This gnocchi with ricotta sauce has the best creamy flavorful fresh cheese sauce! Made with lots of herbs and garlic, this delicious vegetarian recipe is perfect as an easy weeknight dinner and comes together in about 30 minutes (or less!).
Much like my ricotta stuffed chicken and pesto ricotta pasta, this recipe makes the most of this delicious, slightly nutty, fresh cheese. It has the best gooey creamy taste, which we flavor with garlic and fragrant herbs.
Using ricotta as a fresh cheese rather than an aged cheese makes it suitable as a low histamine recipe dinner idea for those with that dietary requirement (see notes on gnocchi below).
And the best bit? It's such an easy weeknight dinner, coming together fast on the stovetop! No need for any fancy kitchen equipment or hard to find ingredients, this creamy ricotta gnocchi is an affordable meal for all the family.
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⭐ Why this recipe is so good
Easy comfort food! A fun change from pasta, gnocchi feels like comfort food to me and is so good with a cheese sauce.
Quick recipe. It comes together in 30 minutes (or less!) on the stovetop.
Fresh rather than aged cheese. If you avoid Parmesan and other aged cheeses, this recipe is perfect as we use one of many low histamine cheeses, creamy rich ricotta cheese.
🧀 Ingredients
All the ingredients and their quantities are set out in the recipe card below.
Some notes on a few of them:
- Ricotta - the fresh Italian whey cheese that comes in a tub. It has a mild creamy flavor, making it perfect for using as the base of a sauce and pairing with fresh herbs.
- Gnocchi - I would suggest to check ingredients labels if you use shelf stable gnocchi, as some contain whole eggs and many won't be gluten free if that is a dietary requirement. There are many homemade recipe ideas online, including this gnocchi recipe without egg whites by The Clever Carrot.
- Zucchini - while adding veggies isn't required, they give extra flavor and extra nutrition.
- Rosemary and thyme - I recommend to use fresh herbs for this recipe for their fragrant flavor. If using dried herbs, reduce the quantity to about a third.
🔪 Step by step instructions
Making this gnocchi with ricotta cheese is very easy, has fairly minimal ingredients and feels like indulgent comfort food!
All the instructions are in the recipe card below, but these step by step photos should help guide you.
Step 1: Cook onion and garlic
Drizzle olive oil in your skillet and cook diced shallot or onion for a few minutes, until softened. Add in the garlic and diced zucchini and cook on a medium heat (image 1).
Step 2: Cook gnocchi
Cook your gnocchi in salted water according to package instructions (image 2). Reserve half a cup of the cooking water to make the ricotta sauce.
Step 3: Make the ricotta sauce
Stir ricotta cheese, fresh rosemary and thyme into the skillet. Pour in about ¼ cup of reserved water from cooking the gnocchi and stir so the ricotta melts and you have a silky creamy sauce (image 3).
Step 4: Add the gnocchi
Add the cooked, strained gnocchi to the skillet and stir through so it is coated in the ricotta sauce. If required, add a little more of the reserved water to get the consistency of sauce you like. Season with salt and black pepper, to taste (image 4).
💭 Recipe tips and notes
- This recipe comes together quite fast, so I suggest to prep your shallots / onion, garlic and herbs before you start to cook.
- Gnocchi is typically cooked when it floats to the surface of the water in your cooking pot.
- Make sure to reserve some of the water you cook the gnocchi in. This is used to make the ricotta sauce.
- Add more herbs and garlic if you like a really fragrant flavor!
📋 Frequently asked questions
Ricotta is rated 0 on the SIGHI list, meaning it should be well tolerated. Of course, be mindful of personal food intolerances.
If lemon works for you, you can easily add a squeeze of juice to the sauce. This likely isn't suitable for my low histamine readers.
I do recommend to make it fresh as it's a quick recipe, but it can be frozen. Allow the gnocchi to cool, then freeze in freezer-safe containers. I suggest to reheat slowly on the stovetop.
🥗 How to serve
You can serve this ricotta gnocchi recipe as a vegetarian main in a larger portion, or with a protein as a small serving. I definitely like to have some sides, with ideas including:
- Hot veggie sides work so well and I recommend my roasted broccoli and Brussels sprouts, or my air fryer root vegetables for a quick option.
- A fresh salad is always good as a light side, and my fennel cucumber salad is full of flavor and easy to make.
🍽 More vegetarian dinner ideas
Choose from so many vegetarian recipes here including my cozy vegetable soup without tomatoes and my red pepper pesto pasta, as well as these fun ideas:
I'm always in the kitchen, so come join me on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest to be the first to hear of new recipes! And I love to hear from you - so please do leave a star rating ⭐⭐⭐ and comment if you've tried the recipe!
📖 Recipe
Gnocchi with Ricotta Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 large shallot or ¼ white onion, finely diced
- 2 garlic cloves minced or finely diced
- ½ small zucchini diced
- 1.5 cups gnocchi
- ½ cup ricotta
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
- ½ teaspoon fresh rosemary leaves picked, finely diced
- pinch salt
- pinch black pepper
Instructions
- Drizzle olive oil in your skillet and cook the shallot (or onion) for 3-4 minutes, until softened. Add the garlic and zucchini and cook for a further 4-5 minutes.
- Cook the gnocchi according to package instructions, usually 2-3 minutes in lightly salted boiling water, reserving half a cup of the cooking water.
- Spoon the ricotta into the skillet along with the rosemary and thyme. Then pour in about ¼ cup of the reserved cooking water and stir so the ricotta melts and you have a creamy silky sauce.
- Tip in the drained cooked gnocchi and stir through the sauce. Add more pasta water to achieve the consistency of sauce you like. Season with salt and black pepper to taste preference.
Notes
- This recipe comes together quite quickly, so I suggest to have your ingredients prepped before you start cooking!
- Don't forget to reserve the cooking water from the gnocchi as this will bring the ricotta sauce together.
- Shelf-stable gnocchi may contain whole eggs and other ingredients that may not work for my low histamine readers. Homemade gnocchi can also be used, and there are recipes online using only egg yolks.
- Nutritional information is auto-generated and should be understood to be an estimate.
- gnocchi isn't rated. If store-bought doesn't work for you, homemade is fairly easy to do.
- garlic, which scores 1.
- shallot isn't rated and can be swapped for white onion.
- black pepper, which scores 2.
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