Ricotta Gnocchi

Melt-in-your-mouth, pillowy Italian ricotta gnocchi. You won’t believe how delicious and quick to make they are! You only need 4 ingredients + salt and pepper to make them.

Ingredients

Below you will find information about the ingredients and how to prepare the recipe. For the measurements and detailed instructions scroll down to the printable recipe card.

Here’s what you need to make this easy recipe:

1. Ricotta cheese – I used regular supermarket ricotta in a plastic container. Make sure to use full-fat. It gives the gnocchi light and pillowy texture.
2. Parmesan cheese – it’s best to buy a block of cheese and grate it yourself. It tastes much better than pre-shredded cheese. How to grate the cheese: Don’t grate in on the microplane but on the small holes of a box grater. Cheese grated on the microplane can clump and not distribute well in the dough.
3. An egg – binds the dough together.
4. Flour – I used regular all-purpose flour.
5. Salt and pepper. Be generous with pepper! Do not add a lot of salt because the Parmesan cheese is already salty.

Recipe variations:

Ricotta gnocchi are a variation of classic Italian potato gnocchi. They are made with ricotta cheese instead of cooked potatoes.

Another variation of ricotta gnocchi are gnudi. They are made with ricotta cheese and spinach.

How to make ricotta gnocchi step-by-step

STEP 1: Drain the ricotta.

This step is important. Removing excess water from ricotta allows you to add less flour! It results in tender and delicate dumplings.

How to drain ricotta: On a large plate, lay out 2 layers of paper towels, spread the ricotta cheese, and press it carefully with more paper towels or a clean kitchen towel to remove excess water. Gently pull the paper towel by pulling its edge. Repeat, trying to drain as much moisture as possible. It’s possible to remove even 2 ounces (60g) of water!

You could also leave the cheese overnight on a strainer lined with cheesecloth.

STEP 2: Make the gnocchi dough.

Add the egg to a medium bowl and lightly beat it. Add the remaining ingredients: drained ricotta, grated Parmesan cheese, flour, salt, and pepper.

STEP 3: Mix quickly until the ingredients are combined. Don’t overmix the dough, it doesn’t have to be completely smooth.

STEP 4: Form gnocchi.

Transfer about 1/4 of the dough onto a well-floured wooden board. Gently roll each piece of the dough into a wide cylinder to a thickness of about 1 inch (2.5cm). Brush off excess flour. Using a sharp knife, cut each log into 1-1 1/2 inches (3-4 cm) pieces. Repeat with the remaining dough.

STEP 5: Cook gnocchi.

Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Cook the gnocchi in 4 batches. When the gnocchi float to the surface, cook them for 2 minutes then transfer with a slotted spoon to a plate.

Enjoy!

How much flour is enough

You may need to adjust the amount of flour in this recipe because the amount of water in the ricotta cheese may vary. It depends on the brand of the cheese and how thoroughly you have drained the cheese. The dough will be sticky soft and not very firm. Make sure your wooden board is sprinkled well with flour. You should dip your hand in flour and be able to form nice uniform dough logs. The logs should not be too soft and collapse, they should hold their shape. If the dough doesn’t stick at all it means you’ve added too much flour. If the dough sticks to your knife, you can also dip the knife in flour. If the dough is so sticky that you are not able to easily form the logs, just add more flour to it.

How to correctly measure flour: I’m using the “spoon and level method” so 1 cup of flour in my recipes weighs 125g.  Fluff the flour by stirring it in the bag/flour container with a spoon. Spoon the flour and sprinkle it into your measuring cup. Sweep off the excess flour with the back of a knife. Too much flour added to the gnocchi dough will result in tough gnocchi. I recommend using a digital scale for perfect and consistent results.

Tips for cooking gnocchi

• Make sure your water is well-salted.
• How many gnocchi should you add at once to the pot: This will depend on the size of the pot – add fewer dumplings into a small pot and more into a bigger (=wider) pot. It’s important to not add too many, or the water temperature will be too low and the gnocchi won’t be cooking and can fall apart. I add about 12 gnocchi at once to a medium/large pot.
• How long to cook them: Be careful not to overcook the gnocchi or they will be tough. The cooking time will depend on how big your gnocchi are, and how high the heat under your pot is, and so on. Very small gnocchi may be ready when they float to the surface, bigger ones may need 1-2 minutes of cooking time. You can cook 1-2 gnocchi first to see how it is working in your kitchen conditions.
• Remove them from the water with a slotted spoon.

Top tips on how to make the best ricotta gnocchi you’ve ever had

• Drain the ricotta cheese. Thanks to this step, you can add less flour to the dough and the gnocchi will be more tender. The water content may vary depending on the manufacturer.
• The dough will be sticky, so resist the urge to add more flour. Roll each piece of dough into a wide cylinder on a wooden board, generously sprinkled with flour. This way the flour will be outside the dough and not inside. You can brush off excess flour.
• Don’t overmix the dough, or the gnocchi will be tough. Combine all the ingredients until almost completely combined, but they don’t have to be thoroughly mixed.
• Be careful to not overcook the gnocchi, or they will be tough. If you’re not sure how long to cook your gnocchi (overcooked gnocchi will be tough!) you can cook just 1 gnocchi and if you’re happy will the results, cook the whole batch!

Serving suggestions

• My favorite way is to serve them is with chanterelle sauce. Chanterelle mushroom season is quite short, so out of the season, you can make a simple mushroom sauce with button or cremini mushroom.
• With simple tomato sauce, sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and fresh basil.
• Sage butter and Parmesan.
• Pesto sauce or pesto cream sauce (pesto sauce mixed with heavy cream).
• Gorgonzola sauce – either my simple 2-ingredient gorgonzola sauce with spinach and pan-fried fish or gorgonzola walnut sauce.
• You can serve this creamy lemon garlic sauce with chicken and zucchini with gnocchi instead of pasta.
• With this creamy mushroom and butternut squash sauce (instead of potatoes).
• With creamy sun-dried tomato and spinach sauce (instead of pasta) and pan-fried Tuscan chicken.

Storing and freezing instructions

• Storage: Cooked gnocchi will keep in the fridge for about 2-3 days. The next day, you can pan-fry the cooked gnocchi in butter (don’t leave the uncooked dough in the fridge).

• How to freeze gnocchi:

cooked: spread the gnocchi apart on a floured board/tray, freeze and then transfer to zip-lock bags/containers. Cook the frozen gnocchi until they float to the water surface (don’t thaw them).

uncooked: freeze them as described above. Cook like freshly prepared gnocchi BUT add less gnocchi at a time to the pot (they can fall apart due to rapid water temperature drop).

Recipe FAQ’s:

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