Gnocchi (Potato Parmesan Dumplings)

I fell in love with gnocchi about a year ago, courtesy of a small local Italian restaurant. When done right, gnocchi are heaven on a plate; when done wrong, they're heavy, doughy, and not at all pleasant to eat.

When poking through the dairy/refrigerated case at TJ's, I found these refrigerated gnocchi and thought I'd give them a try. To start with, the numbers. They're $2.99 for a 13 oz. package. According to the package, this gives you about 4.5 servings. However, if you're dealing with big appetites, the suggested 1-cup serving will probably not be enough for a meal-sized portion. A 1-cup serving has 170 calories, and has only 1.5 grams of fat (the package is labeled as "low fat").

The cooking process is simple. Boil water, add the gnocchi, cook for 3-4 minutes, drain, toss with sauce. During cooking, the gnocchi turned the cooking water an unappetizing opaque yellow, simply from the amount of starch on the gnocchi. After draining, I ended up rinsing the gnocchi to get rid of the residue from the cooking water; they were still starchy enough to hold the sauce well.

The texture of these gnocchi was very good; creamy, not heavy or gummy. Overall, the flavor was also quite good, but I noticed a slight chemical taste. Technically, the "No Artificial Flavors" label is accurate, but the ingredient list has a lot of dehydrated and powdered ingredients on it: things like "parmesan cheese base" and "natural potato flavor".

There's no confusing these for freshly-made gnocchi, but for a 4-minute dinner, they're a very good option.

Note: These are NOT the TJ's dried gnocchi or frozen gnocchi.


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