Quick Gnocchi Cheats Recipe

This quick gnocchi uses a cheats recipe that means you don’t have to put much time, thought or effort into producing gnocchi at the drop of a hat!

Sometimes you’re just in a rush, other times you might find you’ve suddenly got to make a meal stretch further, so need a fast extra dish on the table.  Gnocchi’s a great fast snack, served with your favourite sauce!  Real comfort food.  It’s also great for vegetarians.

I’ve always got a packet of Instant Mash in the cupboard.  I use the Lidl Instant Mash, which the packet tells me is 99% potato and the rest durham wheat, so no “nasties” or E numbers in there!  This is dehydrated mash, pure and simple!  Other brands are, of course, available!

To make a quick gnocchi side dish:

• Make up instant mash, using 1 cup of boiling water and 1 cup of instant mash mix. Add the water slowly, as packets can vary.  It needs to look/feel like mashed potato.  Of course, you can use some leftover mash if you have some in the fridge!
• Beat 1 egg  with some salt and pepper seasoning and add it into the mashed potato.
• Add plain flour until the potato looks and feels like a fairly stiff dough – typically 1½ cups of plain flour (all purpose flour).
• Knead the dough into shape – just a light kneading will do this.
• Cut the dough into manageable chunks and roll each piece into a sausage shape.
• Flour your knife, so it doesn’t stick, then cut the length of potato dough into chunks about 1cm long.
• Drop a handful of the gnocchi into a saucepan of boiling water – scoop them out once they rise to the top.

Microwave Gnocchi:

Microwave gnocchi is great for small quantities, or if you don’t want to be creating a lot of steam by using a saucepan of boiling water.  Make microwave gnocchi by using a glass bowl (so you can watch it, any bowl will do if you’re happy to be hit and miss about it) – simply microwave the gnocchi until they float.

Alternatively, you can use a microwave steamer, microwave steam the gnocchi for about 5-8 minutes.  Just taste one to test if it’s done 🙂

Quick Gnocchi Sauce

Add a sauce – you can coat your gnocchi in any sauce you’ve got handy.  A quick gnocchi sauce can be made by mixing some tomato ketchup with a splash of boiling water!  Most other cupboard sauces can be watered down a little to make a gnocchi sauce, such as curry sauce, hoi sin sauce, BBQ sauce… what’ve you got?

Gnocchi Flavours:

You can add in further flavours if you wish, by adding in some herbs, or ½ a teaspoon of garlic powder, or some grated parmesan.  Add any flavours into the potato before you put the flour in, or add it to the flour before you mix it with the potato.  Either of these methods will give you a better chance of getting the flavour more evenly distributed!

Serve!