Gnocchi
NYOK-kee
Small soft dumpling of potato and flour, often ridged on a fork.
Name. From nocca, knuckle, or from the Lombard knohha, a knot.
What it is
Gnocchi are dumplings rather than pasta, but every pasta list includes them. The common kind is potato and flour, rolled into a rope, cut, and pressed over a fork or a ridged board so the ridges hold sauce. Older kinds use semolina baked in the oven, Roman style, or bread, ricotta, or pumpkin.
Rome eats them on Thursdays. Sorrento bakes them with tomato and mozzarella. Piedmont and Lombardy dress them with butter and sage or gorgonzola.
How to cook gnocchi
2 to 3 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
2:00
Start when the water returns to the boil.
Water and salt
- Pasta, dry
- 400 g
- Water
- 4 L
- Salt
- 40 g
100 g per person as a main. A litre and 10 g of salt per 100 g. Adjust with the portion calculator.
The steps
- Bring 4 L of water to a full boil in a tall pot. Add 40 g of salt when it boils.
- Add the gnocchi. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Fresh pasta has no dry core. It is done when it is tender, not when it resists.
- Scoop out a cup of the cooking water. Drain, or lift the pasta straight into the pan.
- Toss with the sauce over the heat for a minute. Add cooking water a splash at a time until it clings.
Read more: what al dente means and why the pasta water matters. Times for every shape are on the cook page.
How it holds sauce
Soft, absorbent, and heavy, gnocchi need a sauce that is rich but not chunky: butter and sage, gorgonzola cream, a smooth tomato, pesto, a fine ragu. They fall apart under a heavy stir.
Pairs with: Butter and sage · Four cheese · Pomodoro · Pesto alla genovese · Meat ragu · Baked (al forno)
Classic plates: Gnocchi alla sorrentina, Gnocchi al burro e salvia, Gnocchi al gorgonzola, Gnocchi al pesto, Gnocchi alla romana.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
2 brands, 3 product pages. Cook times run from 1 to 2 minutes across brands, so read the box, not a rule.
| Brand | Product | Cook |
|---|---|---|
| Rummo | Potato Gnocchi Gluten Freegluten-free | 2 min |
| Rummo | Gnocchetti di Patategnocchi | 1 min |
| La Molisana | Gnocchi di Patate | 2 min |
Who makes gnocchi
1906 gnocchi products are catalogued, most of them sold in France, Italy, Germany. Of those, 103 are gluten-free, 165 are organic, 106 are made in Italy.
Brands: Lustucru (142), Rana (93), Bertoncello (64), Master (58), Ciemme (43), Giovanni Rana (41), Il Pastaio (39), Pataro (35), Patamore (32), Lustucru Selection (29).
No gnocchi? Use these
Ranked by how they behave with sauce, not how they look. Full substitute list.
Side by side
Easy to confuse with
Other names
gnocchi di patate, potato gnocchi, gnocchi alla romana, gnudi.
Read more
Sources
- Potato Gnocchi Gluten Free (gluten-free), Rummo (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Gnocchetti di Patate (gnocchi), Rummo (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Gnocchi di Patate, La Molisana (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: fresh: they float when done.
- Photograph: Barilla gnocchi 03.jpg, Takeaway, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- Open Food Facts (products, brands, labels), Open Database License, read on 2026-08-25.
- Gnocchi (pasta), Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.