Gluten-Free Gnocchi With Mini Chicken Sausage Meatballs

Are you ready to rock your taste-buds’ world? If you answered that question with a big fat “YES” then I have the recipe for you!

First step, make sure you have some gluten-free gnocchi on hand. Whether you make it yourself, or buy it premade, either will work. I used Cappello’s fresh gluten-free gnocchi for this dish.

Second step – make sure you have the rest of the ingredients for this amazeballs dish (literally, it’s amazeballs because it has two types of balls in it – gnocchi and chicken sausage meatballs).

Gluten-Free Gnocchi with Mini Chicken Sausage Meatballs

Recipe adapted from Rachael Ray of the Food Network

Ingredients:

• 1 pound gnocchi (or however much you have, I actually used a bit less than 1 pound)
• 1 ½ lbs ground chicken
• 1 tbsp grill seasoning (I used the McCormick grill seasoning we had in my cupboard)
• 1 tsp fennel seeds (found with the spices at the grocery store)
• ¼ cup tender sun dried tomatoes (I used a pouch sold at my Kroger store)
• 20 leaves fresh basil (small container’s worth)
• 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil (plus a bit more to drizzle)
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• ½ tsp crushed red pepper
• 1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes
• 1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce
• Grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Bring a pot of water to boil for gnocchi. Season the water with salt, add gnocchi and cook according to the package instructions.

Place ground chicken in a medium bowl. Add grill seasoning and fennel seeds.

Pile sun-dried tomatoes on top of each other in small stacks and slice into thin strips. Add into bowl with ground chicken. Pile 10 basil leaves on top of one another and roll into a log. Shred basil by slicing the log into thin pieces. Add basil to bowl then drizzle some extra-virgin olive oil on top and mix all ingredients together.

Preheat a large skillet over medium heat and add 2 tbsp of extra-virgin olive oil, the chopped onions, and the crushed red pepper. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Then, stir in the tomatoes and sauce. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer on low heat. Stir in the remaining 10 basil leaves.

Drain gnocchi once cooked and remove the mini chicken sausage meatballs once they done. Toss the meatballs into the sauce.

Add the gluten-free gnocchi into the skillet as well. Toss with the sauce and meatballs. Serve with fresh Parmesan cheese over top.

This recipe might have a few more steps than I’m used to, but boy are they worth it! This was one of the best Italian dishes I’ve ever made myself. I can thank Cappello’s Gluten-Free for the amazing gnocchi balls, and then I can thank my mom for finding the recipe for the mini chicken sausage meatballs.

Do you like to take it up a notch sometimes and make amazing dishes like this, or are you all about convenience? I think it’s nice to do something special in the kitchen every once in a while.

Author Information: Laura Hanley

Laura Hanley, known as G-Free Laura, has been gluten-free since 2009. She reviews gluten-free products, restaurants, posts simple recipes, and writes about gluten-free experiences onwww.gfreelaura.com. Laura also blogs for the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness and Rudi’s Gluten-Free Bakery. You can follow Laura’s young, wild, and [gluten] free updates by finding her on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Google+.