There are 200,000 edible plants – & so many combinations – here’s a tasty one – butternut squash & gnocci traybake. This is so easy – especially if you buy the gnocci ready made.
You just need some vegan gnocci, and a nice good sized butternut squash and you’re away. Make sure you check the gnocci ingredients, as a lot of them slip cow’s milk in for some bizarre reason. I used, Rani brand plain gnocci from Sainsbury’s – though most of their range have decidedely non-vegan ingredients. I used the plain one which fortunately is made specially for pan frying and so works well in the oven.
Most of the ingredients are standard vegan store cupboard staples – though you may need to buy in parmesan & cream cheese. You can subsitute soya yogurt or creme fraiche for the cream cheese if you like. I also added in some baby plum tomatoes and capers to the recipe I found on-line.
The niced thing about this recipe is that you can start making the sauce while the butternut squash are roasting. Then half-way through, you can finish the sauce off, while the butternut squash & gnocci are finishing roasting. You might want to add a splash of water in the roasting gnocci to stop it becoming too dry.
Finding sides to compliment the dish is slightly complicated, because the dish already has carbs in it. But the easy answer to that is a Mediterranean or Greek style tomato salad, with some nice green veggies. Other things that will go well with this Butternut Squash & Gnocci Traybake are garlic bread & hummus or Greek Salad.
This is a vegan version of a non-vegan recipe that I found on-line. I have substantially altered it in making it vegan, and also added in some novel ingredients that improve the result. The baby plum tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes & capers add a littke zest to it.
Gnocci & Butternut Squash Traybake
Equipment
- 1 large pyrex tray
- 1 medium size pyrex tray
Ingredients
The basic tray bake starting ingredients
- 1 kg butternut squast can use frozen if you wish.
- 40 g garlic cloves use less if you're not keen on it
- 1 teasp ground black pepper
- 40 g cold pressed olive oil but use what you need
extras for making the sauce from the cooked butternut squash.
- 1 tbsp low salt natex (yeast extract) `
- 150 g vegan cream cheese sainsbury's or waitrose do a good one
- 75 g vegan parmesan violife or nurrish is good
- 2 heap tbsps yeast flakes
- 1 whole lemon - juice and zest of it zest it first though as you can't do it after!
- 150 g soya or oat milk to thin the sauce can use water... add extra if necessary
Additions to the tray bake after initial cook off.
- 900 g gnocci if often comes in 450g packs so two - but just use 2 whole packs if it comes in 500g
- 200 g baby plum tomatoes halved
- 35 g sundried tomatoes optional
- 35 g capers optional
Final topping for the tray bake
- 20 g fresh sage one bag - use 10g if you only have dried sage
- 3 tsps chilli flakes rounded
- 25 g olive oil extra virgin
- 25 g vegan parmesan optional
Instructions
- pre-heat the oven to 200°C Fan then chop and cube the butternut squash into 1.5cm pieces or so.
- Tip the butternut squash into a large pyrex baking tray adding the unpeeled garlic at the same time.
- drizzle with the olive oil around 30 to 40g and then toss well to cover all the cubes with a thin layer of the oil.
- place in the oven for 30 minutes until the cubes are tender
- remove half the cubes and pick out the roasted garlic.
- Add in the gnocci, halved tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, & capers
- and give it a good stir to distribute them well and coat the gnocci in the remaining olive oil
- bake for a further 20 minutes - giving it another stir round after 10 minutes - if you remember. I find having several kitchen timers is useful for this.......
- put the cubes in a food processor and squeeze in the garlic cloves from direct from the skins.
- Add in the yeast extract, the lemon juice and zest, the cream cheese, the grated vegan parmesan, black pepper, nutritional yeast,
- blend well until you have a fairly sloppy sauce, add extra water or soy/oat milk to get the desired consistency.
- While the gnocci is cooking, put a 3 tablespoons or so of olive oil in a shallow pan on a medium heat and toast the separated sage leaves
- cook until the crisp up to a dark green. Remove quickly with a slotted spoon or spatula and place on kitchen towel.
- Add the chilli flakes to the still hot oil stir for a minute or so, until the colour has gone into the oil, and then turn the heat off.
- transfer the contents of the blender/processor to a large jug or bowl so that you can reheat it to serve.
- just before the 20 minutes for the gnocci is up, give the sauce a couple of minutes on half-power in the microwave to get it back up to around 80°C - a digital thermometer is very useful for this....... begin pouring......
- with the tray out of the oven, finish pouring all the hot sauce over the gnocci and mix it all together.
- Over the top, , arrange the crispy sage leaves, t
- then after a good stir, spoon on enough of the chilli flakes and chilli infused oil and sprinkle some parmesan as well if you like.
