Turn bland, icky, solidified leftover mashed potatoes into delicious, pillowy gnocchi. By just adding an egg yolk and some flour to that mound of mashed you'll create a pasta like dough that tastes delicious and comes together quickly. Eat them right away or freeze them for a 10 minute meal later!
When I'm making dinner I generally count on one potato per person. Who can't eat a whole potato? I can eat several potatoes. Fried, mashed, boiled, raw ... doesn't make a difference.
So for Thanksgiving dinner I peeled up 13 potatoes for my 13 guests then threw in a few more for good luck (and myself). That would make just enough mashed potatoes in my estimation for 13 people to have with their turkey, stuffing, turnip, green beans, rolls, pumpkin soup and tomato salad. And pie. And ice cream. And a little more stuffing while standing in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner. And the other pie.
I may have overestimated everyone else's ability to eat mashed potatoes until it bursts out of their belly button because I ended up with leftover mashed potatoes.
I had 6 cups of leftover mashed potatoes.
When my sister was helping me clean up she asked if I wanted to keep them. "YES! YES! YES!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, YESSSSS I WANT TO KEEP THE MASHED POTATOES! Who are you??"
At the time I said I'd make potato pancakes with some and give the rest to the chickens. You may not know this about chickens, but chickens loveeee mashed potatoes.
Then a couple of days later when it came time to deal with the mountain of mashed potatoes, I had a potato epiphany. It came in the form of a tiny Italian angel who ran up my spine, over my head, down my face and kicked me in the nose.
His name was Gnocchi.
Gnocchi is a food sent from the angels. Granted, they're the kind of angels who kick you in the nose ... but nobody likes a goody goody.
If you aren't completely familiar with it, I'll explain what Gnocchi is exactly.
What's Gnocchi?
Gnocchi's a little dumpling that looks like pasta but is actually made with mashed potatoes. (sometimes it's made with other things, but we're focusing on potato gnocchi today since it's the most popular) There is some flour and egg added in, like a regular pasta, but the base ingredient is potato.
They can be served with tomato sauce or butter and parmesan cheese. Or anything else you can think up. Dousing gnocchi with browned butter and fried sage leaves is one of my favourite ways to make it.
This is not a recipe that you need to be too concerned about measurements. In fact, making gnocchi is more about the feel of it than the exact measurements. Like any dough!
Generally speaking it's 2 parts mashed potato, 1 part flour and 1 egg per 2 cups of potatoes.
For this batch here I worked with:
2 cups cold mashed potatoes
1 cup flour
1 egg, beaten
¾ tsp. salt
That ratio of 2 cups potato to 1 cup flour to 1 egg
is the same as
1 lb potatoes to 1 cup flour to 1 egg
Dump half of your flour onto your work surface.
Dump your mashed potatoes onto the flour.
Form a well in the potatoes and pour your egg in it.
Add salt.
Pour half the remaining flour (½ a cup) on top.
Work the egg, salt and flour into the potatoes using either your hands or a pastry scraper.
Once everything is roughly incorporated, gently knead the dough like you would pasta for a couple of minutes. Do not over knead. At this point you can incorporate the rest of the flour if you need it. If the dough is still too sticky to handle or roll out, you need more flour.
Again, be careful not to add too much flour, or your gnocchi will be dense and tough.
Divide your dough into workable pieces.
Roll the dough out until it's around ¾ " in diameter.
Using your pastry cutter or a knife, cut the rope into lengths of ¾".
Now you have to decide how you want to shape your gnocchi. By pressing it with your thumb, or rolling it on a fork.
To get the classic ribs on the gnocchi, roll each piece down the tines of a fork. It's takes some practice, but you'll get the hang of it.
You aren't just sliding it down the fork, you need to roll it down. Once you do it right the first time you'll yell, "ah HAH!".
And then you'll run outside to drag someone in to show them.
To make the thumbprint version, just poke your finger into the centre of the gnocchi. Both versions are fine. The reason you NEED to do one of these two methods is because it's the ridges and the indent that helps holds whatever sauce you're putting on them.
If you're planning to freeze some gnocchi, lightly flour a baking sheet, place the gnocchi on it and freeze. Once frozen you can remove them from the pan and immediately put them in baggies or a widemouth mason jar. These then go back in the freezer. Work as quickly as possible so the gnocchi doesn't have a chance to thaw out at all (because then they'll stick to each other).
To cook your gnocchi, drop them in salted, boiling water. They're done when they float. To make them even MORE delicious, pan fry them for a couple of minutes in butter and/or oil.
Then you can either top the gnocchi with any old red sauce you can get your hands on, or you can take it a step further and serve Gnocchi with browned butter and crispy sage leaves.
All this because I made an extra 6 cups of mashed potatoes. I won't make that mistake again next year. I'll make sure I have at least 8.
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Great recipe and tutorial! My first time making gnocchi and they were awesome and so much fun to make!
Great job! ~ karen
I worked for a group of Catholic nuns awhile back & one of the Sister's always made gnocchi's. They were so light & fluffy. Like eating clouds. What makes them so light ?
Do you pan fry them instead of boiling them or do you pan fry them after you’ve boiled them?
Hi Ursula. Boil first, and then pan fry. :) ~ karen!
I loved stumbling upon this recipe and realizing you could even use leftovers to form this, how easy is that? I've always thought homeade anything had to be extremely difficult. I have been inspired recently by the movie "Julie and Julia" to stop using storebought items such as gnocchi and pasta and make them myself! I'm excited to try this recipe in hopes of making a delicious creamy chicken and gnocchi soup. Thanks Karen!
