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Gnocchi With Creamy Tomato Sauce – very quick and easy to make with simple ingredients and store bought potato gnocchi. The creamy tomato sauce is smooth, flavorful and delicious. Made from scratch with canned tomatoes (or tomato sauce), onions, garlic, olive oil, seasoning, tomato paste and cream cheese. 15 minute gnocchi (or pasta) recipe.
Very simple recipe with a versatile pasta sauce, that can be used not only on gnocchi, but also your favorite pasta.
Creamy tomato sauce for pasta:
Homemade from scratch tomato pasta sauce with the addition of cream cheese.
Mild, flavorful, slightly sweet, this pasta sauce is amazing!
To make the sauce creamy, you have two options. Use either:
- Cream cheese
or
- Heavy cream
I used cream cheese this time, but I also love using heavy whipping cream. I wouldn’t use Half and Half, milk or sour cream. They just don’t have enough fat to produce the desired creaminess.
How much potato gnocchi to serve per person?
On most packages of store bought potato gnocchi, the serving size mentioned is 3/4 cup of uncooked gnocchi, which equals 120 grams or 4 oz. I tend to stick to this recommendation, since the sauces I usually serve my gnocchi with are pretty rich and I don’t need to serve a lot more than the recommended amount of gnocchi.
Recipe tips:
- Canned tomatoes may vary. You can use whole peeled tomatoes and simply smash them in the pan, while cooking. Diced tomatoes and easy to work with in this recipe. Canned tomato sauce will be also great, since the sauce it produces will be very smooth. If the type of tomatoes you use is very acidic, you may add some sweetener (sugar/honey) to the sauce.
- This recipe will work well, if you substitute any kind of pasta for the gnocchi. Low carb and gluten free pastas will also be perfect. Cauliflower gnocchi are a great option, too. How about ravioli or tortellini? Yes, they will pair well with the sauce.
- To make a creamy sauce you need cream cheese. If you are not a fan of cream cheese or don’t have any on hand, you can use heavy cream. The result will be a little different.
- You can add fresh spinach, asparagus or sun dried tomatoes to these gnocchi.
- Need more protein? Add chicken, sausage or shrimp.
- Seasoning – I like to use a combination of oregano and basil, but Italian seasoning could be used.
- You can store these gnocchi in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
More Pasta Recipes:
Gnocchi With Creamy Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
- 16 oz 3 cups uncooked potato gnocchi
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
- 1 small head of onion
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tsp honey or agave nectar
- 14 oz tomato sauce
- 2 oz full fat cream cheese
- 1/4 tsp dried oregano
- 1/4 tsp dried basil
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese for serving
- Fresh basil for garnishing
Instructions
- Prepare the pasta sauce first.
- Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat and add onion. Cook for 1 minute, then add garlic. Cook for another minute, stirring to prevent burning.
- Add the tomato paste, tomato sauce and honey, stir to combine. Cook for 3 minutes, then season with salt, pepper, oregano and basil.
- Add the cream cheese, lower the temperature. Stir until combined.
- Cook the gnocchi.
- Reserve some of the cooking water (1/2 cup), before draining.
- Combine the gnocchi with the sauce, add cheese and basil. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 3 days. These gnocchi with creamy tomato sauce can be frozen in airtight container for up to 1 month.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Delicious, Â I just added grounded sausage. Â Yum!!!
Delicious! I recently made this meal with a side of roasted chicken breast. It’s so creamy and easy to make. I loved it so much that I’ll for sure be adding it to my recipes book.
The flavor was great. I suggest cooking the chopped onion a bit longer before adding the garlic, so that the sauce will not be crunchy. It does not say in the instructions when to add the cooking water. This would be helpful for some people.
Thank you!
So yummy!
Hello, I will make this for my 3 girlfriends soon, but Wonder What size I would need to mage for 4 people?
Is 1 for 1 person?
The recipe makes 4 servings. Feel free to double it, if you’d like to have leftovers. Thanks!