- Basil leaves
- Salt and pepper
- Sunflower oil
To prepare, we proceed as follows:
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees, remove the baking tray from the oven and place a sheet of baking paper on it.
- Place a frying pan with oil on the heat source.
- Put the onion in the pan with the garlic and fry for a while.
- Then the sliced mushrooms go into the pan and stir well through the onion and garlic. Do not bake this too long, about 2 minutes.
- Then the gnocchi goes into the pan and add a little more oil. Add the paprika, salt and pepper and stir. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and divide your dish on the baking tray.
- Add the tomatoes and slide the baking sheet into the oven.
- Baking takes about 20-25 minutes. Check regularly to make sure it doesn’t stick. You can also stir it halfway through baking.
Now you have a delicious baked gnocchi made with mushrooms and onion from the oven. Sometimes I have a container with very small mushrooms. You can then choose not to cut them into slices but to bake them whole.
Serve your dish and decorate it with the basil leaves. Enjoy your meal!
Just want the gnocchi baked in the oven? Then put the gnocchi in a bowl and drizzle with oil and place the gnocchi on the baking sheet. Place the tray in the oven and bake the gnocchi for about 20-25 minutes. Even then you have baked gnocchi from the oven. The gnocchi is ready when it has a brown crust.
Gnocchi Baking With Tomato Sauce
Tomato sauce make gnocchi truly Italian! It should therefore not be missing in this blog about baking gnocchi. You can of course use ready-made tomato sauce from the supermarket. The gnocchi is then on the table without much effort. I make fresh tomato sauce with canned tomatoes with the baked gnocchi. If you are using the ready-made tomato sauce, see above how to bake the gnocchi in the chapter ‘Gnocchi Baking’ and warm the sauce.
What do we need for the fresh tomato sauce and fried gnocchi for 4 people:
- 1 pack of gnocchi
- 2 cans of diced tomatoes
- 3-4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 onion, chopped small
- 25 grams of Italian herbs or a handful of fresh basil leaves
- sunflower oil
- Salt and pepper
The preparation is as follows:
- For the sauce, we heat oil in the frying pan and add the chopped onion and garlic. Bake this for 5 minutes.
- Then the cans of diced tomatoes go into the pan and bring the whole thing to the boil.
- Add the Italian herbs, salt and pepper and let it simmer for 15 minutes. Stir occasionally.
- Taste to see if it is flavorful, otherwise you can add more spices.
- In the meantime, when the sauce is simmering, we fry the gnocchi.
- Place the frying pan on the heat source, together with a little oil and heat the pan.
- Transfer the gnocchi from the pack to the skillet and turn the heat to medium-high.
- Stir the oil and gnocchi well and let the gnocchi rest until it turns brown. Then flip the gnocchi and brown the other side.
- This takes about 15 minutes in total.
- Add the sauce and gnocchi together and you have gnocchi ‘Italian Style’.
Serve your dish with (vegetarian) cheese on a tasty sandwich with herb butter. Enjoy your meal.
Gnocchi Baking Pesto
This gnocchi is also truly Italian; with pesto. You can make the pesto yourself from fresh basil or spinach with pine nuts. If you are allergic to pine nuts, you can also use almonds, just as tasty.
I now use ready-made pesto for this dish.
What do you need for 4 people:
- 500 grams gnocchi
- 100 grams green pesto
- bunch of arugula lettuce
- good handful of pine nuts or slivered almonds
Preparation method:
- Place a frying pan without oil on the heat source and heat it up.
- Put the pine nuts in the pan and toast them by keeping the pine nuts moving. If you don’t, they will burn. The pine nuts are ready when they start to brown and smell nice. Remove the pine nuts from the pan and set aside.
- Then we bake the gnocchi.
- Place the frying pan on the heat source, together with a little oil and heat the pan.
- Transfer the gnocchi from the pack to the skillet and turn the heat to medium-high.
- Stir the oil and gnocchi well and let the gnocchi rest until it turns brown. Then flip the gnocchi and brown the other side.
- This takes about 15 minutes in total.
- Warm the pesto in a pan.
- Now add everything together in the pan in which the gnocchi was fried and stir everything well.
- Season with salt and pepper if desired.
Delicious baked gnocchi with pesto, now decorate it with the spicy arugula. Enjoy your meal.
Gnocchi Baking In Airfryer
If you have an airfryer, you can also bake the gnocchi in it. The process is simple and straightforward. To flavor your gnocchi, check out the ideas above. There is bound to be something for you!
Mix the gnocchi with a little olive oil and place the gnocchi in the basket. Bake the gnocchi at 200 degrees and for about 15 minutes. See if they are golden brown and then take them out. Now finish with one of the examples from above and you have a delicious dish.
