Paleo Sweet Potato Gnocchi [AIP]

Paleo Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Mushrooms & Sage

This Paleo Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Mushrooms & Sage is an elegant gnocchi dinner with simple ingredients. Gluten-free & AIP, too!

Note: This recipe was first posted on my original blog, Celebration Generation, on February 7, 2020. It was transferred over to this blog - existing comments and all - on 9/17/2021

Last night, I adapted my sweet potato recipe - from Beyond Flour 2: A Fresh Approach To Gluten-Free Cooking and Baking - to go one step beyond (haha!) being gluten free: I needed it to be AIP (Autoimmune protocol) friendly also.

Paleo Sweet Potato Gnocchi

As far as the gnocchi itself, this meant swapping out most of the added starches, getting rid of the eggs, and omitting the - optional - nutmeg.

What resulted was a MUCH simplified gnocchi. All things considered, I think I might even prefer it to the original Beyond Flour 2 recipe!

The part where it got a little more painful was sacrificing the brown butter sauce that originally accompanied the recipe... and that I was very much in the mood for last night.

AIP Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Luckily, there are a number of AIP friendly fats that work well and add a great flavour to the dish.

You can use lard, bacon fat, or duck fat.

If you don’t need to avoid dairy, feel free to swap in butter for the sauce.

As a note: The professional photos in the blog entry are of the original recipe, from the book.

The only difference in appearance is the brown butter sauce - but I’ve included a crappy cell phone photo of last night’s supper to prove that! (See the end of this post!)

Gluten Free Sweet Potato Gnocchi

As with my original BF2 sweet potato gnocchi recipe, this one avoids one of the big problem areas of making traditional gnocchi - boiling potatoes.

For sweet potato gnocchi, the sweet potatoes are dry cooked, not boiled - so heavy, doughy, waterlogged dumplings aren't likely to happen!

As with traditional gnocchi though, you'll want to handle every stage of mixing with a light hand - keep it as fluffy and loose as possible up to the point of rolling.

Handling everything gently will ensure that you'll end up with soft, pillowy gnocchi.

A note: you're looking for tubers that have orange flesh, and a lot of the time, they're sold as "yams" (and those aren't necessarily even yams!).

"Yam gnocchi" sounds weird though... so, we'll call it "Sweet potato", though you may have to buy something labeled as "yams". Isn't a lack of consistency in terminology FUN?

The texture is great - actual gnocchi. No gumminess or sandiness, they were easy to work with and held together well. If you're like us, you'll want to double the mushrooms in the sauce - they are FABULOUS in this.

Enjoy my Gluten-Free Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Mushrooms & Sage!

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5 from 1 vote

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Mushrooms and Sage – Gluten Free and AIP

An elegant gnocchi dinner with simple ingredients, and a spectacular outcome. No special equipment needed!

Prep Time30 minutes mins

Cook Time1 hour hr 20 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr 50 minutes mins

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Italian

Servings: 4 Servings

Calories: 498kcal

Author: admin

Ingredients

Gnocchi

• 2-3 Large Sweet Potatoes
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 1 ½ Cups Cassava Flour
• 1 ¼ teaspoon Salt Plus more for boiling water

Mushroom and Sage Sauce

• 1 tablespoon Olive oil
• 8 oz Baby Bella / Crimini Mushrooms Sliced
• 2 Shallots Thinly Sliced
• 2 Garlic Cloves Pressed or Minced
• Salt
• ⅓ Cup Fat of Choice (Bacon Fat, Lard, etc)
• ¼ Cup Fresh Sage Leaves Packed and Chopped

Instructions

For the Gnocchi

• Scrub and pat the sweet potatoes dry, use a fork to pierce each of them all over. Cook them in one of two ways:

  1. Roast at 375 F for 45-60 minutes, or until soft all the way through.

  2. Place in a microwave safe baking dish, nuke for 25 minutes or so, until soft.

  Either way, place cooked sweet potatoes aside and allow to cool a bit before proceeding.

  Once potatoes are cool enough to handle, peel skin off them and puree or put through a ricer – make sure there are no lumps. Measure out 2 cups of sweet potato, reserving the rest for a future use (can be frozen.). Allow to cool completely before adding the olive oil, mixing well.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together flour and salt to combine well. Add flour mixture to cooled sweet potato, gently fold to combine.

  Using clean hands - or gloves - gently knead the mixture together to form a dough – it shouldn’t be sticky at all. If sticky, add a small amount of cassava flour, until it’s workable.
• Divide dough into 20 roughly equal pieces.

  One at a time, roll each out into long “snakes”, each about the thickness of a thumb. Cut each roll into bite-sized pieces, about ¾″- 1″ long.
• If you’re feeling lazy, you can cook these up as-is. Otherwise, you can roll them over a fork to produce the traditional ridged gnocchi shape. There are many possible ways to do this, and you may want to play with it a bit until you find your own groove. For me – when I’m feeling industrious – I gently (but firmly!) roll each gnocchi over the back of the fork, aiming towards the pointed ends of the tines. As I roll, the gnocchi will curl over itself into a slight “c” shape. Practice, experiment, and if necessary – Youtube has great tutorials for a variety of methods.
• Start a fresh pot of boiling water, and salt it well. Bring it to a gentle, not rolling boil, and cook your gnocchi in batches.

  As they float to the top, allow them to cook another minute or so before using a slotted spoon to remove them, transferring to a clean bowl or plate.

To Finish the Dish

• Heat olive oil in a nonstick pan. Sauté mushrooms, shallots, and garlic until they start to soften, seasoning with a little salt. Add fat of choice, allow to melt before adding sage leaves.
• Cook for a few minutes, until fat starts to brown and sage leaves crisp up. Add gnocchi to pan, toss to coat. Taste, season with a little more salt, if needed.

  Serve hot.

Nutrition

Calories: 498kcal | Carbohydrates: 64g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 26g | Saturated Fat: 16g | Sodium: 796mg | Potassium: 612mg | Fiber: 5g | Sugar: 8g | Vitamin A: 16031IU | Vitamin C: 8mg | Calcium: 114mg | Iron: 4mg

As promised, my crappy cell phone pic of dinner last night:

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