Creamy Pesto Gnocchi

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A creamy Italian classic easy to make as a perfect side dish or main course. This creamy pesto gnocchi has fresh pesto with a creamy twist.

What is gnocchi?

Gnocchi meaning “lumps” in Italian, is a small thick dough like dumpling made of potatoes and flour. Cooked potatoes mashed then added to flour to create a dough.

Once cooked they are fluffy, doughy type dumplings often served with a sauce or added to soups like Olive Garden’s chicken and gnocchi soup.

If you want to give it a try and make your own gnocchi here is a great recipe by Pinch of Yum.

Is gnocchi a meal or a side dish?

Short answer is BOTH. Since gnocchi is a dumpling it is pretty filling. So doing a meatless Monday, this is the perfect dinner for that.

You can also serve this as a side dish for one of your other great Italian meat dishes such as chicken piccata or chicken florentina.

What is also great you can add some diced cooked chicken or shrimp to this dish and make it a full meal.

What you need to make creamy pesto gnocchi

• Gnocchi– I bought this gnocchi at Walmart. Just about most groceries stores carry gnocchi now, unlike in the past
• Fresh Basil- because you can’t make basil pesto without it. I used basil out of my indoor garden, but they sale it at the store either cut or a small indoor plant
• Parmesan Cheese– I suggest using fresh Parmesan with just buying a block of it and grated it or shaving it. If you don’t have time or access to fresh you can use already grated or shaved.
• Cream Cheese– I use the full fat regular cream cheese rather than any reduce fat kind because I wanted my sauce thick and creamy.
• Pine Nuts– these are used for the pesto sauce and you can find them in the nut aisle or baking aisle of the grocery store usually in a bag
• Garlic– fresh garlic cloves are great for this recipe, but if you forget to get some like I did minced canned garlic works great too
• Lemon– you will need the juice form the lemon and also zest from the lemon
• Milk– to thin out the cream cheese
• Chicken broth– for extra flavor

How to make pesto

Start with fresh basil leaves and adding them to a food processor (Photo 1) Then add fresh Parmesan cheese (Photo 2) pine nuts (Photo 3), olive oil (Photo 4), minced garlic (Photo 5), lemon juice (Photo 6), and lemon zest (Photo 7) all to the food processor.

Add the lid to the food processor (Photo 8) and turn on the food processor and blend (Photo 9) Stop the processor and take the lid off and scrape down the sides of the bowl (Photo 10)

Put the lid back on and blend, blend, blend until it is all good (Photo 11) Set the pesto aside until it is needed.

Making the creamy pesto gnocchi

Add the milk to a pan over medium heat (Photo 12) and then the chicken broth (Photo 13). Add the cream cheese (Photo 14) and stir (Photo 15) until all the cream cheese is melted (Photo 16)

Next add the pesto you made earlier to the pan (Photo 17) and stir it to mix all together with the cream sauce (Photo 18)

Add the cooked gnocchi to the pan (Photo 19) and stir around for a couple minutes (Photo 20) and serve.

Tips for this recipe

• Cook the gnocchi first according to the package it comes in. It usually call for 2 minutes cooking. Then set aside until its time to add to the sauce.
• You can make the pesto ahead of time if you want. Stored in an air tight container it will last 4-5 days in the refrigerator.
• Let your cream cheese sit out for about 30 minutes before cooking to soften. This makes it easier to melt in the pan.
• I suggest using fresh Parmesan cheese either grating or shaving off a block of Parmesan because it is more flavorful when straight off the block.
• I used canned minced garlic for this recipe but fresh garlic cloves I believe taste a little better. Either will do
• This recipe calls for 17.6 ounces of gnocchi, but you can easily double the gnocchi and still have enough sauce for double the gnocchi.
• Add cooked chicken chunks or cooked shrimp to this recipe and have a full meal

Other Italian recipes to try

Chicken Parmesan
Lasagna without Ricotta
Garlic Bread
Pepperoni Bruschetta

Or check out all my Entrees recipes to find your next dinner

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Update Notes; This recipe was originally posted in August of 2016, but was republished with new photos, cooking tips, and step by step picture instructions in July 2019.