Sausage, butternut squash & kale gnocchi bake
on Nov 14, 2014, Updated Apr 09, 2020
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.
If you’re a fan of pasta bakes, how about trying a gnocchi bake instead? This one is a little bit of everything – oozy, cheesy and comforting, but also healthy, tasty and easy to make.
This sausage, butternut squash & kale gnocchi bake is tasty comfort food at its best!
What’s so great about it?
- Anything that’s called a ‘bake’ shouts cheesy, oozy deliciousness to me, and this one doesn’t disappoint.
- It has relatively few ingredients in it.
- The flavours are fantastic. Sausage meat always makes for a great hit of taste. The rich tomato sauce contains fennel seeds, garlic, fresh basil and a little splash of balsamic vinegar to add a bit more oomph.
- The kale and roasted butternut squash makes you feel all smug about eating super healthy and tasty veggies.
How do you make it?
This is a great wholesome and healthy midweek meal. Make it in just a few simple steps:
Step 1
Prepare the vegetables and gnocchi. So roast the butternut squash, and boil the kale and gnocchi.
Step 2
Make the sausage tomato sauce on the stove top. Use yummy herbs like thyme, fennel seeds and basil. Don’t be afraid of the fennel – it goes really well with sausage.
Step 3
Stir the vegetables and gnocchi through the sauce, then tip into a baking dish. Sprinkle mozzarella and parmesan over the top and BAKE.
How to eat a gnocchi bake!
Now this aint rocket science! After you’ve prepared everything and tossed the sauce through the gnocchi, this is a one pan meal.
You don’t need to prepare any side dishes. Just spoon into dishes and enjoy!
More gnocchi recipes
- If you’re loving the gnocchi vibe in this post, you’ll also LOVE this amazing pan-fried gnocchi with cherry tomatoes recipe.
- If you’re loving the gnocchi AND sausage vibe and you’re a fan of 30-minute meals, try this easy baked gnocchi with sausage, peppers and tomatoes (including a fabulous recipe for homemade ricotta gnocchi)
- Ever tried gnocchi soup? This crockpot chicken gnocchi soup is legendary (oh and an Olive Garden copycat recipe)
More easy comfort food
- 30 minute Greek macaroni cheese
- creamy lemon chicken orzo soup (a bit like this gnocchi soup, but it’s a stove top recipe ready in just 30 minutes!)
- samosa pie (Like samosas? You’ll love samosa pie!)
- Swedish meatballs!
- pasta alla norma (delicious eggplant and tomato pasta)
- Or check out all of Scrummy Lane’s easy meal ideas!
IF YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE, LET ME KNOW HOW YOU GET ON BY LEAVING A COMMENT AND RATING BELOW… AND DON’T FORGET TO SIGN UP TO RECEIVE ALL MY NEW RECIPES BY EMAIL!
FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, PINTEREST AND YOUTUBE.
Sausage, butternut squash & kale gnocchi bake
Ingredients
- about half a butternut squash, chopped into smallish pieces
- 3.5 ounces kale, washed & chopped into small pieces (remove any tough stems)
- one package of potato gnocchi, mine was about 17 ounces – 500 grams
- olive oil for frying
- 1 onion
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed or finely sliced
- 4 good quality pork sausages
- 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 14 ounces passata
- a large handful of fresh basil leaves, chopped
- salt & pepper to taste
- 1 ball of mozzarella
- a handful of grated parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350F/180C. Toss the butternut squash with a little olive oil, salt and pepper on a baking tray, cover with foil and roast for 30 minutes. Then take off the foil and roast for another 10 minutes. Put aside.
- Boil the kale for about 5 minutes, then tip in the gnocchi as well and cook for a couple of minutes longer. Drain and set aside.
- Heat up a good drizzle of olive oil in a skillet/frying pan, then fry the onion for a couple of minutes. Add the garlic to the pan, then run a knife down the side of the sausages so that you can squeeze the meat out into the pan. Cook, breaking up the sausage meat into small bits as you go, for 7 or 8 minutes, then add the thyme, fennel seeds & passata and cook for a further few minutes. Finally, stir in the basil.
- Add the squash, kale and gnocchi to the sausage and tomato mixture, then give it all a good stir before tipping it into a medium-sized baking dish. Tear the mozzarella ball into pieces over the top, sprinkle the parmesan over and bake for about 20 minutes until bubbling.
This sounds like such perfect comfort food. I am loving kale at the moment.
