Bacon Broccoli Gnocchi Bake

My bacon broccoli gnocchi bake is the best weeknight dinner idea that is so easy to through together and so full of flavour

Easy dinner recipes

When it comes to dinner time, I always want an easy yet absolutely delicious recipe to make. I’m someone who spends most of her day in the kitchen, so I don’t want to spend ages and ages make dinner at the end of the day.

When I posted my macaroni cheese, my chicken leek and bacon pie, and even my creamy garlic chicken you all adored the recipes. They are recipes that you can make without much thought, with pretty common ingredients, and they taste epic.

Alsop, I know, shock, I do savoury recipes now… I’m sure you’ll cope if this upsets you. This is just a gentle reminder that my blog is me posting recipes that I want to post, that I want to eat, and more importantly, are recipes that people ask for. Thousands of people asking for savoury recipes means you get them.

Gnocchi

So, I have a recent addiction to gnocchi. It’s something that I have enjoyed over the years, but honestly?! I just can’t stop make something delicious with it most nights of the week. I think my boyfriend has just accepted his fate of eating gnocchi a couple times a week at this point.

Gnocchi is similar in a sense to pasta when you make it like this, and yet its suitably different. I will say, on most occasions I will just use a shop bought packet of gnocchi and there is nothing wrong with this.

I buy a plain packet of gnocchi, as the rest of the flavour from the bake is enough to make a delicious and tasty dinner. Honestly, I have made this so many times now and I have it constantly ready in the freeze to bake and go.

Flavours

I decided to make this a bacon and broccoli flavoured bake because I wanted to basically use up what I had in the fridge, and it just became a thing. I adore this combination, and now even more so.

For the bacon, I decided to use lardons. I prefer lardons generally in a recipe like this because I think they cook down much nicer than bits of bacon sliced up, but that does work very well as well. You can use smoked or unsmoked, that’s up to your taste.

I just use a regular basic floret of broccoli for this and just cut off the tops, and then chop down the stalk into smaller pieces and add that in as well. I never throw the stalk away as it’s still perfectly edible.

The sauce

The sauce is quite a simple mix of ingredients, but again I have purposely made it that way. I wanted to post a recipe that is easy to throw together in a pan and shove in a baking dish.

The base of the sauce starts with frying the onion off with the lardons and baking the lardons crispy, and then you add the flavours of garlic, wholegrain mustard, oregano, thyme and salt and pepper. These flavours together make a wonderful flavour.

The liquid of the sauce is made up of single cream and stock. You can use vegetable stock, chicken stock, any stock you want. This does also get thickened up with cornflour later on and the liquid soaks slightly into the gnocchi as it bakes.

I know bacon is salty, so I only add a little salt, as I also add a small amount of parmesan to the sauce which is just 10/10 delicious.

Prepping

I pour my recipe into a medium sized baking dish, as it has four good sized portions. If you want to serve more, you’ll need to double the recipe to use a large dish.

I sprinkle the top of the bake with some grated cheddar cheese as I like how it goes tasty and golden on the top, it’s just so yummy. This is optional of course, but I would highly recommend it.

This is perfect to shove straight in the oven, but also if you want to prep in advance I will pour it into the dish and then cool, and then place in the freezer. I defrost it in the dish, then add the cheese and bake to make it easier.

Tips & Tricks

• This recipe serves four, perfect served with a side salad and garlic bread
• I use shop bought gnocchi
• I used a medium sized dish with a size of roughly 30x20cm
• If you prep it into the dish, it can freeze for 3+ months and then top with cheese and bake
• You can reheat this one but heating the oven to 160ºc and baking for 30 minutes

Bacon Broccoli Gnocchi Bake

My bacon broccoli gnocchi bake is the best weeknight dinner idea that is so easy to through together and so full of flavour

Print Pin Rate

Category: Savoury

Type: Dinner

Keyword: Bacon, Broccoli, Gnocchi

Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes minutes

Total Time: 40 minutes minutes

Servings: 4 people

Author: Jane's Patisserie

Ingredients

• Splash of olive oil
• 150 g bacon lardons
• 1 brown onion (finely chopped)
• 1 tsp wholegrain mustard
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 2-3+ cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 300 g broccoli (cut into pieces)
• 500 g gnocchi
• 300 ml stock (chicken/vegetable)
• 150 ml single cream
• 1 tbsp cornflour (dissolved in 2tbsp water)
• 35 g parmesan cheese (grated)
• 100 g cheddar (grated)

Grams - Ounces

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 200ºc/180ºc fan and grab a medium sized baking dish
• Heat your pan over a medium-high heat and drizzle in some olive oil 
• Fry the chopped onion and lardons in the pan until the onion softens and the lardons turn crispy
• Add the garlic, mustard, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper and stir in
• Add the broccoli chunks and gnocchi and stir 
• Pour in the stock and cream and dissolved cornflour and stir everything together
• Stir through the parmesan and pour into dish
• Sprinkle over cheddar and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden
• Serve immediately with salad, garlic bread or as it is.

Notes

• This recipe serves four, perfect served with a side salad and garlic bread
• I use shop bought gnocchi
• I used a medium sized dish with a size of roughly 30x20cm
• If you prep it into the dish, it can freeze for 3+ months and then top with cheese and bake
• You can reheat this one but heating the oven to 160ºc and baking for 30 minutes

ENJOY!

Find my other recipes on my Recipes Page!

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