Pumpkin Gnocchi
Prep Time 45 minutes 
Cook Time 45 minutes 
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes 
Servings 4Ingredients
For the Gnocchi
- 400 gr butternut squash or potimarron, unpeeled weight
- 300 gr floury potatoes Maris Piper or King Edward
- 1 egg
- 175 gr plain flour plus extra for dusting
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp nutmeg freshly grated
- 30 gr Parmesan cheese grated for the dough
For Serving
- 60 gr unsalted butter
- 12 leaves sage
- 100 gr vegetarian lardons or pancetta if not keeping it veggie
- 50 gr radicchio
- parsley
- 40 gr Parmesan cheese for grating
- salt and black pepper
Equipment
Instructions
1. Roast the pumpkin
- Preheat your oven to 180°C (160°C fan). Cut the butternut squash in half, scoop out the seeds (save them for roasting if you're feeling virtuous), and place the halves cut-side up on a lined baking tray. Roast for 25–30 minutes until the flesh is completely tender when you poke it with a knife.This is the most important step. Roasting, not boiling, not steaming, concentrates the flavour and keeps the flesh dry. If your pumpkin is watery, you'll need tonnes of flour to compensate, and your gnocchi will end up rubbery. Once it's cooked, let it cool slightly, then scoop out the flesh and mash it until smooth. You want about 300g of flesh. Set aside to cool completely.
2. Cook the potatoes
- Whilst the pumpkin roasts, put the potatoes in a large pot of cold salted water. Bring to the boil and cook for 20–25 minutes until completely tender. The potatoes need to be really soft, no hard bits in the centre.Drain them well, then peel them whilst they're still hot (hold them with a tea towel if they're too hot to handle). Push the hot potatoes through a ricer into a large bowl. If you don't have a ricer, use a fine-mesh sieve and the back of a spoon. Don't use a food processor or you'll end up with glue.
3. Combine pumpkin and potato
- Add the mashed pumpkin to the riced potato. Weigh them, you want roughly 600g total (about 300g pumpkin, 300g potato). Add the salt, nutmeg, and 30g parmesan. Mix gently with a fork.Make a well in the centre, add the beaten egg, and mix until just combined. Don't overwork it.
4. Add the flour (carefully)
- Start with 150g flour. Sprinkle it over the mixture and fold it in gently with your hands or a pastry blender. The dough should come together but still feel slightly sticky. If it's too wet to handle, add more flour, a tablespoon at a time, until you can shape it. But be stingy with the flour, the less you add, the lighter your gnocchi.The dough should be soft, slightly tacky, but not sticking to your hands. When you can roll it into a log without it falling apart, you're done.
5. Shape the gnocchi
- Lightly flour your work surface. Divide the dough into 6 pieces. Roll each piece into a long rope about 1.5cm thick. Cut into 2cm pieces.If you want the classic ridges, roll each piece down the back of a fork with your thumb. Or leave them plain, they'll taste the same. As you shape them, place them on a floured tea towel in a single layer. Don't let them touch or they'll stick together.
6. Cook the gnocchi (in batches)
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a gentle simmer, not a rolling boil, just small bubbles breaking the surface. Working in batches of about 20, drop the gnocchi into the water. They'll sink, then float to the top after 1–2 minutes. Once they float, give them another 30 seconds, then scoop them out with a slotted spoon.Place them on a clean tea towel to drain whilst you cook the rest. Don't skip the batch cooking, too many at once and they'll stick together and cook unevenly.
7. Fry the lardons
- Whilst the gnocchi cook, heat a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the vegetarian lardons. Fry for 4–5 minutes until golden and crisp. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
8. Make the sage butter and finish the gnocchi
- In the same pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the sage leaves and let them sizzle for 30 seconds until crisp and fragrant. Don't let the butter burn, you want it golden, not brown.Add the cooked gnocchi to the pan in batches (don't crowd them). Fry for 2–3 minutes on each side until golden and crispy. You might need to do this in two batches depending on the size of your pan. Add a bit more butter if the pan looks dry.
9. Assemble and serve
- Toss the fried gnocchi with the crispy lardons and torn radicchio leaves. The heat from the gnocchi will wilt the radicchio slightly, which is exactly what you want. Divide between four warm plates.Scatter over the fresh parsley, grate over a generous amount of parmesan, and finish with a few twists of black pepper and a pinch of flaky salt. Eat immediately whilst they're still crispy!
Notes
- The amount of flour you need depends entirely on how dry your pumpkin and potato were. Start with less and add more if needed. Too much flour = dense, rubbery gnocchi.
