Why Sweet Potato Gnocchi?
Sweet Potato Gnocchi, or Gnocchi in general are an easy food to make for a delicious dinner without much work. Gnocchi are tender, fluffy pillows of potato-y goodness. In my book they belong in the top 5 ways to eat a potato, and that is saying something. They are very versatile and easy to cook and store.
This recipe will use your standard orange sweet potato, but will work perfectly well with regular potatoes or any other variety of sweet potato you can find. That is a bold statement given the plethora of varieties out there. I have tried most of the varieties available at my supermarket and they have all turned out well. My favorite one in recent memory was a purple sweet potato which provided visually stunning results.
Gnocchi is a great way to use up any leftover baked sweet potatoes or any other type of potato. Simply remove the skin and you are ready to go. Just don’t throw away the skins, they can be used to make snacks with roasted potato skins! Or alternatively scoop out the center flesh of the baked potato and make some potato skin nachos!
Cooking Tips
One of the biggest benefits that gnocchi have is that they are a great way to repurpose your potatoes with ingredients that are typically on hand. Eggs. Flour. Salt.
The preparation is fairly straightforward and follows in the recipe below. Just some tips to help you perfect your Sweet Potato Gnocchi.
- Mash the potatoes to as smooth a texture as you are able. Chunks of potato in your gnocchi is not the most luxurious experience.
- Take care when adding the flour. Keep feeling the dough as you add flour to find the time when it just becomes easy to work with and then stop adding flour. Adding too much flour and over kneading can lead to a super chewy gnocchi instead of a light pillowy texture.
One last huge benefit to gnocchi is how easy it is to freeze! This can be done right after forming each gnocchi, simply pop into the freezer on a baking sheet and let sit until solid. Then add to a freezer safe zip top bag and store. I have found my gnocchi to stay fresh for at least 4 months.
Taste Verdict
This recipe produces tender and delicious gnocchi that are super versatile and can hold many types of seasonings. A common topping for sweet potato gnocchi is simple topping with browned butter infused with fresh sage. Pictured here I simply topped with what I had on hand, olive oil, parmesan cheese, and some fresh herbs (in this case scallion).
I really do hope you give this recipe a try and let me know if you enjoyed it!
Sweet Potato Gnocchi
Equipment
- Medium mixing bowl
- Fork
- Baking Sheet
- Large Pot
- Skillet
Ingredients
- 2 Medium/Large Sweet Potatoes
- 2 Cups All Purpose Flour + ½ cup for dusting
- 2 tsp Salt
- 1 Egg
Instructions
- Preheat oven to to 400℉
- Bake sweet potatoes for 40-50 minutes until knife easily pierces sweet potato to the center
- Remove sweet potato from oven and cool to room temperature
- Remove skins from potato and put peeled potato into mixing bowl
- Mash potato and add egg and salt and mix sweet potato mixture until homogenous
- Mix in flour until the dough is soft but workable (careful not to add too much or the gnocchi can go from soft and pillowy to dense and chewy really quick.
- Dust work surface with flour
- On dusted work surface Roll handfuls of dough to about half an inch in diameter snake and cut into one inch length
- Using the backside of a fork, roll over the gnocchi to leave a grooved pattern and transfer to a dusted baking sheet with parchment paper
- At this point you can either cook the gnocchi in a large pot of salted boiling water for a couple minutes until they float to the top.
- Alternatively you can put this baking sheet with all prepped gnocchi into the freezer until they are rock solid. Then transfer to a freezer bag and store for multiple months (I’ve had them up to 4 months later myself and they were still fresh!)
- Season with simple dressing of olive oil, some fresh herbs and grated parmesan cheese.