This is freaking delicious!
This vegan sweet potato gnocchi is an essential fall dinner. You only need 2 ingredients to make this sweet potato gnocchi. Then season it with salt and cinnamon. It is amazing. Toss in a butter herb sauce, and topped with crumbled coconut bacon. If you need some comfort, this is where it’s at!
Fluffy, pillows of sweet potato sauteed in vegan butter. I don’t think it gets better than this! This recipe is a little more time consuming than most of my dinner recipes, but it is still easy, and the perfect Sunday or holiday supper!
Let’s talk gnocchi! The troubles I have had in the past with making gnocchi tend to be that the potatoes are too wet. So my gnocchi turns to mush no matter what I do. My solution to this, after many tests, baking the potatoes. It is ridiculously low effort to just throw the sweet potatoes into the oven. Then just peel the skin off when they are done baking. Mash them, and knead with flour, salt and cinnamon. That’s it!
Boil them for a few minutes, then saute in vegan butter and herbs! You of course can skip the coconut bacon, but is tastes like perfection when paired with this sweet potato gnocchi! You can also serve this gnocchi with whatever sauce you want. I thought a white wine cream sauce would be amazing, a pesto perhaps, anything that sounds good to you!
Whatever you do with this simple sweet potato dish, I feel pretty confident that you will love every minute of eating these delicious morsels!
Vegan Sweet Potato Gnocchi
Ingredients
Vegan Sweet Potato Gnocchi
- 3 Pounds( about 4 medium sized) Sweet potatoes
- 2 1/2 Cups All purpose flour
- 2 Teaspoons Salt
- 1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
Butter Herb Sauce
- 1/2 Cup Vegan butter, I used Earth Balance
- 5 Springs Thyme, fresh
- 1 Tablespoon Sage, fresh
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Coconut Bacon
- 1 Cup Coconut flakes
- 1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce
- 2 Teaspoons Liquid smoke
- 2 Teaspoons Maple syrup
- 1 Teaspoon Sriracha (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Wash your sweet potatoes and prick them all over with a fork. Then put them right on the oven rack and bake for about 1 hour or until they are completely soft.
- Remove from the oven and let them cool completely. You can put them in the fridge to speed up the process.
- While the sweet potatoes are cooling, make the coconut bacon if you are making it. Reduce the oven to 325 degrees.
- Add the coconut flakes to a bowl, then top with the soy sauce, liquid smoke, maple syrup and sriracha. Toss to coat all of the coconut. Spread the coconut out in a single layer on a baking sheet sprayed with non stick spray. Bake at 325 degrees for 5 minutes, flip and stir the coconut and then bake for another 5 minutes.
- Make sure to keep your eye on the coconut at the end, it will burn easily. It is done when it is nice and brown. Set aside to cool. It will get crispy.
- When the sweet potatoes are cool, peel the skin off all of them, then you are going to mash them. I like to use a ricer so there are no lumps. If you don't have one though, you can whip them with a hand mixer, or just mash them really well with a hand masher or fork.
- Add the mashed sweet potatoes, the salt and cinnamon to a bowl, then start adding the flour a little at a time, stir the flour into the sweet potatoes after each addition. Once it gets too hard to stir you can begin to knead with your hands.
- Knead the dough for a minute until it becomes smooth and not sticky. Form it into a ball and then place the ball onto a floured surface.
- Begin to bring water to boil in a large pot.
- Now, cut the dough into 4 smaller sections. Taking one section, set the others aside. Sprinkle with a little more flour. Knead for another minute, adding as much flour as you need to make sure it isn't sticky.
- Then form into a log, then roll with your hands until it is a long snake that is about the diameter of your thumb. Then cut into 1 inch nuggets. Make sure to keep the gnocchi separate so they don't stick together.
- Repeat with each section of the dough ball. Then once the water is boiling, add the gnocchi into the water in batches so you don't over crowd the pot. Boil for about 2-3 minutes, they will float to the top when they are done.
- Scoop out the gnocchi when they are done and place in a colander. Then add more gnocchi, repeating until they are all cooked.
- Next, in a large non stick skillet, heat the vegan butter on medium high. Once it has melted, add the herbs. Then add the gnocchi to the skillet and saute in the vegan butter for a few minutes to brown them a bit. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt and pepper.
- Serve immediately topped with coconut bacon.
I’m going to do this recipe and beyond excited! What would be the best way to store the gnocchi in the freezer? Raw or after its been cooked/boiled? And what is the freezer life span on these?
Thank you for sharing this!
I think it would be best to cook them, and then freeze them. They should be good in the freezer for a few weeks. However, I have not tested how long they would stay in the freezer. I think as long as them are sealed, they should be fine for a while.
I made a batch and froze them before boiling. The trick to freezing anything sticky (berries, bananas, gnocchi — you name it) is to spread it out on cookie sheets lined with waxed paper and freeze it first, then put it in freezer bags to store long-term so it doesn’t stick together in a big clump. If you’re not vegan, browned dairy butter is an excellent vehicle for fresh herbs.
Made this tonight but with some variations. I used regular potatoes and left out the cinnamon and bacon as I wanted something more savory than sweet. So basically it was regular potato sautéed gnocchi with a buttery herb sauce. I sautéed a little too long so they were slightly too toasted but otherwise fantastic! Next time I will try it with the original recipe. Thank you!!!!
Loved this recipe. Thanks
To Avoid MUSHY Gnocchi: Being raised by a true Italian grandmother, she made gnocchi from scratch often f and we all had to help as it was an all day process. She started very early in the morning making the dough. After it was rolled and cut our jobs was to place them on the bed to dry (at least 6-7hrs) . She had covered 2 queen beds with a clean white sheet and we would place them apart and add more flour. We had arranged so they would not stick together. This is how I will do it when I make your recipe. I am very excited. Thanks for sharing!
Made these for dinner last night and loved! More work than I’d usually put into dinner, but for a special night of cooking it was really fun to do. I love the Trader Joe’s version but it’s obviously not vegan & it’s loaded w/ fat, salt & sugar so I loved this as a healthier option. The only thing I did a little differently was I wanted browned butter, so I used the Miyokos Creamery butter because it actually browns due to it having both oil and cashews as the base (that addition of protein allows it to brown like normal butter). Definitely recommend this! Thanks for the great recipe.
So excited to try this recipe! If I were to make it gluten free, what flour substitute would you recommend? Thank you!