- You can shape the gnocchi up to 4 hours ahead. Lay them on a floured tray, cover with a tea towel, and refrigerate. Or freeze them in a single layer on a tray, then transfer to a freezer bag once solid. Cook from frozen, just add an extra minute to the cooking time.
- Traditional gnocchi boards: If you’ve got one, brilliant. If not, a fork works perfectly well. The ridges help the sauce cling, but it’s not essential.
- Vegetarian lardons: Most supermarkets sell these now. If you can’t find them, use diced smoked tofu or just skip them and add more parmesan.
- Radicchio: This adds a lovely bitter contrast to the sweet pumpkin. If you can’t find radicchio, use rocket or baby spinach instead.
About this recipe
Did you know that pumpkin gnocchi is not actually a French dish? It comes from Northern Italy, where cooks in the Veneto and Lombardy have been making potato dumplings since the 16th century. But the French regions that border Italy, Provence, the Alpes-Maritimes, the Savoie, adopted the idea long ago and made it their own. And honestly, they do it so well that you’ll find pumpkin gnocchi on French bistro menus every autumn as naturally as any traditional Provençal dish.
What I love about the French version is that it’s a little richer and more thoughtful about what goes alongside. Sage butter instead of a simple dressing. Bitter leaves for contrast. Something salty and crispy on the side. It’s technically an Italian dish, but the way the French have made it their own is very typically French. And that’s exactly what this recipe is built around.
A word about potimarron
If you’ve ever been to a French market in autumn, you’ll know that moment when you suddenly see potimarron everywhere. This small, dense, rust-coloured squash appears on market stalls from September onwards, piled up next to the walnuts and the first wild mushrooms. The flesh of a potimarron is sweet and dense with a faint chestnut flavour, which is exactly where the name comes from: potiron for pumpkin, marron for chestnut. We roast it for pumpkin soups, layer it into gratins, and yes, we make it into gnocchi. And honestly, when the weather turns, there is nothing better.
If you can’t find potimarron, do not worry, butternut squash works perfectly well too. Slightly less sweet and a little more watery, but the result is just as good. Don’t let that stop you.
Why potato makes gnocchi and pumpkin recipe work
Pure pumpkin gnocchi, made with nothing but squash and flour, tends to be too soft and prone to collapsing. The water content in most squash varieties is high enough that without potato in the mix, you end up with something closer to a dumpling than a proper gnocchi. Adding potato gives the dough structure, produces that characteristic texture, and means the gnocchi holds together through boiling and pan-frying without falling apart.
The ratio matters too. Too much potato and you lose the sweetness and colour that make pumpkin gnocchi worth making over plain potato gnocchi. Too little and the dough is unstable. This recipe gets it right.
The one piece of kit that makes all the difference
The texture of gnocchi depends almost entirely on how you incorporate the potato and pumpkin. The moment you overwork the dough, the starch develops and the gnocchi becomes dense and chewy. So what you want is the lightest possible dough with the minimum of handling.
A potato ricer is the right tool for this, and there really is no good substitute. It breaks the cooked potato and roasted pumpkin into fine, even strands without compressing or overworking them, which you simply cannot achieve with a masher or a fork. I recommend using the Westmark potato ricer, which handles both the potato and the roasted potimarron cleanly and consistently. The result is a dough that comes together in seconds and produces gnocchi with exactly that soft, pillowy interior you’re after. If you make gnocchi even occasionally, it’s worth having one. The difference in texture is not subtle.
Pan-frying: the step most people skip
And don’t forget, boiling the gnocchi is not the end of the process, it’s actually the middle. Pan-frying them in brown butter after boiling is what takes this to perfection. Boiled gnocchi taste fine, don’t get me wrong, but boiled and then pan-fried gnocchi develops a crisp golden crust on the outside while staying soft inside, and that is super tasty.
Most home cooks skip this step because it adds time and another pan. But please don’t, you already put so much effort in making the pumpkin and gnocchi. Take the extra three minutes and it will be the difference between gnocchi that is pleasant and gnocchi that people ask you about.
Share your feedback and spread the love!
If you try this recipe, I’d love to hear how it turns out! Leave a ★★★★★ rating and your thoughts in the comments, it helps fellow French foodies discover this recipe too. Snap a photo and tag @obviously.french on Instagram. Come talk about it in our Facebook group. And don’t forget to save this recipe to Pinterest so you’ll always have it handy for your next French-inspired meal!
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