Air Fryer Potato Gnocchi

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Air Fryer Potato Gnocchi. How to air fry gnocchi to make the most delicious crispy potato gnocchi that you have ever tasted.  

If you love gnocchi and have ever wondered if you can cook gnocchi in the air fryer, then you have landed on the right gnocchi recipe. Showing you not only how to prep gnocchi for the air fryer, but also how to cook it and how to use gnocchi to make the most amazing air fryer gnocchi casserole.

Loaded with cheese, gluten free oat flour, leftover potatoes, egg and seasoning this is simple home cooked Italian food at its very best.

Air Fryer Gnocchi

Air Fryer gnocchi is my thing and let me tell you why, they need to be your thing too.

I love leftovers. I am obsessed with leftovers. Because of my obsession with leftovers, I often only cook once a day, yet I put 2-3 home cooked meals on the table for my family every day.

This is because at least one of the meals we eat each day will be based around leftovers.

At the dinner table I will politely mention to Kyle, that he is not having three lots of dinner and instead the leftovers will be for the next meal.  

One of my favourite leftover recipes, is whatever is left at the bottom of the Instant Pot Pressure Cooker.

We might be having an Instant Pot Potato Corn Chowder, then I will keep an extra ladle or two of it and use that as a base for a pasta sauce for dinner. Hardly any effort went into either meal and I have saved money on our cheap family meals.

Or a few other examples would be my Instant Pot Creamy Tomato Pasta, Instant Pot Tuscan Chicken Stew or even reheating your KFC leftovers.

But gnocchi is the best of the best. You can take your leftover Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes and transform them into crispy potato sensations.

Let’s say the tonight you have some mashed potatoes in the instant pot, then leave it in the Instant Pot inner pot in the fridge overnight, using your silicone lid and then the next day you can grab your chilled and hard leftover mashed potatoes and make my air fryer potato gnocchi.

Bookmark this and when you have got potato leftovers, you can make something truly special, that you will look forward to having some spare mashed potatoes with next time.

What Is Gnocchi?

Before I talk to you about air fryer gnocchi lets talk about what gnocchi is.

An easy way to describe gnocchi is as a pasta alternative made from potatoes. It is served in dishes instead of pasta and when cooked is like an alternative to using macaroni.

You can load cooked gnocchi into soups, sauces and casseroles just like you would with mainstream pasta.

Gnocchi can be a wonderful alternative if you are following a gluten free diet and we have used ingredients in our air fryer gnocchi that keep it gluten free.

Can You Air Fry Gnocchi?

Absolutely! Once you cook gnocchi in the air fryer once there is no going back.

Gnocchi is so much better in an air fryer. You can use your air fryer grill pan to place your gnocchi, giving it space to breathe and allowing the air fryer to crisp it up.

It doesn’t stick to the air fryer, making it easy to prep to go in a soup or casserole.

What Ingredients & Gadgets Go Into Air Fryer Gnocchi?

There are 5 main ingredients that go into an air fryer gnocchi:

• Leftover Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes
• Bobs Red Mill Oat Flour
• Eggs
• Grated Cheese
• Seasoning

I would recommend before making your air fryer gnocchi that you have a good air fryer or an air fryer with a grill pan.

That is because there are so many cheap brands of air fryers, that are just not very good and air fryers that are not non-stick.

I have tested several of them and been disappointed.

What I do recommend is the Philips Air Fryer XL and the Philips Air Fryer Grill Pan. They work well together on a lot of recipes and this is what gadgets we used today in our air fryer gnocchi.

And if you are following our recipe to transform our gnocchi into an air fryer gnocchi casserole, then I would recommend this air fryer pizza pan too.

I also suggest that if you are using leftover instant pot mashed potatoes that you buy an instant pot silicone lid and an extra inner pot. That way you can keep your leftovers in the fridge until you need them.

