Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants)

Ingredients: Sweet potatoes, flour, potatoes, water, butter, milk, eggs, Grana Padano cheese, sugar, salt, sage….

Trader Joe’s frozen “SWEET POTATO GNOCCHI with butter and sage” looked interesting enough for me to review. They even say these are a “Product of Italy” !

These gnocchi seem quite popular and get a fair amount of interest on this site.

Three of us tasted the Gnocchi dish as part of a dinner we had put together. All of us agreed that yes this frozen dish was quite tasty. We also all had the same comment tasting this about these being “sweet potato” versus “regular potato” gnocchi. Other than the fact these gnocchi have an orange tint, we said we would not be able to tell that these were “sweet potato” versus potato. Checking the ingredients they do list Sweet Potato as the first ingredient.

The gnocchi are nice and pillowy. As far as the sauce, well butter and sage is a classic sauce combination. The sauce in this is tasty. Nice and buttery with a hint of sage.

Just so you know the dish was quite saucy (lots of sauce) which may not be a bad thing at all! So be sure to have something to mop it all up with too, like some good crusty bread.

HEATING: It takes about 6 minutes, using either Microwave or Stove Top to cook this from frozen. I cooked this on the stove top in a nonstick pan (adding 2 tbls water or broth and cover and stirring occasionally.)

MAKING THIS INTO A NICE MEAL

Many items will match well with all the sauce and gnocchi. You can easily turn this into a substantial meal by adding things to the dish : eg, protein and/or veggies.

TIP: One thing this matched well with were chicken sausages, such as TJ’s ORGANIC ITALIAN CHICKEN SAUSAGES or the apple chardonnay chicken sausages or the unexpected cheddar chicken sausages…. or Chicken Meatballs.

Add your favorite Chicken Sausages (or chicken meatballs.) I would also add veggies too.

CHICKEN SAUSAGE AND GNOCCHI: First Brown up some sliced chicken sausages (or chicken meatballs). Remove then mix in when the gnocchi are ready and let sit for a minute to meld flavors.

Seafood? I think Shrimp or Scallops could work too. If they were defrosted add them, during the last two minutes.

Vegetarians might add the vegetarian sausage of their choice.

ADDING VEGETABLES – They will match well with this dish. Just Add cooked or frozen vegetables. TJ’S Frozen French green beans work well with this sauce as do frozen peas. Or spinach. You could just toss in a generous handful of veggies and cook those along with the sauce. They should all be done at the same time.

These sweet potato gnocchi in sauce were about $3.50. I like them and give them a good if not great review only as they don’t stand out as “sweet potato”. However we thought these were quite tasty. They do seem to be very popular. Add maybe some salad and bread along with this dish, you can have a nice substantial meal. And maybe the additions mentioned above if you want to beef it up even more.

Trader Joe’s SWEET POTATO GNOCCHI with Butter & Sage – 14.1 ounces

While I liked these just fine I also like other gnocchi choices available at Trader Joe’s. Boiled soft gnocchi such as this dish are good however I LOVE pan fried, crispy gnocchi which you make by sautéeing shelf stable gnocchi with a little olive oil and butter until they get golden brown. Then add sauce at the end.

When pan fried gnocchi get a crispy texture which you can’t get with saucy prepared, frozen ones. I often make Trader Joe’s (shelf stable) potato gnocchi – I cook those up so they get a golden brown on the outside, and add my own sauce. In that case, I can add my own butter, sage, grated cheese and a squeeze of lemon to come up with a dish a bit like this one, but with a bit of a crispier texture, plus frankly I don’t need quite so much sauce.

Trader Joe’s shelf stable potato gnocchi are not only cheaper ($2), you can get them crispy. Try making crispy gnocchi at least once. So good that way. So honestly I would say try this dish, and later make your own dish, using those TJ’s regular potato gnocchi pan fried up crispy (and add butter and some sage and cheese for a sauce).

https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/gnocchi-073578

Here’s a link on “How to fry gnocchi, and why you should want to!)

How To Fry Gnocchi (and why you should want to!)