I am so excited to be sharing this recipe, because I love gnocchi (shoutout to Trader Joe’s cauliflower and kale gnocchi, miss ya) and wanted to make my own version and it was so easy and tastes great! Isn’t gnocchi just the cutest pasta?! It’s like little bite-sized pasta nuggets!! This recipe is basically just two ingredients - sweet potato and flour. Then you add flavor to make this either sweet or savory! You could really add any combination of spices for seasoning, so just take this as inspiration and see where your creativity and spice cabinet takes you.
This recipe made WAY more gnocchi than I expected, so I made a sweet batch by seasoning with cinnamon and vanilla, and a savory batch with sage and Everything But The Bagel (EBTB) seasoning. Both batches lasted at least a week for me, so you could scale down this recipe and still make a good amount. You could also freeze the gnocchi and save it for later.
I have been running low on flour with all the baking I have been doing, so I decided to experiment and try making my own oat flour. Oat flour is great because it is naturally gluten-free (if you are allergic to gluten, you should use gluten-free oats), whole grain, and has a similar consistency to regular wheat/all-purpose flour so it is perfect for baking. I was pleasantly surprised to learn how easy it is to make oat flour - you just blend the amount of oats you need in a blender, and it is so fast!!
Try to pack your oats when measuring so you aren’t getting a lot of air between the oats, because that would affect your ratio of flour. But it is pretty much a 1:1 ratio of oats to oat flour once ground up. I used oat flour for the pasta but only made enough for the pasta, so when I was kneading and rolling the dough out, I used coconut flour to keep the dough from sticking.
The process of making the gnocchi definitely takes some time, especially if you make as much dough as I did. But I found it very relaxing and fun to be rolling out the dough - it was somewhat reminiscent of playing with PlayDoh as a child!
Air-fried gnocchi!
Once the gnocchi are cooked by boiling in water, they are ready to eat. However, if you want them to taste REALLY good, I highly recommend air-frying them!!! They become little fluffy delicious pillows that are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. If you don’t have an air-frier, you could sautée them on the stovetop or bake on a sheet in the oven to get the gnocchi crispy.
I ate the cinnamon version with caramelized apple slices, blueberries, and siggi’s plant-based vanilla cinnamon coconut yogurt for a cinnamon-roll inspired topping!
To cook the apple slices, sautée thin apple slices with cinnamon, vanilla extract, a few spoonfuls of olive oil, and maple syrup or honey until the apple slices soften and caramelize. Flip to cook on both sides.
The savory version, I ate with roasted carrots, air-fried onions, spinach, sage leaves, mashed avocado, and some vegan cheese sauce (it was extra from some vegan mac and cheese I made earlier).
The serving possibilities for both versions are endless because the gnocchi pairs so well with a variety of foods! I later had some of the cinnamon version with pumpkin puree, Greek yogurt, banana slices, and blueberries. I had the savory pasta later in the week in a variety of ways - some with chana masala, some with plain Greek yogurt and falafel, and some with a tofu scramble for breakfast. Let me know if you make either of these recipes and what you serve your gnocchi with!
Ingredients
Makes about 4 cups
4 medium-sized sweet potatoes (will be about 4 cups when mashed)
2 ½ cups oat flour (or can use all-purpose flour)
For the savory batch:
1 teaspoon Everything But The Bagel (EBTB) seasoning (or dash of salt and pepper)
1 tbsp fresh sage leaves (optional but adds great flavor)
For the sweet batch:
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla extract
Steps
1. Cook your potatoes - the quickest way to do so is to poke some holes in the potatoes, microwave in a covered microwave-safe dish until soft (bake them in the oven at 375 for 40 minutes to an hour). I just did increments of 5 - 10 minutes and kept checking on the potatoes.
2. Once the potatoes are soft, let them cool, then remove the peels - the peels should easily come off, then mash with a potato masher or fork in a large bowl. Try to mash it enough to minimize any lumps.
3. Add a small amount of flour to the mashed potatoes and stir in, continuing until all the flour has been added.
4. Once the flour is evenly mixed in, divide the batter into two halves in separate large bowls.
5. To one half of the dough, add the cinnamon and vanilla. To the other half, add the EBTB and sage.
*For the rest of the recipe, the steps are the same
for each batch, so just do one batch at a time
and keep them separate.
6. Mix well and start kneading the dough - it should become smooth and not sticky. If it is sticky, you can sprinkle flour on it and keep kneading.
7. Sprinkle flour on a clean, flat surface (for the sweet batch, you can also sprinkle cinnamon). Roll the dough into a ball, then separate it into about 4 smaller balls.
8. Roll one of these smaller balls out, kneading and adding flour as needed, as if you were making snakes with clay. The “snakes” should be just a bit thicker than a thumb.
9. Heat a large pot of water to boiling.
10. Cut the “snakes” into small pieces that are about an inch or so long. You can press fork tines into them to give them stripes on top if you wish - I did that to some, but not all.
11. Once the water is boiling, start adding the pasta pieces in small batches (you don’t want them too crowded in the pot or they will stick together) and let them cook. Once they are done, they will float to the top (this takes about 3-5 minutes).
12. Use a slotted spoon to remove the cooked gnocchi and place in a strainer/colander to drain excess water.
13. Repeat to cook the rest of the gnocchi.
14. You can eat the pasta as is, but to get that crispy gnocchi taste, I highly recommend air-frying the dried pasta for 5 or so minutes at 350 F until they are crispy! If you don’t have an air-frier, you could sautée with a bit of olive oil until they are crispy.
15. Enjoy! You can refrigerate the extra pasta to keep for later up to about a week, or freeze to keep for longer.
