Stuffed Gnocchi with Truffled Mushroom & Caramelized Onion

These vegan stuffed gnocchi with truffled mushrooms (and CARAMELIZED ONIONS people!) are absolutely heavenly. The sweetness of the caramelized onion contrasts well with the earthiness of the mushrooms, finished off with pungent truffle, and enclosed in a light-as-air layer of gnocchi.

As they’re made from scratch, they can be a bit fiddly to make, but absolutely worth it. Dazzle dinner guests with this dish, convert meat-eaters, or simply enjoy a five-star dining experience at home.

If you love home-made gnocchi but would prefer an easier recipe, check out my homemade gnocchi with tomato confit, an easy one-pan oven-baked sauce.

How to make vegan gnocchi dough

So, I covered this in my homemade gnocchi post, but I’ll give a quick recap here because it’s annoying to go between two pages.

Bake, boil or microwave your potatoes with the skins on. Personally, I bake them as they cook more evenly than in the microwave, and absorb less liquid than when you boil them.

When your potatoes are cool enough to handle, peel them and grate them with the fine side of a grater, or rice them. Add the salt, optional garlic granules, mix well, and then begin adding the flour 1/4 cup at a time.

Incorporate the flour really well before you add more. The dough should just about come together.

Grab handfuls, roll into tubes about 1/2 – 3/4 inch thick, and cut into segments of about an inch. At this point you could cook the gnocchi as is, or roll down a fork/gnocchi board and then cook, but as we’re going to stuff them, let’s move to the next step.

Preparing the filling

You can do this step either before prepping the gnocchi dough, during, or after. As I tend to bake my potatoes, I prep the filling while they’re in the oven.

Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat and add the olive oil. When the oil is hot, mix in the sliced and chopped onions.

Now we’re going to cheat a little bit here, and sprinkle about 1/8th of a teaspoon of baking soda over the onions when they start to gently fry. This will cut down on our cooking time. Do make sure to mix the baking soda into the onions well.

Fry the onions for about 7 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning. Then add in the garlic and finely chopped mushrooms.

Personally, I like to reserve a few of the mushrooms and slice them for garnish. You can cook them separately at the same time as making the filling, totally optional and depending on how impressive you want your meal to look.

Notch the heat up a little, not quite on full but not far from it. I tend to cook the onions at 6 or 7 on my vitroceramic cooker, and then increase it to 8 when I add in the mushrooms and garlic.

Fry for about 8 minutes, stirring every now and then, add in the salt, mix and fry 2 minutes more. Your onions mushroom garlic mix should be a glorious glossy caramelized brown colour.

Finely shave or grate the truffle over the mixture and mix in. You’re now ready to proceed to stuffing your gnocchi (or preparing the dough, depending on when you made the stuffing!)

How to stuff gnocchi

I really enjoy this part and it’s so easy that I get my kids to help me with it quite a bit. Basically you just roll the sections of gnocchi dough into balls, squash them with the palm of your hand. Then add about half a teaspoon of the mushroom mixture.

Fold the dough around the filling and seal. If you have trouble getting it to seal wet the dough a tiny bit and it should become sticky enough to seal easily. Make sure there are no holes in your dough or your gnocchi will fall apart/lose its filling when you are cooking it.

Place the stuffed gnocchi on a sheet of baking paper until you are ready to cook them. Make sure there is space between them or they’ll stick together. You should have mushroom filling left over, which is perfect for the sauce we’ll be making.

How to cook stuffed gnocchi

Boil a large pot of salted water, and drop the gnocchi in CAREFULLY. After all your hard work you don’t want them to open in the water and be ruined.

I usually cook about 12 at a time as don’t want to overcrowd the pot. One they have floated to the top, set a timer and cook for two minutes.

When the timer goes off, remove the stuffed gnocchi with a slotted spoon and leave to rest on the baking paper while you prepare the next batch. Once all the gnocchi have been boiled, heat up a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan (different to the one you used for the filling).

Fry the boiled gnocchi in batches until they are all golden and toasted on either side. Ready to be served with a delicious sauce!

Easy sauce

This sauce is super simple and tasty. You can really eat this stuffed gnocchi with any simple sauce which is reasonably plain – after the effort you’ve put into making the delicious sauce, you really don’t want a sauce that will compete with or overwhelm the flavours.

Take the pan with the last of the filling. Heat it up and when the remainder of the filling starts to sizzle, add the wine and balsamic to deglaze the pan. Cook on high for about two minutes.

Take off the heat and quickly stir in the coconut milk or cream. Plate your gnocchi, drizzle the sauce over, and sprinkle some of the reserved cooked sliced mushrooms (if you reserved any). Done!

Storing your stuffed gnocchi

Leftovers will keep in the fridge for up to five days and should be briefly reheated in a frying pan. The gnocchi can also be made ahead of time and NOT fried, and kept in the fridge for up to two days. Then when you’re ready to eat them, simply take them out, fry them up, and add the sauce.

As always I would absolutely love any feedback you have to or see pictures of your food if you make any of my recipes, so don’t forget to drop a comment below. You can also contact me using the contact form at the top, and/or tag me in photos of your food on Instagram @the_fiery_vegetarian.