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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Sydney
Hi!! I have a question about this recipe... to cook them, would you boil them and then fry them, or just do one or the other? Thank you, and I can't wait to try this recipe, it looks amazing!!!!
Karen
Hi Sydney. You boil the gnocchi first until they float. (this only takes a minute or two) Then you can either eat them as is, or fry them quickly is a small amount of butter and oil. Frying them after boiling is my favourite way. ~ karen!
Chris
This is the first time I stumbled upon your blog. I'm glad I did! However, when I tried to make these little guys they turned out too soft. I took them out right when they floated, then tried to leave some others in longer. Both didn't work. Should I have added more flour? I would love your advice!
Karen
Hi Chris! Glad you like my site. First off, homemade gnocchi are indeed much softer than store bought. Without knowing what you did I'd say it's possible that you could use a touch more flour, but if the gnocchi rolled into a rope fine, then chances are you used the right amount of flour. The other thing you could try is simply rolling the rope tighter. (compressing it more by rolling it over and over) Also, when you fry the gnocchi as the final step it helps to firm them up. Good luck! ~ karen
David Virili
Trying it for first time & it was so easy to prep, but how long can it rest before you cook in water? Should I put in refer till I cook?
Karen
Hi David. Yup, definitely put them in the fridge until you cook them. It'll help them firm up. If you decide to freeze them, and eat them later cook them from frozen (don't defrost them) ~ karen!
Erin
Not only do I love this recipe, I love all the giggle worthy comments you so slyly added as well! Thanks for sharing!!
Karen
Thanks Erin! ~ karen
Lori
I only have had these when I went have eaten at Olive Garden. In a chicken soup(ish) thing. It was really good. Now I have to make mashed potatoes! So I can try and make this!!
Thanks!!!
Karen
They're delicious Lori! And easy to make, so definitely do it! ~ karen
Amanda Rodriguez
Just FYI the sweet potatoes were too wet i kept adding flour but it just never held
Agnes
Yeah...I realized that after I hit "post". When I was a kid we used to joke around about nail polish remover...saying if we got it on us, we'd forget all the Polish we knew.
Agnes
We have a similar recipe for the polish version of these, we call them "kluseczki".
Sometimes we'll run the cold leftover potatoes through a meat grinder with the smaller holes.
Then I think it's about 1:4 cornstarch to potato ratio, plus an egg.
I agree, these taste best when they are cooked, and then fried.
Karen
LOL. You didn't capitalize Polish, so I kept reading it as polish. Like silver polish, LOL. ~ karen!
Anita
Potatoes from your own harvest? How marvelous! I must try this soon. It never occurred to me that I could make gnocchi. Thanks!
Amanda Rodriguez
can i make these with left over sweet potatoes?
Karen
Oh my. I have no idea! I know bread gnocchi is delicious but I've never tried sweet potato gnocchi. It would definitely be a different taste requiring a different sauce. I'm actually quite curious to see what they'd be like. Why don't you do them and report back?! ~ karen
Amanda Rodriguez
I will do that then! Im thinking a parmesan cream sauce possibly- i'll let you know!
Shauna
This is so great. I made potato skins for my Halloween party, so I had all the guts of the potatoes leftover and made mashed potatoes. Now, I have a helluva lot of mashed potatoes. Perhaps, I will try this.
Erika
Okay, I know I'm going to get booed for this... But can this be made with instant mashed potatoes? I do buy real potatoes, but I'm asking because I get a food box occasionally, and sometimes there is a really large family-sized bag of seasoned instant potatoes in there, and I'm just one person so it takes me a while to get through it.
Karen
Hi Erika - I actually LOVE instant mashed potatoes. I really do! But no, you wouldn't be able to use them for making gnocchi. They just don't have the right consistency. Sorry. ~ karen!
Jenny
I was scrolling through the comments, hoping against hope, that someone asked the instant potato question and that the answer would be YES!
But....dangit.
