Gnocchi alla sorrentina recipe: Naples' baked tomato classic
Potato gnocchi get boiled just until they float, then finished in the oven, so the tomato sauce and mozzarella blister into a crust instead of staying a sauce you spoon over pasta.
This gnocchi alla sorrentina recipe turns a simple tomato-and-mozzarella sauce into something closer to a bake: the gnocchi go into the oven after a brief boil, so the cheese browns and the sauce tightens around them instead of pooling underneath.
The dish takes its name from Sorrento, across the bay from Naples, though versions of it turn up anywhere in Campania that grows good tomatoes and keeps buffalo or cow's-milk mozzarella nearby. It is built from three ingredients doing real work, not garnish: potato gnocchi, a plain tomato sauce, and a cheese that melts rather than just softens. Fresh gnocchi and fresh mozzarella are on the opening menu at Circolo Popolare, Big Mamma's new Berlin trattoria, this is the dish behind that line on the menu, rebuilt for a home oven.
Ingredients
A sauce that just coats pasta is one dish. A sauce that chars under cheese in the oven is another.
- 600 g fresh potato gnocchi
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, lightly crushed
- 400 g San Marzano tomatoes, hand-crushed
- 1 tsp sea salt, plus more for the pasta water
- 200 g fior di latte or fresh mozzarella, torn
- 30 g Parmesan, grated
- A handful of basil leaves
Method
- Warm the olive oil in a pan over medium heat and add the garlic. Cook until fragrant but not coloured, about a minute, so it flavours the oil without turning bitter.
- Add the crushed tomatoes and salt. Simmer uncovered for 15–18 minutes, until the sauce thickens enough to coat a spoon. Remove the garlic cloves.
- Bring a large pot of well-salted water to the boil. Cook the gnocchi for just a minute or two, until they rise to the surface; they will finish cooking in the oven, so slightly underdone is right.
- Drain the gnocchi and fold them gently into the tomato sauce, coating each one without breaking them apart.
- Transfer to a baking dish, scatter over the torn mozzarella and Parmesan, and bake at 220°C (430°F) for 8–10 minutes, until the cheese blisters and browns in patches rather than melting flat.
- Scatter with basil just before serving, while the top is still bubbling.
Why bake instead of just sauce
Boiling gnocchi fully before saucing them is the faster route, but it leaves a soft, uniform dish with no texture contrast. The short blanch-then-bake method used here does two things at once: it keeps the gnocchi's centre light, since they are not sitting in liquid long enough to turn gummy, and it gives the top a blistered, slightly charred cheese crust that a stovetop sauce can't produce.
If you want a less rich version, swap half the mozzarella for ricotta salata, grated over at the end instead of baked in; it won't melt, but it adds a salty edge the fresh cheese alone doesn't.
Can I make it ahead? Assemble everything up to the baking step, cover and refrigerate for up to a day, then bake straight from the fridge, adding two or three extra minutes.
