Easy Gnocchi Recipe Indian-Style

In 20 minutes with a few store-bought items, this easy gnocchi recipe delivers deep, rich Indian flavors with a creamy tomato-based sauce. Soak it up with Naan for a simple, but decadent Indian style pasta.

I used two shortcuts in this recipe – a good bottled tomato sauce and pre-made fresh gnocchi. You can, of course, make your own but most people would never notice the difference.

The semi-homemade sauce is delicious and way better than the Indian bottled sauce you buy in the store. And you can pretty much add anything you want to it – chicken, vegetables, tofu, etc. Here’s an easy Naan recipe for scooping up the sauce if you want to step it up a notch.

I used the same sauce from our Indian Butter Chicken recipe My daughter Jenna, the other kook, begged me to make a vegetarian version because she loves Indian food so much. So I used gnocchi, another favorite of hers. (She was pregnant at the time and I found myself doing whatever she asked).

I think gnocchi is a good choice for this dish because the soft pillowy dumplings soak up the sauce so well. I bought a classic potato gnocchi, the most common type for this Italian pasta.

Tailor To Your Taste

• Add a 1/2 tablespoon of fresh grated ginger while cooking the onions (several recipes used ginger)
• Add a tablespoon of brown sugar if you like some sweetness.
• Instead of gnocchi, toss the sauce with any pasta, tofu, legumes and/or cooked vegetables.
• You can use any variation of gnocchi you like such as ricotta, pumpkin, spinach etc.
• Vary the spiciness with as much or little cayenne pepper as you like.

Substitutes you can use for this Indian style pasta

• For seasonings
  • If you don’t have Tandoori or Garam Masala, use curry powder instead.
  • To make 1 teaspoon of Garam Masala, combine: 1/4 teaspoon cumin, 1/4 teaspoon paprika, 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1/8 teaspoon crumbled bay leaves.
• For a dairy-free version, replace the half and half cream with 1/2-1 cup of coconut milk. And replace the butter with margarine.
• For homemade gnocchi: Here’s a recipe if you prefer to make homemade potato gnocchi.

Shortcuts

Both these shortcuts are used in this recipe.

• Store-bought tomato sauce such as White Linen Marinara Sauce from Costco.
• Store-bought fresh gnocchi, available in most grocery stores.

Make Ahead

• The sauce for this Indian vegetarian dish can be made several days ahead. I suggest adding the spinach just before serving (to maintain it’s bright green color). It is also best to boil the gnocchi just before serving as well. But don’t get me wrong. Leftovers are great too, even straight out of the fridge.

Here are some other Indian dishes you might like:

This recipe, originally posted in 2018, has been republished with updated pictures and information. The old recipe was previously called Easy Indian Butter Gnocchi with Spinach.