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This 5-minute romesco gnocchi sauce recipe is bursting with flavor. Serve it up with packaged gnocchi for a fast and easy dinner recipe in just 15 minutes!
If you know our cookbookPretty Simple Cooking, you’ll know that Alex and my philosophy is against 5-minute this and 10-minute that. Why? If quick cooking time is the most important thing about a recipe, it cheapens the cooking process. It makes it seem like cooking is just about finding the magical super fast recipes, and not investing time in skills that deepen flavor.
However,sometimes life necessitates a quick dinner. Many requests come into our inbox like the following from reader Jean:“I struggle to put something healthyish on the table at lightning speed every night. I’d love to see a round up of some of your favorite crazy-fast meals.” Her request is the impetus for this 5 minute gnocchi sauce recipe: and it comes together into a dinner recipe in 15 minutes flat. Keep reading for the gnocchi sauce recipe.
Related: Easy Vegetarian Recipes for Beginners | Homemade Ricotta Gnocchi
How to make romesco gnocchi sauce
In the vein of “healthyish recipes at lightening speed”, here is our 5-minute gnocchi sauce recipe! It comes together with the gnocchi in just 15 minutes. I know what you’re thinking:Does it really take 15 minutes to make?Well, it does depend on your cooking style. But, here are the facts.
I made this gnocchi sauce recipeby myself between 5:54 and 6:09 on a Thursday night. True story.It requires no chopping and minimal “cooking.” The gnocchi sauce recipe takes 5 minutes to blend and the packaged gnocchi boils for 3 minutes. Because we wanted to add some leafy greens to this recipe to add nutrients, we’ve included a “trick” that we like to use as a time saver! Instead of cooking the spinach, we use the hot pasta water to quickly wilt it when draining the pasta. Combine the wilted spinach with the gnocchi sauce and cooked gnocchi and you’ve got dinner!
Though this recipe takes only 15 minutes, we’d suggest serving it with a salad, which would add a few minutes of prep time. This could also help to stretch the serving size: we found it fed me, Alex and Larson without leftovers, so we’d say the serving size is modest. You could also 1.5 to 2x the gnocchi, since the gnocchi sauce makes enough for a double recipe. Another great 15 minute gnocchi meal is our Easy Creamy Gnocchi, which we’d highly recommend as well!
Related: This recipe is included in our 28 Day Healthy Meal Plan
What are healthyish recipes?
Explain healthyish?To us, healthyish recipes are whole food meals prepared in your own kitchen. Gnocchi is Italian “pasta” that is made with potatoes and flour.Typically pasta isn’t considered health food, but good news: a new study foundpasta can actually help you lose weight. The Italian researchers found that eaten in moderation, pasta can be part of a healthy diet.
As noted above, to the pasta, we’ve added some colorful veg: spinach and a romesco gnocchi sauce made of tomatoes, roasted red peppers, and almonds. This recipe is a vegan dinner fully plant-based as the feta crumbles are optional. It’s also gluten-free if you can find gluten-free gnocchi, or you can use gluten-free pasta. Per above, we’d suggest serving with a green salad.
Want more with almonds? We’ve got 15 great almond recipes for you to try.
This recipe is…
This 5 minute gnocchi sauce recipe is vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free (modification below), plant-based, and dairy-free.
Romesco Gnocchi Sauce Recipe
- Author: a Couple Cooks
- Prep Time: 12 minutes
- Cook Time: 3 minutes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 3 to 4 1x
Description
This 5-minute romesco gnocchi sauce recipe is bursting with flavor. Serve it up with packaged gnocchi for a fast and easy dinner recipe in just 15 minutes!
Ingredients
Scale
For the gnocchi sauce (recipe uses 1 cup)
- 1 cup roasted almonds
- 2 garlic cloves
- 15-ounce can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
- 2 large roasted red peppers from a jar
- ½ tablespoon smoked paprika
- 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
For the gnocchi
- 1 pound packaged gnocchi (our favorite gnocchi is vegan; for gluten-free, use gluten free gnocchi)
- 3 cups baby spinach leaves (or chopped standard spinach)
- 1 cup romesco sauce
- ¼ cup feta cheese crumbles, optional
- Kosher salt
- Fresh ground pepper
Instructions
- Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil, seasoned with about 1 tablespoon kosher salt.
- Make the gnocchi sauce:Peel the garlic. In a blender or food processor, process all ingredients until smooth. Taste and add additional seasonings if desired.
- Once the water is boiling, add the gnocchi and boil until they float, about 2 to 3 minutes.
- Meanwhile, line a colander with spinach leaves. When the gnocchi are done, pour them into the colander with the spinach so that the boiling water wilts the spinach. Then pour the cooked gnocchi and spinach back into the pot and stir to a few times to evenly distribute the spinach.
- Add 1 cup of the romesco sauce to the pot and stir. (Reserve and refrigerate the remaining 1 ½ cups for up to 1 week.)
- For vegan, top with fresh ground black pepper. For vegetarian, top with black pepper and feta crumbles. If desired, add a drizzle of olive oil.
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
Keywords: Gnocchi Sauce, Romesco, Gnocchi Sauce Recipe, Italian, Vegetarian, Vegan, Gnocchi, Quick
Looking for fast and easy dinner recipes?
Outside of this 5 minute gnocchi sauce recipe, here are some of our favorite fast and easy dinner recipes on A Couple Cooks:
- Vegan Pesto Pasta
- Thai Curry Pizza
- Pasta Puttanesca
- Supremely Simple Refried Black Beans(serve in tacos or with eggs)
- 5-Minute Pesto Arugula Sandwich
- Everything Bagel Pasta
- Broiled Salmon with Bourbon Glaze
- All Easy Dinner Ideas!
vegan vegetarian
Published on / Last updated on
Categorized In:
- Dinner Recipes
- Fast Dinner Ideas
- Recipes
Tagged with:
- Almonds
- Dairy-Free
- Easy
- Feta
- Garlic
- Healthy
- Italian
- Mediterranean
- Quick
- Red Peppers
- Seriously Simple
- Spinach
- Tomatoes
- Vegan Recipes
- Vegetarian Recipes
- Weeknight Meal
About the authors
Sonja & Alex
Hi, we’re Alex and Sonja Overhiser, married cookbook authors, food bloggers, and recipe developers. We founded A Couple Cooks to share fresh, seasonal recipes for memorable kitchen moments! Our recipes are made by two real people and work every time.
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