These days it seems like you can replace any food with cauliflower – pizza, rice, buffalo wings and now gnocchi is the newest trend.  Specifically the Cauliflower Gnocchi from Trader Joe’s. There has been so much hype about these and after trying them for myself, I get why. They taste pretty freaking good and I really don’t feel guilty eating them.  The cauliflower version is gluten & dairy free, and it has less calories, sodium and carbs than the real thing. On top of all that, these ones are made with just five ingredients: cauliflower, cassava flour, potato starch, extra virgin olive oil, and sea salt. And you can get a bag for less than $3 – like okay TJ’S,  ya got me again. 

My Cauliflower Gnocchi Recipe

What You’ll Need

• A bag of Trader Joe’s Cauliflower Gnocchi
• Sliced mushrooms
• Sun dried tomatoes
• Olive oil
• Minced garlic
• Pesto sauce
• Marinara sauce
• Fresh basil
• Seasonings: pink salt, pepper, oregano, red pepper flakes

(obviously feel free to remove or substitute anything you don’t like)

Okay, First…

Add some olive oil to a pan and start to heat it up (medium-ish heat). I sliced three medium sized mushrooms, but you can always do more or less based on your own taste preferences. The good thing about this recipe is that you can kind of just add as much or as little of any of these ingredients and it will still taste pretty good. You can honestly dress these in just about anything and they would still taste good.

ANYWAYS, next I added in some minced garlic – about a spoonful. I have a large jar of already minced garlic from Costco – literally the best thing. So easy and your hands don’t smell like garlic after trying to cut it up into little pieces.  I also added in some sun dried tomatoes. I bought a jar of it from Trader Joe’s – it was the “julienne sliced sun dried tomato in olive oil”. It was the first time I have tried these and I am definitely into them.

From here, you can just keep the heat low, so it says warm. Next we will talk about the gnocchi…I have made it two different ways and one of the ways is MUCH better, so I would recommend checking my blog post on how to cook it that better way. I’ll still show you how I made it this time though.

What The Mush?

Okay, so this was the first time I made cauliflower gnocchi and I followed the directions on the bag about boiling the gnocchi. You can do this, HOWEVER, they were definitely on the mushy/soft/soggy side. You can kind of tell in the pictures below. Besides that, they were still so good.

So what is the better way to make this? I would recommend making the gnocchi in a pan with just oil. SKIP THE WATER. I wrote a post (you can read it here) about it and you can definitely tell the difference, even in the pictures. The oil & pan method is the way to go.

See!!!! It’s kind of soft and mushy looking. Still good though.

After I drained the gnocchi, I added it into the mushroom, sun dried tomato mix. Next, I added in the pesto and little bit of the red sauce – both from TJ’s too.

Side note: I don’t really measure stuff out, I kind of just eyeball it. Sometimes it works out well, other times not so much. Definitely something I need to work on.

Once you mix it all in, you are ready to serve.

I topped it off with some fresh basil from our little patio garden ! How cute?!

(If you are wondering why I have a wine bottle sticking out of the dirt, you can read about it on my patio post I wrote)

Cauliflower Gnocchi Passes the Boyfriend Test

My official taste tester, Will,  approves!

ENJOY!! Let me know if you try it and send me pictures. I would also love to hear any other recipes you might have for this cauliflower gnocchi!