This is why ricotta gnocchi is the easy way to make homemade gnocchi from scratch! Potato gnocchi, it's the same thing as these – soft and plump pillows to be tossed in your sauce of choice, but it takes 20 minutes total from the start to finish. Today - a creamy mushroom sauce. Perfect match!
How to make gnocchi – The easy way to ricotta gnocchi
It's not the first time I've shared a ricotta gnocchi recipe (see here and here), and I'm certain it won't be the last. I'm a fan because it doesn't take nearly as long or as much effort to make as the more famous potato gnocchi, which requires accuracy so they don't end up dense a doughy. Secondly, I love that ricotta gnocchi are lighter and less than potato gnocchi, so you aren't left feeling heavy.
Yes, ricotta gnocchi, while legit Italian! There are many ways to make gnocchi in Italy, one of which is ricotta gnocchi, as is with many traditional foods from around the world. 🙂
So deep into the difference – If we take it a bit further, potato gnocchi basically just consists of mashed potato and flour and an egg. The only difference is that instead of potato it's ricotta, and some parmesan is thrown in for good measure. But actually, they taste quite similar and true to tell, potato gnocchi doesn't taste much like potato once you've tossed it with the sauce. Likewise, ricotta is a neutral flavoured cheese, so you can't taste it much, if at all, in ricotta gnocchi.
The big difference, however, is texture and speed making. As above, potato gnocchi are harder and heavier than ricotta gnocchi. How about making time, 20 minutes vs 1 hour minimum!
PS Note: This recipe wasn't being mean to potato gnocchi. I adore them. I just can't remember the last time I made them. It wasn't ricotta gnocchi, it was a regular!
Ingredients
What you'll need to make ricotta gnocchi with creamy mushroom sauce is here.
FOR THE RICOTTA GNOCCHI
- Regular ricotta that is kind of lumpy when you scoop it up (Ricotta is the word itself, see video). Not the creamy, smooth spreadable type of ricotta (usually labelled "spreadable ricota" or whatever.) That's too wet and loose, and makes the dough sticky.
- My favorite mainstream brand is Paesanella, which is very widely available in NSW. In Victoria that's Amore.
- Got the wrong ricotta? If you didn't order the spreadable smooth type and got it mixed up, then you'll need around 450g/15 oz – and once this is poured into a paper towel lined colander you'll need to remove excess liquid by leaving this for an hour, or even overnight. With the recipe, then measure out 250g/8 oz.
- Just plain / all purpose flour – flour. And not self raising flour, so it will make the ricotta puff up, and it will just sort of fall apart (told you!).
- Parmesan – This also helps flavour the dough and gives a bit of structure. Without it, the dough is a little too fragile and the gnocchi more susceptible to falling apart if the dough consistency isn't just perfect. It's kind of like cheese glue holding your gnocchi together!
- Gnocchi Sauce: Egg + egg yolk – To hold the gnocchi together, and a little richness.
CREAMY MUSHROOM SAUCE
This creamy mushroom sauce with subtle thyme flavour requires only these items.
- Just regular white mushrooms, or Swiss Brown/cremini if you prefer (aka Chinese).
- Thickened cream / heavy cream is as the name suggests thicker! That way the sauce will thicken faster. Also, that starch will thick the sauce up relatively quickly when you start tossing them together, so it's fine to use regular pouring or whipping cream here.
- Wine – I almost always deglaze the pan using wine for sauces. Deglazing is just adding a liquid to break up some flavour bits that the saute of things (mushrooms and onion in this case) cooked up on the bottom of the pan and into the liquid because..well..that flavour is free. Add more flavour into the sauce, you could use water or stock but wine. We don't flavor the alcohol when we cook it out so it doesn't taste like wine.
- Chardonnay has taken over: it's my white wine of choice for the best flavour, and best in terms of all round functionality for cooking too. Any dry white wine will do fine here but I'd much prefer, for the summer seasoning, to use one blessedly light and fresh chilled. Otherwise stay away from something too sweet. Additionally, if you're not able to drink the wine, go ahead and skip it. It will still taste good!
- The liquid for the sauce: chicken stock / broth If you want to go vegetarian, feel free to use vegetable stock. Most of the time I use low sodium so I know exactly how much salt goes into my dishes. If you only have full salt stock on hand, reduce the salt amount listed in the ingredients (start with half, if you'd like more salt afterwards, then add some more).
- Fresh thyme sprigs – Using fresh thyme sprigs means better thyme flavour, sub in dried thyme leaves if needed.
- Onion and mushrooms – To be cooked in butter. You can even swap olive oil (but butter really makes it taste good!).
