Use shop-bought or homemade gnocchi for this easy recipe. If you go with shop-bought, you can have this on the table in 15 minutes! If you're making your own, we're still only talking about 30-35 minutes.
Fluffy pillows of gnocchi in a gorgeous garlic and browned-butter sauce with crispy sage leaves and a hint of lemon. Totally dreamy!
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Crispy gnocchi is the BEST way to eat it in my opinion. I love the golden crispy exterior, plus those extra crispy bits in the pan.
For this recipe we fry up the gnocchi first, then brown plenty of butter, before adding lots of sage leaves (don't worry, they mellow during frying, so they won't overpower the dish), garlic and lemon.
In my testing stage I also tried adding a good helping of parmesan towards the end of cooking, but I found it simply doesn't need it (not often I say that about cheese).
A little light sprinkle of parmesan before serving works, but there is so much flavour to this dish already that I could miss it out entirely.
📋 What do we need?
- Gnocchi - use fresh store-bought gnocchi, or homemade gnocchi.
- Butter - I use unsalted butter, just so I can control the amount of salt in the dish. Also, unsalted butter works best when you're making brown butter.
- Sage - lots of fresh sage leaves are needed, they're so tasty fried in butter!
- Lemon - I use lemon zest AND juice to cut through the richness of the butter.
- Garlic, salt and pepper - for extra flavour
- Oil - for frying the gnocchi
- Parmesan - this is optional, but I sometimes sprinkle on a little right before serving.
📺 Watch how to make it
Full recipe with detailed steps in the recipe card at the end of this post.
👩🍳PRO TIP Use a cast iron pan rather than non-stick for ultimate golden crispness.
I like to serve with a couple of extra lemon wedges.
🍽️ What to serve it with
- Homemade Garlic Bread
- Artisan Bread
- A Simple Green Salad
Just needed a close-up of that exterior. We're almost getting into roast potato territory with that golden colour!
🍲 More fantastic quick and easy meat-free meals
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Gnocchi with brown butter and sage Recipe
Ingredients
- 500 g (1.1lbs) fresh gnocchi - homemade or store-bough is fine
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 pinch salt and pepper
- 75 g (⅓ cup) unsalted butter
- 20 fresh sage leaves*
- 2 cloves garlic - peeled and very finely sliced
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- zest of 1 lemon
- juice of ½ lemon
To serve:
- grated parmesan (or vegetarian Italian-style hard cheese for vegetarian)
- Black pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
- Place the gnocchi in a pan of boiling water and boil the gnocchi until it floats
- Remove the gnocchi from the pan with a slotted spoon and place in a bowl.
- Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over a medium-high heat.
- Add the gnocchi, plus a pinch of salt and pepper and fry the gnocchi for 5-6 minutes, turning oven, until the gnocchi is brown all over.
- Remove the gnocchi from the pan and place in a bowl. If your pan has a lot of crispy bits in it (this might happen if you're using a non-stick pan), wipe/scrape them out. Don't worry about getting the pan spotless though, a few crispy bits are good.
- Next, melt the butter in the frying pan over a medium heat. Once melted, continue to cook for a further 2-3 minutes, until it starts to go a very light brown and smells a tiny bit nutty.
- Add the fresh sage leaves and cook for a further 2 minutes.
- Add the garlic and cook for a further 1 minutes, stirring often.
- Add the cooked gnocchi to the pan and sprinkle on the salt and pepper.
- Stir together and cook for a further minute.
- Add the lemon zest and juice and stir together.
- Divide between bowls and top with a little parmesan and black pepper.
Video
✎ Notes
The serving size isn't huge, but gnocchi is quite filling, so you don't need a lot. If you wanted to serve this recipe to two people (doubling the serving size), then you'l need to double the calorie amount.
Nutrition
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Beth H says
Very tasty! The lemon really gave it s nice touch. My pan was so hot when I put the butter in that it browned immediately. Needless to say, everything cooked way faster because of it. I will make this again.
Lara Evans says
Absolutely loved the flavours in this but I couldn't get the gnocchi to crisp. What am I doing wrong?!
Elsa says
Hello, thanks for your recipe, I really liked the addition of garlic and lemon however I found there to be too much lemon juice...I usually really love sour flavours but this was too much even for me. Love the combo of lemon and garlic with the burnt butter and sage though ❤️
Eleanor says
I used shop bought for a quick easy dinner. Loved the crispy edges and was the sauce was a hit with the family. I may even try making my own next time😉😋