This Easy Baked Gnocchi recipe is a cheesy, comforting dish that’s perfect for a weeknight meal. Made with tomato sauce and fresh mozzarella, it’s truly a must-try.

Rationally, I know gnocchi are a varied family of dumplings. Emotionally, I see them as pasta. I can’t explain it, but it makes sense in my head. Technically, the only thing keeping them from being pasta is the potatoes. In reality, they have more in common than not: they’re both high in carbohydrates, low in protein and comfort-heavy. For a carb lover, it’s the ultimate dream.

What I love about Italian cuisine is that if you take a handful of staple ingredients you’re certain to end up with something marvelous. It’s usually a combination of tomatoes and cheese, garlic, olive oil, and dough. Funnily enough, you could describe this Easy Baked Gnocchi exactly like that: tomatoey, cheesy, doughy, deliciously richy.

Gnocchi has a leg up on pasta in the sense that it cooks so quickly. Once the water is boiling and you dump the little things in the water it all happens so fast, it’ll take you longer to open the tomato can.

Before you know it, they’re floating around at the top of the water. That’s when you know then they’re ready to dive in the sauce and be baked under a layer of mozzarella cheese. I can’t think of a better fate for a dumpling: swimming in a pool of cheesy sauce.

Ingredients for the Perfect Cheesy Baked Gnocchi

It’s my belief mozzarella cheese is a vastly underrated type of cheese. It doesn’t get all the love it deserves. I love how creamy it is, how tender and mild. It’s agreeable and friendly, it goes with everything!

In this recipe I opted for fresh mozzarella – when in doubt, always go with fresh mozzarella – but obviously regular or grated work just fine. If perhaps you’re feeling fancy, burrata is a great option, too. I’d never say no to burrata, fresh mozzarella’s posh luxurious cousin. But in this economy, sometimes you have to make hard choices.

This recipe calls for all the usual suspects: olive oil, garlic, canned tomatoes and parmesan cheese.

For the tomatoes, I’d recommend getting whole plum tomatoes (they’re divine), but any variety will do. As you can see, this is a very accommodating recipe.

As always, measure the garlic, the cheese and the red pepper flakes with your heart, this is not rocket science, after all.

This Italian classic is highly customizable. As long as you’re reasonable and do your best not to offend any Italians out there, there’s not much that can go wrong here.

How to Prepare the Tomato Sauce

The tomato sauce plays a huge part in this recipe, considering it’s the pool in which all the other ingredients get to swim in, but thankfully, it’s as simple as it gets.

Heat the olive oil and garlic in a saucepan, but you don’t want to caramelize the garlic, you just want it to get nice and soft and fragrant. You can also add a few basil leaves at this stage if you want to. Then it’s time to add the canned tomatoes. If you’re using whole tomatoes, use your hands to crush them as you add them to the pan.

Add the water and season with salt. Then let it cook and thicken while you prepare everything else: boil the gnocchi, shred the mozzarella, grate the parmesan, drink a glass of wine, what have you.

Make sure to taste your tomato sauce and adjust the seasonings as necessary. Once the sauce is nice and thick, transfer the gnocchi into the pan and toss to coat. Add as much cheese as your heart desires, then transfer to a baking dish, top with mozzarella and pop in the oven so it gets a chance to get all bubbly and melty. Oh, wonderful! My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

You can finish it off with a drizzle of olive oil and more basil. You can never have too much basil! That’s my motto.

And remember, if you make this Easy Baked Gnocchi, please let me know in the comments!