Traditional gnocchi is made with potatoes, refined wheat flour, and eggs. This gluten-free gnocchi recipe ditches the wheat and eggs – instead it’s made with potatoes, garbanzo bean flour, cassava flour, and olive oil. The dough is a cinch to put together and easy to work with.
Personally I think this recipe has more flavor than the traditional versions. Not only is refined wheat flour lacking in nutrients, it’s also pretty bland.
Garbanzo bean flour, by contrast, is protein-rich with an earthy and nutty flavor. It’s made by grinding cooked and dried garbanzo beans. Cassava flour is made by grinding the root of the yuca plant. It’s the same flour used to make my vegan gluten free tortillas recipe.
Method Overview
- Steam and mash potatoes
- Stir dry ingredients together; add olive oil
- Combine the mashed potatoes with the dry ingredient mixture
- Form the dough into gnocchi-shaped pasta
- Boil the gnocchi for a few minutes; remove from the pot with a slotted spoon
- Serve with sauce or pesto
This Vegan Pasta Sauce is my favorite sauce to spoon over gnocchi. The flavors complement each other, and it’s extremely easy to prepare.
Making Gnocchi
There are two ways to form the dough into gnocchi-shaped pasta and score with the customary ridges. Both methods produce cute fluffy pasta “pillows.” I created the following video to demonstrate both methods for you.
Gluten-Free Gnocchi
Equipment
- steaming basket/pot
- potato ricer, or potato masher, or dinner fork
- gnocchi board or dinner fork
- parchment lined baking sheet(s)
- pasta pot
- slotted spoon
Ingredients
- 2 pounds Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cubed
- 1-3/4 cups garbanzo bean flour, AKA chickpea flour
- 1/2 cup cassava flour, such as Otto's Naturals brand
- 1 teaspoon Himalayan sea salt
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- Sauce or pesto for serving (note the nutrition label below does not include sauce or pesto)
Instructions
To Prepare the Dough
- Steam the cubed potatoes until tender when poked with a fork or paring knife.
- In the meantime, stir the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Drizzle with the oil and mix with your fingers until evenly distributed.
- When the potatoes are tender, remove from the heat and briefly rinse with cold water.
- Mash the potatoes thoroughly. I prefer to use a potato ricer for this step. If you don't have one, a potato masher or fork will also work. The idea is to evenly and fully mash all of the potatoes (don't use a food processor or blender for this step because doing so will create a gummy mess).
- Using your hands, evenly mix the potatoes into the dry ingredients, then form the dough into a ball. If the dough is crumbly, add a Tablespoon of water. Don't overwork the dough.
- The dough ball will weigh about two pounds. If you won't be forming some or all of the dough into pasta right away, cover with a damp towel and store refrigerated in an airtight container until you're ready to form it into gnocchi. It will keep like this for a few days.
To Form the Dough into Gnocchi
- Use a gnocchi board or fork to form into the classic gnocchi shape with ridges. The video above demonstrates each method.
- Place the gnocchi single layer on a parchment lined baking sheet.
To Cook the Gnocchi
- Gently slide the gnocchi from the parchment into a pot of boiling water. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes. The gnocchi will start to float in the water when they're almost ready; begin testing about 30 seconds after they begin to float. Don't overcook or they'll fall apart.
- Turn off the heat and use a slotted spoon to remove the gnocchi from the pot. They're fragile so don't pour them into a colander.
- Serve with your favorite sauce or pesto.
Notes
- First form the dough into gnocchi (don’t attempt to freeze the dough ball).
- Freeze the gnocchi single layer on parchment lined tray(s).
- Once the gnocchi is completely frozen, it’s time to bag in desired portion sizes to suit your family’s needs. Vacuum seal the bags for best results. If you don’t have a vacuum sealer such as a Food Saver, freeze in BPA-free freezer bags (try to push out as much air as possible before zipping).
- Use the gnocchi within 3 or 4 weeks, especially if you don’t vacuum seal the bag(s).
Nutrition
If you enjoy this gluten-free gnocchi recipe, you may also like my Chickpea Pasta with Sautéed Veggies.
2 Comments
Rachel
June 30, 2023 at 9:54 amI made these today using the exact same ingredients and brands listed. The dough was easy to work with and boiled nicely. Unfortunately, my family couldn’t get past the strong chickpea flour flavour. I ended up tossing the rest of the dough and will save our chickpea flour for our fav Indian dishes. Thank you for sharing your recipe with us to try. (it just wasn’t exactly the flavour we were trying to achieve)
Judy DeLorenzo
July 23, 2023 at 10:54 amHi Rachel,
Sorry your family didn’t like the flavor of the gnocchi made this way. It certainly doesn’t taste just like gnocchi made with wheat flour, but we still love it with a nice thick pasta sauce.
Thanks for sharing.