A light and appetizing first course, the potato gnocchi with Luigia herb cream. A simple dish, egg-free with an aromatic herb sauce.
These are classic gnocchi, composed solely of potatoes, flour, and salt, without eggs, vegan gnocchi.
What can we dress these light potato gnocchi with?
I wanted to prepare a cream of Luigia herb, also known as lemon verbena, but whose scientific name is Lippia citriodora, do you know it?
If you don’t use it, I’ll introduce it to you! It’s a very fragrant perennial herb that will delight you every year with many little flowers to decorate your dishes. Here is my plant:
The Luigia herb or lemon verbena is one of the most well-known plants in herbal medicine: for example, used for digestive teas, to make a wonderful liqueur, here it is here. I also use it to put in gomasio, flavor oil, put it in desserts, in ravioli, in fruit salad, and even make digestive sugar cubes to give at Christmas. Now it’s time for the cream for these delicate Luigia herb potato gnocchi.
Regarding its properties, Cedrina is known to stimulate appetite, aid digestion, eliminate intestinal gas, and exert a mild antispasmodic and sedative action.
Here then are the potato gnocchi with Luigia herb cream and below the recipes with this aromatic herb that makes everything special.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Very economical
- Preparation time: 45 Minutes
- Portions: 4 people
- Cooking methods: Boiling
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Spring, Summer, and Fall
Ingredients for Potato Gnocchi with Luigia Herb Cream
- 20 leaves lemon verbena
- 1 oz pine nuts
- 3.5 oz extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tbsp water (ice-cold)
- 1.75 oz Parmesan cheese (optional)
- 1.3 lbs potatoes (from Rotzo)
- 1.5 cups all-purpose flour (organic)
- to taste salt
Preparation of Luigia Herb Cream
In the immersion blender jug, place the pine nuts and chop finely, add the Luigia herb leaves, a few tablespoons of water, and the oil in a drizzle until a smooth cream forms. If preferred, you can use plant-based milk instead of water. Set aside and move on to our gnocchi.
Wash the potatoes and place them whole and unpeeled to cook in cold water. Choose potatoes of the same size to ensure even cooking. After about 30-40 minutes (depending on the size), they will be ready. You can also use a pressure cooker to halve the cooking time.
Once ready, drain and peel them. Pass them through a food mill or potato ricer directly onto the work surface.Spread the mashed potatoes with a dough scraper to let all the residual steam escape.
At this point, add the salt and flour a little at a time and start kneading. It is best to knead as little as possible, or the gnocchi will become hard. The flour should be 25% – 30% relative to the potatoes, but as mentioned, it can depend on many factors.
The less flour the potatoes require, the better, as the gnocchi will be softer.
Once a dough ball is formed, cut pieces to make logs that you will roll with your hands, rolling them on the work surface until about 0.6 inches thick then cut them into gnocchi about 0.8 inches long.Pass each gnocchi over the tines of a fork, exerting some pressure to make them roll from bottom to top, or use a gnocchi board; this way, they will have the characteristic ridges, and a cavity will form to hold the Luigia herb cream.
Do not flour them too much, or they will become sticky; if necessary, use rice flour, which dissolves completely in water.
Cook them immediately in boiling salted water, a few at a time; as soon as they rise to the surface, they are ready to be dressed with the delicate Luigia herb cream.
For the herbs and flowers on the plate feature, this month, with friends, we talked about lemon verbena, check out the beautiful recipes from:
Elisa: Melopita, Greek sweet with ricotta and honey
Miria: Fig and lemon verbena jam
Tiziana Ice cream with lemon verbena and lime
Tips
It’s best to prepare the right amount of gnocchi and consume them immediately. However, you can freeze your gnocchi and the Luigia herb cream in their raw state. When ready to serve, throw the frozen gnocchi into boiling salted water and defrost the Luigia herb cream in the microwave.
Toss the drained gnocchi gently and serve immediately.
Toss the drained gnocchi gently and serve immediately.
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