An Italian classic, with a fresh spring twist – our wild garlic gnocchi. If you are anything like me and love to make things from scratch, avoid plastic packaging, and have fun playing around with dough and making shapes with it, you will enjoy this recipe!
Making the wild garlic gnocchi dough
Simple gnocchi are made from potatoes and flour. Adding wild garlic gives a delicious subtle and fresh garlic flavour, as well as a vibrant green colour.
Starchy potatoes work best, such as Desiree or russet potatoes. Keeping everything as dry as possible helps to reduce the amount of flour you need to bring your gnocchi together into a workable dough.
To make our wild garlic gnocchi, we simply peel the potatoes (saving the peels of course to make some zero waste potato peel crisps) and then boil or steam them until tender. Let the potatoes steam off their moisture, and then blend them up with washed and chopped wild garlic in a food processor, and then add enough flour to from a dough which holds together in a ball and is light but not super sticky.
Shaping gnocchi
Now this is my favourite bit – I always love making things into fun little shapes!
To make the gnocchi, divide the dough into four balls, then roll each ball into a strip about 2 cm thick. Traditionally gnocchi are shaped using a ridged gnocchi board, but we have a low tech cheats way of making the classic ridges. Simply run a floured fork along the top of each strip of dough before you cut them. Quick, simple and no special equipment needed!
Slice the strips into 1.5cm pieces to form your gnocchi.
Cooking gnocchi
The hard part is over! Cooking your homemade gnocchi is the simplest and quiskest step. Just bring a pan of water to boil, then add your gnocchi and simmer until they start to float on the surface of the water. Scoop up the cooked gnocchi with a slotted spoon or fork, and get ready to serve your tasty gnocchi!
What to eat our wild garlic gnocchi with
These wild garlic gnocchi go really well with a tomato sauce or a cheesy vegan sauce. A sprinkle of nutritional yeast and olive oil is a simple but delicious way to enjoy your homemade gnocchi. They are absolutely amazing covered in wild garlic pesto too! Gnocchi are also great fried after they are cooked, which gives them a nice crispy crust. If you haven’t yet tried fried gnocchi then you totally should!
Wild Garlic Gnocchi
Ingredients
- 4 medium (400 g) potatoes (1 1/2 cups mash or 400g)
- 1 small handful (50 g) wild garlic
- 1 cup (125 g) plain flour plus extra for dusting
- 1/2 tsp (1/2 tsp ) salt
Instructions
- Wash and peel the potatoes (save the peels for our potato peels crisp
- Dice the potatoes and boil until tender when pricked with a fork, approx 10-15mins
- Drain the potatoes and let them steam off for 5 minutes.
- In the meantime, wash the wild garlic leaves very thoroughly and dry well in a salad spinner or on a tea towel.
- Finely chop the wild garlic
- In a food processor, mix the chopped wild garlic and potatoes together until smooth
- Then add the flour until it comes together as a dough. If it’s still very sticky then add more flour. The amount of flour needed can vary so much depending on the variety of potatoes, and the amount of moisture that they retain.
- To form the gnocchi,with your hands roll the dough into long strips on a floured board. (Tip: flour your hands too!)
- Then run a floured fork along the dough to make the classic gnocchi indentations (this is our quick cheats way!)
- Then slice the strips into small pieces (approx 1.5cm wide) to form your gnocchi
- Bring a pan of water to boil
- Then carefully put the gnocchi in the water and continue to simmer
- You can tell gnocchi are cooked when they float on the surface of the water and you can pick then up with a slotted spoon or fork.
Enjoy your wild garlic gnocchi simply with good olive oil, tomato or vegan cheese sauce. You can even fry them afterward for extra crispy flavour.
Notes
Nutrition
Looking for more vegan wild garlic and foraging recipes, you’ve come to the right place! We recommend our:
Wild Fennel Pasta with Vegan Chorizo
Wild Chanterelle Mushroom Goulash
Have a lovely day!
Sophie and Paul
Loved our recipe? Have a question we can answer? We'd love to hear from you! Sophie and Paul 💚