What is gnocchi? Well, gnocchi is a type of pasta consisting of various thick, small, and soft dough dumplings.
I love gnocchi, but as a diabetic, potatoes are not good for me, nor is white flour. One of the main ingredients in gnocchi is, of course, potatoes and the other is white flour. I still want to eat gnocchi, so I had to find a way to make it a little healthier…a little more diabetic friendly, so to speak.
Well, these days, I am hearing so much about cauliflower taking the place of the old favorites. Riced cauliflower instead of the regular rice, mashed cauliflower instead of mashed potatoes…even cauliflower pizza crust! Well, you guessed…gnocchi can be made with cauliflower instead of potatoes. I still used white flour, so the recipe is not completely great for a diabetic, but it’s definitely more healthy than the potato version.
Go directly to recipe!
I was actually sent a link to a video on making a cauliflower gnocchi by a friend. I watched the video and jotted down the ingredients. I figured I would try this for myself to see what it tasted like. (There were actually four types of gnocchi made on the video and I plan to try more of them in the future….stay tuned.)
I wasn’t disappointed! The taste and texture was really great. It was a bit time consuming to make the cauliflower gnocchi, so if you decide to try it, make sure you give yourself lots of time. You could even make the dough the day before and then roll out, shape and cook it the next day.
What makes this recipe great is that there aren’t a lot of ingredients needed. Other than the cauliflower, the rest of the ingredients are always in my pantry staples. You’re going to need a large head of cauliflower, less than 2 cups of flour (your choice of which kind), a bit of salt and some olive oil. How easy is that?
The first step is to steam the cauliflower until it’s tender and then let it cool a bit. Once it’s cool enough to handle safely, you can line a large bowl with a clean dishtowel or multiple layers of cheesecloth. You will need to pick up the cloth and twist the loose ends until you have the cauliflower completely wrapped inside. Next, you need to squeeze or wring out all the liquid from the cauliflower. You’ll notice that when you are done, the mass is much smaller than when you started.
Once all the liquid is removed, add your cauliflower to a blender or food processor and add the rest of the ingredients. I like to process this in quick bursts so I can see how it’s coming together as a dough.
After you have reached a doughy consistency, place it on a floured surface and knead to form a ball.
Next, you are going to cut the ball of dough into quarters. Depending on how much gnocchi you want to cook, you could probably wrap a few of the quarters individually with plastic wrap and store in an airtight container until the next day.
Take one of the quarters and roll it into a snake-like or tube shape about a half inch thick. Kind of like how we used to play with Play-Doh as kids!
The next step is to cut this into individual, bite size pieces. This will give a rectangular pillow shape. Now, you can cook them at this stage, but I like to get a little bit fancier. I took each piece and rolled it down the back of a fork to give it an interesting look.
Once you the gnocchi is shaped, it’s ready to cook. Put a pot of water on high and once it comes to a roiling boil, drop the gnocchi pieces in. After the water comes back to a boil, I usually turn it down to med-high. You will know the gnocchi is done when it floats to the top and stays there. Remove them from the water with a slotted spoon.
Now your gnocchi is cooked. Some people like it just plain, with maybe a bit of butter and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese, however, I like mine with a little bit more pizzazz!
After I made my first batch, while it was just out of the pot and still hot, I put some garlic butter in the frying pan and added some fresh basil leaves. I stirred it around until the basil leaves were wilting and then turned down the heat and added the gnocchi and stirred until it was coated with the garlic butter. This was really great!
Since I still had some dough on reserve in the fridge after making the first batch, the next day I tried it a different way. I added a tiny bit of olive oil to my frying pan and when that was hot, I added the gnocchi. I turned the heat down and kept stirring it around until it was hot. Then I added a couple of tablespoons of Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto and tossed it to make sure it was all coated. Let me tell you, this was amazing! My son had some and asked for seconds to take to work with him the next day. This will be making an appearance on my table again and again.