It's SO easy Ally. :) You remind me of my sister who cooks every night but just basic stuff. This weekend she made lasagna from scratch for the first time and couldn't believe how well it turned out, lol. It was delicious. You'll have a few misteps along the way but the more you cook the better you get. Good luck! ~karen
These were fun to make, thanks to your great instructions. And SO delicious!
Oh! I forgot to say... Nonna taught me to just push a fork into one side at an angle, so the dough comes over the fork tip a little... saves rolling time!
My Nonna always made it with mashed potato... she said it was way more rich with the butter and cream additions, than with potato from scratch.
I can get organic Idaho potato instant potato, so I use that if I don't do a real mash. My hubby loves it and has never known the difference between the ones I make from 'real' potato mash, or the instant.
They are gorgeous if you make your mash with sour cream. I either make a dill/garlic sauce, a pesto sauce, or a mushroom/cream/nutmeg sauce. Occasionally I'll do a plain Napolitano sauce (mmmm... cinammon!).
Hubby would literally brain anyone who stood between him and the gnocchi bowl.
Sometimes even the gnocchi gets old, though, and then I make Schwabian spaetzle, to reduce the carb overload just a little bit...
Reduce the carb overload??! I don't approve of that kind of language on my site. ~ karen! ;)
Hahahahlol! Nor do I really! For the love of carbs...!
Ps, if you put sour cream or greek yogurt in, the acidity has a slight leavening action on the egg whites, and you get pillowy soft gnocchi every time, apart from the yum factor!
Oh my hell...this is probably the first recipe/blog entry I've read from top to bottom, (usually skip to the recipe after seeing blah blah). I found you while looking for leftover mashed potato recipes and already having my fill of potato pancakes and now I'll never let you go. lol Seriously though you are entertaining and brilliant and on the gnocchi angel list obviously. Needed this smile today and wanted you to know. Making the gnocchi for dinner, if I can roll I'll let you know.
thanks so much.. I'll be trying to make some gnocchi in the near future! thanks for showing how easy it is
so are your mashed potatoes just, mashed potato.. or is there a recipe for those lurking in the archives?
I do plain old mashed potatoes (with heated cream and melted butter ... a tiny pinch of nutmeg if they're to be eaten w/out gravy) ~ karen!
Hi! Looking forward to trying this recipe soon. Will be making gnocchi for the first time and going to involve my daughter. Do you think I could mix the dough in my KitchenAid?
HI Marian! You could sure give it a try. :) You just have to be careful not to overwork the though because the gnocchi will be tough, not soft and pillowy otherwise. ~ karen!
This is my favorite gnocchi recipe to make. Thank you for sharing it!
I just made this for dinner and my kids loved them. They were so simple to make. I used 2 cups of mash, 1 cup of flour and one egg. I had a 1/2 cup of flour on standby that I needed once I kneeled the dough because it was a tad too sticky. Boiled as directed and fried them in browned butter before placing a quick homemade marinera sauce.
Marinera sauce
3 med tomatoes
1/2 onion
1 tablespoon of minced garlic
1 small can of tomatoe sauce
(Use same sauce can to add same amount of water)
Blend in a blender with 1 tsps salt and 1 tsps pepper and 1 tablespoon oregano.
Place blended ingredients in a sauce pan with 1/4 cup of olive oil.
Bring to a boil and then simmer for 10 minutes.
I just tried to make this & ended up w a gluey mess. I yelled a few cuss words then tossed the gloop in the trash. Darn it. ?
Gluey. That means the potatoes were probably overmashed or you overworked the dough. :( Or if it was super sticky and gluey, too many eggs as well. Which do you think it might have been, lol? ~ karen!
I make 10x as much mashed potatoes as I need every time and freeze them into individual yummy servings.
So here's my problem. I make my potatoes with cream cheese, chopped chives, chopped mushrooms that are sautéed with chopped bacon and garlic and lastly some grated cheddar (plus salt and pepper).
Do you think gnocchi could be made out of that sort of mashed potatoes? Thanks!
Those are some fancy mashed potatoes! You could definitely make gnocchi out of that mixture. In fact I'd be very curious to hear about how they turn out and what sauce you use on them. ~ karen!
Wow - Made today as prescribed - only I added a 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese with the last batch of flour before kneeding. Froze for a few hours. Boiled til they floated to top of water - then pulled out a few at a time with a strainer - transferred to hot pan and fried in the butter/oil with rubed sage, Delicious !!!!
Any fella that could turn his nose up at gnocchi should stay away. If mine did I would spurn him. This recipe is a keeper. I love them so much and thank you so much for re encouraging me to make them again. Last time they came out rubbery. Overworked? Over Cooked? I know it was cook's error. You've reminded me not to give in as I love them so. I can smell the sage and butter as I type. Thank you my clever Canadian chicken lover..
Hi Judi! As it turns out he ran away from home 2 years ago. So I've been making a LOT of gnocchi since then, lol. Give them another shot, they're so easy and delicious. :) ~ karen!
It doesn't seem to matter how many potatoes I mash. We NEVER have leftovers. Finally I just made mashed potatoes and instead of putting them on a table were people could eat them I made gnocchi. Fab recipe! So easy- especially if you don't have to hoard mashed potatoes first.
These were fantastic! Fluffy little pillow browned in a little Irish butter! This recipe is a keeper!
That's great Michael D., I'm glad you liked them! They're delicious little things aren't they? ~ karen!
They stuck together as you may have put too many in the pot at once when you were boiling them OR you put them into the pot too close together so they stuck right from the get go. Put less in the pot and plop them in a way from each other. Stir them in the pot if you need to in order to keep them separate:)