Adding crispy sheet-pan gnocchi makes for an easy, texturally delightful one-pan meal in this recipe from Melissa Clark.
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Maybe it’s because I grew up on small, chewy matzo balls rather than big, fluffy ones. Or perhaps it’s my adult penchant for mochi, boba and spaetzle. But given a choice, I’ll take a dense, elastic texture over an airy, cloudlike one almost every time.
Recipe: Sheet-Pan Gnocchi With Sausages and Peppers
So, it’s not surprising that I have an outsize love for shelf-stable supermarket gnocchi.
Canonically, properly made gnocchi are fluffy and light, holding their shape just long enough to dissolve into a savory billow as they hit your tongue.
Shelf-stable gnocchi, on the other hand, are compact and firm, more like what the Italian word “gnoccho” originally meant, as Marcella Hazan will tell you.
In what has become a bible of Italian cuisine, “The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking,” she describes a gnoccho as “a little lump, such as the one that might be raised by sharply knocking your head against a hard object.” Yet gastronomically speaking, she declares, “gnocchi should be anything but lumpish.”
This may be true when it comes to making gnocchi from scratch. But toss those shelf-stable lumps in oil, then roast or pan-fry them until their edges turn brown and crisp and their insides molten and chewy, and heretical though it may be, that’s my idea of perfect gnocchi.
Crispy shelf-stable gnocchi are obviously quicker to make than homemade. Since they’ve already been par-cooked, you don’t even have to boil them. Just transfer the dumplings from the package to a pan and turn up the heat.
I go the sheet-pan route in this recipe, roasting gnocchi alongside Italian sausages (you can use pork, poultry or plant-based) and sweet bell peppers to make a rich, savory one-pan meal. I also add a handful of cherry tomatoes to melt in the pan with everything else for a juicy element that’s almost like a sauce. A mix of hues for the tomatoes and peppers would make for a bright, colorful dish, which is especially welcome this leafless time of year.
The dish is hearty and satisfying enough to serve on its own, though spooning it on top of a bed of arugula or baby spinach would lighten everything and bolster the vegetable content.
Either way, that chewy-crisp texture is my gnocchi ideal. If that’s so wrong, then I’m more than happy to take my lumps.
Melissa Clark has been writing her column, A Good Appetite, for The Times’s Food section since 2007. She creates recipes for New York Times Cooking, makes videos and reports on food trends. She is the author of 45 cookbooks, and counting. More about Melissa Clark
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