- Add extra flavour in the sauce: onion and garlic. Onion can be skipped, but I really recommend not skipping the garlic! (PS You can also use eschallots/French onions, which are known as shallots in the US – not to be confused with garlic.)
How to make ricotta gnocchi
So the trick with ricotta gnocchi is to use as little flour as you possibly can. Smaller sized little dumplings = sticky dough = lighter gnocchi! Ricotta gnocchi are much more forgiving than potato gnocchi so as long as you put in more flour than you should, they will still be lovely and soft inside. I have tested 1 1/4 cups of flour (making recipe 3/4 cup up to 1 cup – it worked great!!!
1. HOW TO MAKE RICOTTA GNOCCHI
Step 1
Ricotta, parmesan, egg, salt and pepper, mix thoroughly with wooden spoon or firm-ish rubber spatula. If needed, smear the ricotta up the side of the bowl to cream it. Starting with 3/4 cup of flour just add that to the mixer and mix.
Step 2
Shaggy (not smooth or elastic) dough: This following should look something like pictured above (video is super helpful too). As I mentioned, if the ricotta is getting too wet then add a bit more flour 1 tablespoon at a time until you get up to 1 cup (ie 4 extra tablespoons, this will all depend on how wet your ricotta is).
Step 3
Scrape the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and give it a light knead and bring it together into a ball and pat into a disc.
Step 4
Cut it into 8 equal wedges. (So this is the hardest part in this whole recipe, I swear.) I've always had my wedges very uneven, but they always pull out rope of varying length as you will see in the video).
Step 5
Roll the logs into 25 cm / 10″ lengths 1.25cm / 1/2″ thick.
Step 6
Use a sharp dough scraper and cut into little pieces 1.5cm / 3/5″ pieces (I cut 4 logs at a time). And that's the gnocchi, done!
Take them from the fridge, scrape them onto a tray, dust very lightly with flour (as needed to prevent the scrapes from sticking to the tray and each other). You can make the mushroom sauce and they will stay on the tray – they wont dry out in that time. If you want to faff around, that's fine, Cover with cling wrap. Refrigerate them if you're making them to cook later that day.
They can also be frozen; freezing gnocchi. You can free them in single layers (use baking paper to separate layers). It then goes into an airtight container and freezes until it is used. It will cook from frozen, but it'll only take a minute or two more. They come out just like freshly made. How handy is that!
Cook them next! Mushroom sauce first.
2. COSTRELLI ITALIAN SAUCE REMOVED FROM A PAN
Heads up: It will seem a little thin, the sauce. But when you put in the gnocchi it will thicken very quickly from the gnocchi starch. So have faith!
Step 1
The thyme sprigs go into onion and garlic first. Cook the mushrooms until they soften then. Should take around 5 minutes (look at the pic and by the end the mushrooms should be very wet and slightly over cooked)
Step 2
The wine (see under the ingredients section regarding deglazing the pan) is deglazed in the pan. The wine will cook in 2 minutes or until nearly all of it is evaporated. That will cook out most of the alcohol, and all winey flavour.
3. COOKING GNOCCHI AND HOW TO TOSSE WITH THE SAUCE
Tip: Set one pot to boil the gnocchi separately next to your mushroom sauce, to then simply scoop it out from the water and into the sauce.
Step 1
Pour a large pot of water to the boil, and add a couple of teaspoons of salt. Then tumble the gnocchi in.
Step 2
The gnocchi tells you when it's cooked by floating to the surface (~ 2 1/2 minutes), then another 30 seconds are cooked through before scooping it out. It should (for pot and stove size) take 2 1/2 minutes +/- about 30 secs (eg pot = larger and stove = stronger will cook faster).
Step 3
When it's time for the sauce, just pop the gnocchi right into it!
Step 4
Using a spider or slotted spoon cut the gnocchi out into piles. In case you'll need to thin the sauce, keep the pot of cooking water nearby.
Step 5
Place sauce in the pan, gently tossing in the sauce the gnocchi for 1 to 2 minutes on a medium low stove. Now the starch in the flour that's in the gnocchi will release into the sauce, thickening it so your gnocchi are actually coated in sauce rather than sitting in the bottom of the pan.
Step 6
Voila — there is proof of thick sauce coating gnocchi! And we are done. Then sprinkle with parmesan and serve it up immediately!
Important: serve it straight away!
As with all pasta, gnocchi is best the moment it is cooked. Every minute it's sitting around, the quality erodes. Harsh but true fact. Gnocchi rolls out hot and pillowy and sauce is creamily slick. Once cool, they harden up and firm up more, the sauce thickens up more, too. In the microwave it can be resurrected to a degree, but it's never as good as when freshly made.