Air Fryer Gnocchi Tips

• No Leftovers? If you don’t have leftovers, I recommend you follow our Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes recipe with two large potatoes and then follow on the recipe once your mash has cooked and been placed in the freezer for half an hour.

• Cold Mash. Gnocchi works best on cold potatoes that have been chilled and mashed. If you have recently eaten and your mash is not cold, give it half an hour in the freezer to cool it down. This is also because dry mash that has lost its creamy texture is so much easier to work with.

• Add Ins. You can also add in your own favourite flavours and extras to your gnocchi. We love to use oregano, basil or thyme. But you can alter it to what seasonings you have in. You could also add more cheese or a different cheese to what we have used.

• White Potato Alternatives. Even though we recommend white potatoes for gnocchi you can alter it for your own diet. You can use frozen gnocchi, instant pot sweet potato mash or instant pot cauliflower mash.

• Save On Washing Up. Use your instant pot inner pot to mix everything. Then not only did you not have to wash it the night before, the mix comes away well and it doesn’t need much of a soak.

• Flour Your Hands. This is something my husband taught me from being a chef early on in our marriage. Always flour your hands when baking with something sticky and when you are mixing egg and mash it certainly falls under this criteria.

How To Air Fry Gnocchi?

1. Make sure your leftover mashed potato is nicely chilled. If left overnight it will be dry to touch and easy to handle.
2. In your Instant Pot inner pot add to the spare mashed potatoes your egg, cheese, oat flour and seasoning. Using your hands combine until you have a large ball of gnocchi mixture.
3. Place the gnocchi onto a chopping board and make into 8 equal slices in a similar way to if you are slicing a pizza.
4. Roll out each piece like a thin sausage, then slice into 1 cm sizes. Putting them to one side.
5. Place as many will fit into your air fryer grill pan without touching each other.
6. Set the time to 6 minutes and the temperature to 200c/400f.
7. When they are done you can use them however you wish or just eat them as they are.

Air Fryer Gnocchi Casserole

I decided to transform my air fryer potato gnocchi into an air fryer gnocchi casserole. Something different and a great use of other leftovers from the fridge.

I had some spare soup maker tomato sauce in the fridge, from another meal and loaded up with more cheese is always good!

To make your air fryer gnocchi casserole is not that different to regular air fryer gnocchi.

All you do is follow our gnocchi air fryer recipe and then add in these extra steps at the end:

Layer your cooked and crispy potato gnocchi into the bottom of your air fryer pizza pan.

Add in a layer of grated cheese. We used Emmental but any would do. Add a layer of tomato sauce, like you would do a base of a pizza.

Add another layer of cheese, sliced tomatoes and a sprinkling of oregano. Then cook in the air fryer in the pizza pan for a further 6 minutes at 180c/360f and this is what you end up with:

It is like a delicious casserole or a loaded gluten free pizza and I can guarantee it was all gone!

More Air Fryer Leftover Recipes

Here at Recipe This we love easy air fryer recipes made from leftovers. Here are a few more leftover air fryer recipe ideas for you to try next:

• Air Fryer Flourless Baked Potato Cakes – Another great use of leftover instant pot mashed potatoes and a great way to use up some of your grated cheese too.
• Air Fryer Leftover Muffins – Transform the spare veg from the bottom of your fridge into delicious tasty muffins.
• Air Fryer Oven Pizza Rolls – What I made with some leftover pizza dough and plenty of cheese.

Air Fryer Gnocchi + Jorge

When I am cooking in the kitchen you can guarantee that Jorge will be by my side. He loves cooking and I love teaching him how to cook.

He has his own set of kitchen knives and air fryer gnocchi is perfect for cooking with your kids.

What I hate about this modern world is that kids are not taught enough about cooking compared to when I was little.

Its one of those skills we all need, and I make sure I cook with the kids whenever I can.

Using their kids knife set, they can cut up the slices, mix the instant pot ingredients and get excited and press the air fryer buttons.

Of course, their reward is that they get to taste it first!

Can’t make it now? Then pin it for later!