Crispy gnocchi with roasted tomatos, edamame and pesto

Do you like gnocchi? They are not my personal favorite… unless they are air fried. Then, the otherwise chewy and bland morsel becomes a crispy delicacy, maybe because it reminds me of fries 🙂

Anyway, I wanted to share this recipe I recently made. This was inspired by something I saw in the September 2026 issue of UK Vegan Food and Living magazine. I reduced the oil and added edamame for protein. The result was delicious to me, a real treat of flavors and textures.

You will need an air fryer for this recipe. If you don’t have one, you can use the oven instead, but cooking times will be longer.

Ingredients

Yields 4 appetizers or 2 mains.

• 1 package of potato gnocchi (about 1 pound – I used Trader Joe’s)
• 8 oz of cherry tomatoes
• 2 cups of fresh basil
• 6 tbsp of raw unsalted sunflower seeds
• 3 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 tbps olive oil (for the pesto)
• The juice of half medium lemon
• Water
• Some more olive oil for air frying
• 1 cup of fresh of frozen shelled edamame
• Salt and pepper.

Instructions

1. Preheat air fryer to 360F.
2. Toss the tomatoes with a little olive oil and salt, and cook in air fryer for about 10 minutes.
3. Increase the air fryer temperature to 390F. Toss the gnocchi with little olive oil, salt, and pepper, and cook in the air fryer for about 10 minutes, shaking once or twice.
4. Meanwhile, make the pesto: blend the basil, suflower seeds, lemon juice, nutritional yeast and 2 tbsp of water. Adjust texture by adding more water as needed. Depending on how much pesto you put into the gnocchi, you may have leftovers.
5. If needed, heat the edamame in the microwave.
6. Mix the crispy gnocchi with the edamame and blend the desired amount of pesto. I recommend keeping it light, as pesto has a strong flavor. You can always add more later if you’d like. Top with the roasted tomatoes and enjoy warm and crispy.
7. If you have leftover pesto, you can keep in in the fridge for 3-5 days and use it with veggies, pasta, sandwiches, etc. The basil can turn a little dark but that’s fine, it doesn’t affect quality.