A simple creamy vegetarian gnocchi dish packed with spinach in a light creamy blue cheese sauce, this is a quick and easy win for dinner time! With lots of flexibility and basic ingredients, it may just become your new family favorite!
Creamy Fresh Spinach Gnocchi in 30 Minutes…
Sound good?
This is one of those perfect meals that is easy, packed with flavor, incorporates fresh veggies, and is super flexible. We have lots of fresh baby spinach, some juicy bites of fresh tomato, a light blue cheese cream sauce and zingy red onion.
You can definitely adapt this – swap pepper for the tomato, leave out the onion (the onion was the deal breaker for my five year old son so it will henceforth be banished in our home), swap in frozen spinach, add some zucchini. It’s all good here! With the garlicky, blue cheesey, wine spiked cream sauce you have a great starting point to build something that suits you.
Ingredients: What’s Important and What You Can Flex
- I use a package of dried gnocchi here, but fresh or frozen is fine. You cook the gnocchi separately from the sauce so it doesn’t matter what kind you use. Cauliflower or sweet potato gnocchi should slot in fine too.
- I add one large fresh chopped tomato to the sauce, but there’s a caveat here. It has to be a decent tomato! Flavorful, sweet, peak summer vibes. Good enough that you’d happily eat it raw or make bruschetta with it. You can swap in a handful of quartered cherry tomatoes if you like. Just don’t use a bland or sour tomato because it will drag the sauce down. If you don’t have one that meets that criteria, leave it out or A) If you really want your sauce to have a little tomatoey element, you could add some tomato paste instead – about a tablespoon will add some rich flavor and a pink hue to the sauce. B) Swap in some bell pepper or sweet pepper for a hit of color and sweetness instead.
- I like to add white wine, but some vegetable stock will work – if you use the stock, you could squeeze a little lemon juice into the finished dish.
- I am a fan of red onion these days, but some minced shallot would soften and blend into the sauce a bit more. You can also leave the onion out entirely if you want something smoother. It does make the sauce a little more textured – I appreciate that but my kids don’t. So do what works for you.
- For the parmesan cheese, if you are vegetarian like me, you’ll want to be sure to find a parmesan style cheese that uses vegetarian rennet (true Italian DOP parmesans always use calf rennet and therefore aren’t a truly vegetarian product). In the UK, Sainsbury’s Italian Hard Cheese is my go-to. In the US, some brands of non-DOP parmesan are vegetarian friendly.
- The blue cheese can be a firmer cheese (like English stilton) or a creamier one (gorgonzola style). They aren’t exactly the same but they both work. Again, with European cheeses we need to look out for something with vegetarian rennet – I used Castello Danish Blue.
Side Dishes
This is a meal in a bowl situation for me, but if you’d like to bulk it out with some extras, here are a few ideas:
Given how cheesy this gnocchi already is, I’d be inclined to reduce or take out the cheese in some of these recipes, but that’s up to you!
Gnocchi with Spinach & Blue Cheese
Ingredients
- olive oil or butter, for cooking
- ½ medium red onion , finely chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
- ⅛ tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 large tomato, finely chopped
- ¼ cup white wine, or vegetable stock, but wine is better!
- ½ cup heavy (double) cream
- 125 g blue cheese, crumbled
- ½ cup parmesan or Italian hard cheese
- 3 cups fresh spinach, chopped
- 18 oz package of gnocchi
Instructions
- In a large, deep sided skillet or saute pan, heat a little olive oil and cook the onions for a minute or two, until soft.
- Add the garlic and saute until it's softened up a little and released its fragrance.
- Add the dried herbs and mix through. Don't linger here- once the fragrance of the herbs hits the air, move on. We don't want the herbs to burn!
- Add the tomatoes to the pan and mix through. Add a little extra olive oil if the pan is feeling dry.
- Add the wine and allow it to bubble and cook down for a minute or two, to get the harshness out.
- Meanwhile, start your gnocchi cooking according to package instructions.
- Add the nutmeg and the cream to the pan and stir through until it is bubbling again.
- Add the cheeses and stir through until the parmesan is melted (its OK if the blue cheese isn't all the way melted yet), then remove from the heat until the gnocchi is ready.
- Once the gnocchi has cooked, drain it and add it to the pan alongside the spinach and basil. Mix through until the spinach has wilted.
- Serve immediately, adding a little extra cheese on top if you wish.