I can barely make the instant ones... I lack skillz :(
gail vento
I have some good news. I have in fact used instant mashed potatoes and it worked just fine. I actually got the recipe from an old Italian woman who got it from an Italian priest. You can always add a little more flour if necessary, but try not to add too much. I have also added instant mashed potatoes to a small amount of leftover fresh mashed to supplement. Play around, this is an easy recipe and forgiving. Just don't make your instant mashed "too soupy" with too much milk or butter.
I love the idea of sauteing in a little butter before saucing.
Barbara
I make them with instant mashed potatoes all the time
theresa
So my questions has always been about the brown butter and sage sauce is that the act of putting butter and a sage leaf in the pan and then frying the item or is it something else??
So enjoy your recipes-- husband LOVED the jalapeno poppers.
Shel
Every time I have left over mashed potatoes my teenaged daughter eats them for breakfast before I have a chance to do anything with them (and it's getting pretty close to potato candy season, too). Looks like I'll have to hide them from her in a place she'll never find them. Like in the dishwasher. Or on top of the clothes she is supposed to put away.
Karen
I know I'll regret asking but ... what's potato candy season? ~ karen
Shel
No regrets!!! My grandma made potato candy but she only made it at Christmas...probably because her granddaughter (my daughter's mother) kept eating all the left over mashed potatoes!
mimiindublin
gnocci with brown butter and sage leaves...food of the Gods!
if you have even more mashed potatoes, you could make chocolate potato cake for dessert, it's yummy!
Karen
Really?! I don't even know where I'd find a recipe for that! I guess that's what Google is for, LOL. ~ karen!
Kim
I don't normally peel my potatoes before I mash them but I'll have to change my ways just so I can make gnocchi with the leftovers. Yum!!!
Karen
Do them like this Kim ... https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/kitchen-tool-the-potato-ricer-never-peel-a-potato-again/ THat way you still don't have to peel. ~ karen!
Rose
Looks delicious. I'm going to try them fried in butter and serve with sour kraut. Love the blue eggs in the background.
Deborah
Love gnocci! thanks for the tutorial and hopefully I can talk the hubby into trying them one day. BUT..there are TWO other great things to do with mashed taters (get your mind outta the gutter), the first ~ Varenyky (that's Perogie for you non-Ukrainian folk) AND...most important...not only do chickens loooove mashed taters...so do horses (at least the ones in my barn did), oh, they also loved leftover potato salad too ;)
Pat
If my grandmother ever had leftover dough (dough that contained mashed potatoes by the way) from making perogies, she would roll it into ropes, cut it into two inch sections and boil them along with the perogie (which were filled with mashed potato, dry cottage cheese, onion, salt and pepper). And then serve the boiled perogie and dough bits with butter fried breadcrumbs poured over top. And then we all covered everything in heaping helpings of sour cream (and not the low-fat gelatinous variety either). YUM! Since I have not carried on this tradition, my husband misses my grandmother very much. Sound like a project for my sister and I to get together and create.
Angie Simonsen
I need these, right now. Unfortunately, I'm at work, which of course means I want to pin this.
I am a master pinner, but when I try using either the pin it button at the top of this post, OR the Pin It button on my browser bar, all I get is the ad images and header and the like.
No pictures of pretty, perfect Gnocchi's! I know how to work around that pesky issue, but thought you'd like to know!
PS - I'm positive he's an idiot too.
Karen
Uch. CRAP!!!!! Thanks for letting me know Angie. I'm having HUGE issues with stupid Flickr (who hosts my images). Which makes me incredibly angry since I pay them every month for their service! I'll go fix it now. ~ karen
Karen
K. Done. Pin away! And thanks again. ~ karen
Angie Simonsen
Absolutely my pleasure - carry on!
Kristin
I usually make mashed potatoes with gobs of butter, milk and cream. As in, probably about a stick of butter, half a cup each of cream and milk per pound of potatoes. Will this cause the gnocchi to fall apart? Or do you make equally buttery mashed?
Karen
Unless, they're completely watery they should be fine. Just make sure you refrigerate the leftovers overnight so they can stiffen up. ~ karen!