Cheesy Pizza Baked Gnocchi
I love gnocchi! If you’ve never had gnocchi before, it’s basically fluffy little potato dumplings, which you can flavour however you choose – just like you can with pasta. To make this pizza baked gnocchi, I smothered the dumplings in mozzarella cheese and added my favourite vegetarian pizza toppings, then baked it until it was all nice and gooey. Just look at that cheesy goodness!
Of course, you can switch up the pizza toppings depending on your preference. If it works on pizza, it will work on this pizza baked gnocchi! The end result is part pizza, part pasta bake, part gnocchi… it’s an excellent combination.
I like sautéed gnocchi best, rather than when it’s only been boiled – it makes the dumplings so fluffy! – so I cooked it in a frying pan for a few minutes before assembling the casserole. Then, once it’s all hot and cheesy, just serve it up with some salad or a bit of garlic bread (to mop up the plate!), and you’ve got a simple, tasty, comforting dinner.
❤️ Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Using gnocchi and tasty pizza toppings makes a really lovely change from a regular pizza or a pasta dish.
- You can customise the dish using your favourite pizza toppings – try some different combinations!
- This gnocchi recipe reheats nicely, so make enough for leftovers.
- Ooey gooey mozzarella cheese… need I say more?
🥗 Ingredients
Here’s what you’ll need to make this recipe. You’ll also need a few cupboard staples, like oil and black pepper. See the printable recipe card below for detailed ingredient quantities.
- gnocchi. I use either fresh gnocchi, or the vacuum-packed stuff – either one is fine. You could even use homemade gnocchi or ricotta gnocchi!
- pizza sauce – whichever one’s your favourite!
- onion – this time I used frozen diced onion, but use fresh onion if you prefer.
- garlic
- mozzarella cheese – I find the ready-grated stuff melts the best, rather than fresh mozzarella.
- fresh chives
- your favourite pizza toppings – I used mushrooms, black olives, yellow pepper, and cherry tomatoes.
Becca’s Top Tip
You don’t have to use the pizza toppings I chose – just use whatever you like to have on pizza! My other favourite toppings include diced red onion, sweetcorn, peppers, and pineapple.
📋 Instructions
Here’s how to make this recipe – see below for the printable recipe with detailed ingredients and instructions.
Step 1: Sauté some gnocchi with some diced onion. This helps the gnocchi to become light and fluffy – you can find out more in my post ‘How to fry gnocchi (and why you should want to!)‘
Step 2: Add your favourite tomato pizza sauce. I used shop-bought sauce, but a homemade tomato sauce would also be great.
Step 3: Transfer the tomatoey gnocchi to a baking dish, and add mozzarella cheese and your favourite pizza toppings. I used yellow peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms and black olives.
Step 4: Bake until the cheese is nice and gooey.
Becca’s Top Tip
If you’re in a big rush, you can skip the sautéing, and just add the gnocchi straight to the baking dish with the sauce. However, if you have time, I would definitely recommend taking the extra few minutes to fry it off a little first, as it really does lighten up the gnocchi.
💭 Recipe FAQs
Gnocchi are small dumplings used in Italian cuisine, and they are usually made from potatoes (though ricotta gnocchi is also a thing!). They can be served in a similar way to pasta, with a variety of sauces.
This pizza baked gnocchi can be assembled in advance, and then baked just before serving. Alternatively, it reheats nicely in the microwave, so it can be entirely cooked in advance if needed, and reheated later.
Sure! Homemade gnocchi is easy to make, and can be used in this recipe if you have the time. It tends to be a bit more delicate than shop-bought gnocchi, so be gentle when you mix in the sauce!
Absolutely – just keep any leftovers in an air-tight tub in the fridge for up to 3 days, and reheat thoroughly in the microwave.
Cheesy Pizza Baked Gnocchi
If you’ve cooked this recipe, don’t forget to leave a star rating!
