Homemade Potato Gnocchi Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the best flour to use for gnocchi? ›

Tipo 00 Flour is a soft, fine milled flour from Italy. It's a must-have for light and tender gnocchi and homemade pasta. Small(er) Batch Recipe ensures a higher success rate with just enough practice.

Nowadays you'll see recommendations for Yukon Gold which are creamier and supposedly better tasting than russet potatoes. But taste aside, russet potatoes have notable benefits when it comes to making gnocchi. Russets are dryer and hold less water, making them ideal for gnocchi making.

How to prepare gnocchi. Poach gnocchi in batches in a pan of lightly salted water for 2-4 minutes. Cooked gnocchi will float to the top. Strain and serve immediately with a good pasta sauce.

If you overdo it with flour, your gnocchi will be too hard, if you put too little they will break during cooking. The rule says that the flour must be at most a third of the amount of potatoes.

Don't overwork the dough: When making gnocchi dough, it's important not to overwork it. Overworking the dough can make the gnocchi tough and chewy. Mix the ingredients together just until the dough comes together, and then stop mixing! You're not kneading bread here.

The secret to the lightest, most tender potato gnocchi is to bake the potatoes instead of boiling them. A baked potato is dryer than one that has been boiled, which means you avoid having to add more flour to the dough to account for excess moisture, a practice that leads to over-kneaded, tough gnocchi.

Gnocchi alla zucca: Pumpkin gnocchi served with butter and cheese. Ndunderi: The Amalfi Coast specialty originally made with farro and curdled milk. Gnocchi alla Romana: Made with semolina and milk, this variety is shaped into squares and baked rather than boiled.

Egg yolk added to your gnocchi dough helps improve texture, and keep it together while cooking. Gnocchi is traditionally made with eggs in Veneto and no eggs in Piedmont, the two Northern Italian regions famous for gnocchi. We vote for egg yolks at the rate of 1 per (500g) 1 lb of uncooked potatoes used.

Chewy gnocchi are the result of too much flour and over kneading the dough. It's important to knead the dough just until it comes together into a smooth ball and no more. This is because you don't want to encourage too much gluten development which makes them tough, chewy and rubbery.

Gnocchi can disintegrate for a few reasons. You might not have added enough flour or egg, or you may have overboiled them.

Why is my gnocchi not fluffy? ›

For gnocchi with a fluffy texture, don't knead the dough past the point where the flour is fully incorporated into the potatoes. Think large lemon size when you tear off a piece of dough to roll out.

Unlike potato gnocchi, Roman gnocchi (Gnocchi alla romana), are made with semolina instead of potatoes and flour, that's why they are also called Semolina gnocchi. Roman gnocchi are shaped differently than potato gnocchi.

It is very easy to add too much flour to gnocchi dough, which can make these dumplings glutinous, gummy, and sticky. If you dump all of the flour into your gnocchi dough at once, you won't have the same texture as a gnocchi that has just enough flour to bring it together.

The perfect gnocchi are made with starchy and aged potatoes and here's why. The higher the water content of your potato, the more flour you will have to add when making potato gnocchi. Adding excess flour will make your gnocchi hard and rubbery and you that's not what you want.

For potato gnocchi, mashing with a mouli or ricer ensures light, fluffy results, but an ordinary masher is fine. Don't overmix the dough and never use a processor or you will end up with a gluey mess. For guaranteed lightness in potato gnocchi, try replacing 25g of the plain flour with self-raising.

What is the best flour for making gnocchi? I always suggest using 00 double zero flour. For most Italian dishes, this soft-wheat flour creates a delicate texture that's easy to bite through. Double zero is perfect for the light, pillowy texture you want for gnocchi.

There are different types of 00 flour, depending on whether you want to use it for making pasta or pizza dough. The main difference between these flours is gluten content, as pasta-making requires a slightly lower gluten flour than pizza. They will usually be clearly labelled as '00 pasta flour' or '00 pizza flour'.

Most “00” flour that we see in the United States is ground from durum wheat and has a mid-range protein content of about 11 to 12%, similar to all-purpose white flour.