This homemade gnocchi with sage, walnuts, and vegan blue cheese is a quick, cozy dish that turns simple ingredients into classic cold-weather comfort.
Ingredients
Gnocchi - (If you’re short of time then use a shop-bought vegan gnocchi)
- 500 g floury potatoes e.g. Maris Piper keep whole and leave skins on
- Salt very important
- 175 g ‘00’ flour sieved
- ¼ tsp nutmeg freshly grated
Sauce
- 100 ml olive oil
- Bunch of sage leaves stalks removed
- 100 g high-quality vegan butter
- 65 g walnuts
- ½ tsp chili flakes optional
- Zest of 1 lemon finely zested (optional)
- 2 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 150 g vegan blue cheese crumbled
Instructions
Gnocchi
- Using a large saucepan, boil the potatoes for 40 minutes or until tender.
- Drain and remove the skins while the potatoes are still hot then press them through a potato ricer or mash them with a potato masher until smooth.
- Using a large mixing bowl, thoroughly combine the mashed potatoes, flour and nutmeg and form a smooth dough.
- Cover the dough with a tea towel and leave to rest for 10-20 minutes.
- Dust some flour onto a clean surface and roll a quarter of the dough into a 2cm sausage shape. Cut this into small gnocchi pieces (approx. 2 x 3cm or a little smaller if you prefer). Repeat this step until all of the dough has been cut into pieces.
- If you’d like to add the grooves to the gnocchi (helps the sauce to cling better), either roll each piece from corner to corner along a gnocchi board or use the prongs of a fork and gently press into each piece.
- Using a large saucepan of salted boiling water, lower the gnocchi into the water and boil until they rise to the surface (approx. 1-2 minutes).
- Thoroughly drain and set aside until needed (it doesn’t matter if they cool as they will be dunked into the sauce to heat up).
Sauce
- Heat the olive oil on medium in a large frying pan or wok and when lightly sizzling, add the sage leaves (one layer at a time) until they crisp up (around 30 seconds – 1 minute). Remove them with a slotted spoon and place on kitchen roll until needed.
- When all the sage leaves have been cooked, remove the oil then add the butter to the pan and melt on a medium heat. Stir through the walnuts, chili flakes, lemon zest, garlic and gnocchi.
- Thoroughly combine and heat for a further 2 minutes before serving.
- Top with the crispy sage leaves and vegan blue cheese.