Print Pin CommentIngredients
- 1 Tablespoon oil
- 500 g (~ 1 lb) gnocchi
- 60 g (~ ½ cup) frozen diced onion (or ½ a fresh onion, diced)
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 250 g (~ 1 cup) your favourite tomato pizza or pasta sauce
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 150 g (~ 5 oz) grated mozzarella cheese
- Your choice of pizza toppings – I used black olives, button mushrooms, yellow pepper, and cherry tomatoes
- Fresh chives, to serve (optional)
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat, and add the gnocchi and the diced onion. Cook for around 5-8 minutes, stirring regularly, until lightly browned. Add the minced garlic, and cook for a couple more minutes.
- Next, add the tomato pizza sauce, and mix well to combine. Season to taste with black pepper.
- Heat the oven to 190°C (Gas Mark 5 / 375°F).
- Transfer the mixture to a baking dish (mine measured approximately 8 x 8 inches), and top with plenty of grated mozzarella cheese. Add your choice of pizza toppings – I used black olives, button mushrooms, yellow pepper, and cherry tomatoes.
- Cover with a lid or some kitchen foil, and bake for around 20 minutes, until hot and bubbly. If you’d like to crisp up the cheese a little, remove the lid and return to the oven for a further 10 minutes or so. Serve topped with fresh chives.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is approximate, and will depend on your exact ingredients. Please calculate your own nutritional values if you require accuracy for health reasons.
I trust you meant ml instead of g for the passata?
Actually for some reason passata here is sold in grams! No idea why, ml would make more sense. But either will be fine, a small difference isn’t going to matter for this recipe :)
Nice recipe but please be consistence in your measuring units…. You use grams and milliliters to measure some things and tablespoons to measure others…. A lot of people (most) are not on metrics measurements for cooking or baking…. To help those that are not it would be helpful to use one or the other or to specify both…. Just food for thought….
Thanks for the feedback! I actually sometimes use tablespoons because I know everyone can understand them, no matter what measurement system they use. Plus it’s hard to measure out, say, 20 ml of something whereas it makes much more sense if you say a tablespoon!
Hi!
I made this for my husband and I the other night. I doubled the recipe because we live off of leftovers. It was DELICIOUS!
I too am a vegetarian who is in LOVE with cheese so your website has been a haven for me. (I just found it a couple days ago). Thanks for being awesome! I am looking forward to trying your red thai curry soup tonight.
I have just started in the blogging world and wrote a small post on the dish! I don’t have like any traffic now, but hopefully one day I will so they can be forwarded to all your vegetarian goodness!
Thanks for being Awesome!!
Woop woop, glad you liked it, thanks for the comment! So happy you found me, I hope you’ll find plenty here you like :D
I made for this dinner tonight and I just wanted to say thank you – it is so easy and unbelievably delicious! I haven’t met a recipe of yours I did not like! :D
Yay thanks Lindsay, so glad you liked it! Hope you find some other recipes you like here :)
Me & my partner are making the transition to vegetarianism, so are looking for easy, fun & tasty meals to help get us started – this is perfect! Gnocchi bought, it’s already on this week’s menu. Thanks Becca!
Hey Jenny, thanks so much for your message! Hope you enjoy it :)
I’ve finally made this after wanting for ages! I did a couple of extra things though. I added baby spinach leaves to the tomato passata, and put blobs of pesto on top.
This is a really nice change from the way I usually bake Gnocchi.
Wow, this looks awesome!! I’m glad I found it this morning before I did my Menu Monday post because I’m definitely going to have to switch things around to include this recipe this week. :)
Is there different kinds of gnocchi? The only kind I have seen at the store is potato gnocchi. Dont think thats the right one for this. Where in the store os it?
Hi Melanie! Yes, potato gnocchi is correct! As far as I know, all gnocchi is potato-based (or sweet potato!).
I am a gnocchi freak – I MUST try this! I looks devine. I made a gnocchi and kale bake it was delicious.
That looks amazing!!
Oh man, I love gnocchi so freaking much. I need to try this!
Save a bit – I’m on my way up the M6!