Did you ever heard the Italian expression “gnocchi on Thursday”? Yes, traditionally gnocchi are served on Thursday in Italy. Now you are probably thinking that that it sounds odd, or at least a bit funny. Why Thursday and not Tuesday, or Wednesday? Well, tradition has always its reasons, or at least sometimes. In this case the reason for gnocchi on Thursday is connected to the post-War period and Christianity. Christianity forbids to eat meat on Fridays, allowing either fish or legumes. Most of the families were poor at the time, so they could afford just legumes or vegetables on Fridays. For this reason each Thursday they were having a big meal made of gnocchi and tomatoes sauce, to balance Fridays’ meal. You see, I told you tradition has its logic!

We are going against tradition now, but these spinach gnocchi are a delicious alternative to the classic potato ones. No potatoes involved = less carbs and more greens for your health 🙂 or at least this is what I tell myself. Plus ignoring the butter, which is the main sauce’s ingredient here, you can say they are also pretty healthy.

I actually don’t care that much, I love butter, but if you don’t you can substitute it with ricotta. In this case you will need to make a cream mixing ricotta, Parmesan and a few spoons of water, until creamy.

These spinach gnocchi recipe is extremely easy and not particularly long. The delicate taste of the spinach is perfectly paired with the butter and Parmesan sauce.

Spinach Gnocchi Ingredients

Spinach: I used fresh spinach, but alternatively you can use frozen ones
Eggs: they help to keep the ingredients together.
Flour: all-purpose flour
Extra-virgin olive oil
Water
Butter: I recommend to use a delicate sauce for this gnocchi, since they are quite mild in flavor. As I said, if you don’t like butter, use ricotta instead.
Parmesan: must ingredient, it gives extra flavor to these spinach gnocchi
Salt and Nutmeg

Spinach Gnocchi Recipe

Recipe by GiadaCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy

Servings

servings

Prep time

minutes

Cooking time

minutes

Ingredients

250g Fresh spinach
250g All purpose flour
2 spoons Extra-virgin olive oil
2 Eggs
100ml Water
150g Butter
50g Parmesan
Salt, nutmeg

Directions

Cook the spinach with oil in a large pan, just stir them for 10 min. Let them cool down and blend them completely using a food processor. ⁣
Make the batter. In a large ball whisk the blended spinach with eggs, water, salt and nutmeg. Keep whisking and add flour. Keep whisking until you get to a thick batter.
Prepare gnocchi’s sauce. In a large pan melt butter over a low heat. Grate some Parmesan and keep it on a side.
Shape & boil gnocchi. Fill up a large and tall pot with water and bring it to a boil. Add salt and a spoon of oil. With the help of 2 teaspoons take a small portion of the mixture and shape it to a quenelle (oval shape). It doesn’t have to be perfect. Now put the spoon into the boiling water and move it gently to drop the quenelle in it. When the spinach gnocchi are rising to the surface of the water, it means they are ready and you can drain them using a skimmer.
Serve. Toss the spinach gnocchi inside the pen with melted butter, but do not toast them . Add Parmesan and serve it hot.

Notes

Never, EVER, toast fry your gnocchi. They already got cooked when you boiled them. Pan frying them will just ruin the soft fluffy texture of your gnocchi.