We know some of our neighbours and they are really nice, others are not so nice.
Hi, Dannii! Hope you enjoyed the rest of your holiday! I’m a bit of a kale newbie and am not sure what to make of it yet. It was good in this bake and I love kale crisps, though. Mmmmm!
C’est sure Helen, avoir un chien ou des enfants ça aide! J’ai commencé à rencontre de gens ici quand j’ai eu mes enfants. Les voisins qu’avant ils ne disent pas bonjour ils on commencer à s’arrêté pour voir ce qu’avait dans le landau ! Peut être ton voisin il vous laissera promené le chien de temps en temps !
Ton plat me paraît divine ! C’est l’heure de dîner, j’ai faim et j’aurais aimer gouté ton plat chaud !!
Coucou, Eva, et merci beaucoup! Je suis ravie que tu aimes ce plat tant. Je l’ai mange de nouveau aujourd’hui parce que j’avais mis le restant au congelateur. Mmmm!
OK, donc selon ton conseil je dois acheter un petit chien et avoir un bebe a la fois! Pourquoi pas?! 😉
this looks perfect for dinner tonight! Hope you meet more people to say hello to on your daily walks 🙂
Thanks so much, Tandy!! 🙂
Helen. This is my kind of dish! I love gnocchi and all the veggie-sausage goodness going on. Pinned!
Hi, Marcie! Thanks so much for the pin. I find that anything with sausage in it tastes really good – and because it’s so tasty you don’t need to add too many other ingredients. Just my kind of dish, too!
Gnocchi is one of my favorite dishes, yet I hardly ever make it! I definitely have to change that after seeing this recipe. What a fantastic idea to combine sausage and butternut squash into a bake. Sounds like the perfect comfort food, Helen!
This was actually the first time I’d cooked with gnocchi for ages, and the first time ever I’d made a bake with it, but I was really pleased with the result. Glad you like it, Gayle!
You know what they say…we get what we give… which means you will be swimming in friendly hellos in no time! Your energy will speak for itself…but cute babies and puppies never hurt either! 😉 And this dish…forget about it! I need it in my life right now!
Hi, Annie! Haha … that’s so true! Well, I hope it’s true. Thanks so much for passing by, and so happy you like this!
This sounds amazing. What a delicious combination of flavors! I love gnocchi, and it sounds phenomenal paired with the butternut squash and sausage. Pinned!
Hi, Rachel! Thanks so much! You can’t really go wrong with sausage in a tomato sauce – it’s so tasty!
Oh my. This is like comfort food central right here. It’s like a fully loaded pasta bake. Talk about a sensational combination of flavours! You ROCK! I bet the UK Delicious magazine is a poor cousin compared to this. PS I also like the addition of Kale so I can feel like I am adding some goodness to the carbs / cheese / sausage. YUM!!
Hi, Nagi. Hahahaha … thanks for suggesting that my version could be better than Delicious mag’s!! I must admit I added more passata than they did, and also the butternut squash and some different herbs. Still, I thought I’d better give them the credit for the original idea 😉
So glad you like it!
Let me tell you something, there is a house for sell in my development and I would love to have you as a neighbor! For multiple reasons, you seem totally like a friendly person at least virtually 🙂 and I might have chances to get leftovers or be a guinea pig for you!
That would be lovely hehe!
Hope you are doing well Helen, I understand you are settling down (sorry I have been around, a lot of things lately that took my mind away… 🙁 Anyway!)
Hi, Melanie! Oh, don’t worry at all, I know what it’s like to have a lot of things going on. It’s very hard to keep up with blogging sometimes! Oh, how I wish I could buy that house next to you. Thanks so much for saying you think I’d be a good neighbour (blush blush!) I feel very honoured that you said that and hope to meet you some day ‘in the flesh’! 🙂
Ummm It’s almost quite same here!!!! It is very rare that you’ll come across a random stranger who will smile at you while on the street. Usually, everyone avoids eye contact (even me, sometimes, ’cause I’m pretty sure I’ll flash my pearlies and will end up sorely embarrassed when the opposite person does not LOL)I am craving this gnocchi bake!!!! OMGoooooooodness it looks soooooo good!!!!!I can almost taste this when I look at it! Need to make it stat!!!!!
Hi, Samina! Really, it’s like that in India, too? I would have expected it to be much friendlier there! It must be just modern life, wherever you are in the world – especially in cities. So glad you like the gnocchi bake! I have some defrosting in the fridge for tomorrow’s lunch – yum!