You've Been Using The Wrong Potatoes For Gnocchi The Whole Time, According To Nadia Munno - Exclusive
Don't ruin homemade pasta night with weirdly textured gnocchi. The Pasta Queen, whose real name is Nadia Munno, is here to remedy failed gnocchi with her top tips for making the pasta at home — and for a start, you can stop using Yukon gold potatoes. In an exclusive interview with Tasting Table ahead of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, Munno revealed that the common Yukon gold is actually not the best potato to use in the Italian dish.
Gnocchi alla Sorrentina is the social media star's go-to meal to make with the pasta shape, "which is baked with melting mozzarella and tomatoes and basil." It can be compared to baked ziti, but with gnocchi instead of thick rigatoni noodles — and she explained that her secret to making the gnocchi from scratch is to opt for russet potatoes instead of Yukon gold because of their consistency. "You have to use very old potatoes," the social media star explained. "To avoid any mistakes, I always use russet potatoes, which are generally a lot drier than Yukon gold potatoes."
Make sure the water content is almost nonexistent
Russet potatoes, also known as Idaho potatoes, are often used for baking, roasting, mashing, and the classic french fry — and being drier than other varieties, they'll be simpler to cook to get the ideal consistency for gnocchi. Nadia Munno told Tasting Table, "You want the water content to be very, very little because the more water content the potatoes have, the more flour [they need] to actually become the perfect consistency." The higher the water content, the more flour you will end up adding to balance it out, which results in a "very doughy, rubbery gnocchi."
Instead of allowing the gnocchi to be made up of too much flour, make sure it mostly consists of potatoes. "I would use russet potatoes that have been lying there for a couple of months so that they're really, really dry," Munno continued. Along with the perfect potatoes in your pantry, mix in a tiny bit of flour and one egg until the dough is soft (not sticky on your hands). All we need now is Nadia's marinara sauce to top off the pasta!
Nadia Munno, aka The Pasta Queen, will be appearing at FoodieCon at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival on February 25. Keep up with her latest recipes on TikTok and Instagram.