Creamy sausage gnocchi is a simple 30-minute, one-pan recipe that tastes like a dish from a fine dining restaurant! The recipe features basic ingredients found in most pantries, including the basic tomato sauce for pasta, spinach, and Italian sausage.
Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil on medium heat in a large, high-sided skillet.
Add crumbled sausage and cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes, crumbling it.
To the same skillet with sausage, add uncooked potato gnocchi, chicken broth, heavy cream, minced garlic, Italian seasoning. Bring to a boil on medium heat and stir everything well. Cover with lid, and allow the gnocchi to cook for about 5 minutes on medium heat, while the sauce boils.
Add tomato pasta sauce and stir it well. Add fresh spinach, and cook on medium heat, stirring frequently for 5 minutes until the spinach wilts to your liking. Cook longer if you would like a thicker sauce.
Mix everything well. Remove from heat.
Season with salt, freshly ground coarse black pepper, and red pepper flakes, if you like.
Tip: use your best judgment about the salt. If the sausage is salty enough, you might not need to add any extra salt.
Notes
Chicken broth is used in this recipe. However, you can also use white wine, red wine, or water instead! Frankly, I've used water in this recipe, too, and there was no loss of flavor!
Tomato sauce. It can be a store-bought pasta sauce or marinara sauce. Any flavor will work: traditional, tomato basil, arrabbiata, or garlic tomato sauce.
Sausage. I used crumbled spicy Italian sausage. Italian sausage links can be used, too, with casings removed and sausage links sliced. You can also use sweet or mild Italian sausage (add some spice in this case!)
Italian seasoning of Herbs from Provence. The mix that I used contained dried rosemary, thyme, parsley, tarragon, marjoram, basil, and sage.
Cook gnocchi right in the same pan! Gnocchi releases the starch, which actually helps to thicken the sauce without adding any cheese or cornstarch. This also minimizes a clean-up since you're using only one pan for the whole recipe!
Heavy cream or half-and-half - either can be used!