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

Trader Joe’s frozen “SWEET POTATO GNOCCHI with butter and sage” looked interesting enough for me to review. It even says “Product of Italy”, which sounds promising. These gnocchi seem quite popular and get a fair amount of interest here.

To review it, three of us tasted it as one part of a dinner we had put together. We all thought this was tasty, however we also all found it a bit different than what we were expecting. The main thing being all of us said the same thing to start with. Are they sweet potato? Well, other than that these have an orange color, if it didn’t say sweet potato none of us could have told you these were Sweet Potato Gnocchi as opposed to a regular potato gnocchi.

Butter and sage is a classic sauce and the sauce here was tasty. We were a bit surprised at how much sauce comes in this. So just know the dish is pretty saucy, which may not be a bad thing. The flavor of the sauce was tasty, nice and buttery with the hint of sage. Since there is so much sauce, be sure to have something to mop it all up with like some good crusty bread, as we did.

Again our main comment was about being if you can tell these are “sweet potato”. The first 3 ingredients listed in this are: sweet potato, wheat flour and potatoes, so they do have regular potatoes in it.

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

It takes about 3-6 minutes, Microwave or Stove Top to cook. I cooked this on the stove top in a pan (adding 2 tbls water or broth and cover) stirring occasionally.

RECIPE IDEAS ABOUT ADDING TO THE DISH:

As good as this is already, you can easily turn this into a more substantial meal by adding something. For example you could add your favorite Chicken Sausages which match well with this dish. Just brown some of Trader Joe’s chicken sausages – or chicken meatballs – and mix those in when the gnocchi are ready. I think Shrimp would work well too. Vegetarians might add the vegetarian sausage of their choice.

Adding VEGGIES work well with this dish. Another idea I had was adding some frozen vegetables. I Frozen green beans might work well. Or peas. Or spinach. You could just toss in a generous handful of veg for some extra taste and a little veggie protein and cook those along with the sauce.

MAKE THIS A MEAL: Add some salad and bread along with this and you can have a nice substantial dinner with this gnocchi. And maybe the additions mentioned above if you want to beef it up even more.

While I liked these I like other gnocchi choices available at Trader Joe’s. Boiled soft gnocchi such as this dish are fine, however I am quite partial to pan fried gnocchi which you make by sautéeing the gnocchi with a little olive oil and butter until they get golden brown – then add sauce at the end.

These sweet potato one in sauce were about $3.69. I like them and give them a good if not great review mainly as as they don’t stand out as being “sweet potato” gnocchi but still we thought these were tasty.

I love gnocchi when they are fried up and get a little bit of a delicious texture on the outside which you can’t get with prepared, sauced frozen ones, like this dish.

Frequently I make Trader Joe’s (shelf stable) potato gnocchi – a product I just love and buy all the time (and its cheaper, just $1.99 $2.29). I cook those up so they get a golden brown on the outside, and add my own sauce. In this case, I might add my own butter, sage and 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, and frankly I don’t need so much sauce.

My go to gnocchi, as mentioned, are the packages of Trader Joe’s shelf stable potato gnocchi on the shelves along with their pastas. Those gnocchi are not only cheaper but you can get those crispy by frying/baking/air frying them up to brown them.

Trust me, try making crispy gnocchi at least once. So good that way. So honestly I would say try out both kinds, this dish, and later make your own dish, with TJ’s regular potato gnocchi pan fried up crispy (and add butter and some sage and cheese for a sauce).

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!)