We previously used Quark for this recipe, and you can do so too if you're not a fan of flavour and fun in your meals. We swapped it out for Philadelphia Lightest which adds a much nicer creaminess but does add 10 syns - so if you are trying to make this lighter, drop it. If you wanted to take it a step further, you could swap the gnocchi for small boiled potatoes, but honestly.
This cheesy gnocchi bake - like all of our recipes - is very easy to customise. Good additions would be sweetcorn, peas or different, strong mushrooms. Quorn mince does work well if you're that way inclined.
Ingredients
100g of button mushrooms, sliced finely
two large peppers (one red, one green, or use whatever you have) diced fine
one large onion, diced fine
one garlic clove, minced fine
500g chilled gnocchi (we use ASDA gnocchi because we've let ourselves go, and that's 6 syns for 500g)
500g of lean mince
pinch of salt and pepper
250g of Philadelphia Lightest (swap for Quark if saving syns) (10 syns)
160g of light grated mozzarella (4 x HEA)
teaspoon of dijon mustard and a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
one beef stock cube
This serves four big portions and comes in at 4 syns each.
Instructions
preheat the oven to 180 degrees
cook your gnocchi according to instructions, but if it's anything other than throwing them in boiling water, waiting for them to float and setting aside, you're doing it wrong
pop your onion and peppers into a heavy-bottomed pan (and one that can go in the oven and under the grill, mind you) with a little bit of oil and sweat it down until softened
add the garlic and mince and fry it off - you can this to be quite 'dry'
we crumble in a stock cube here but you can skip it if you're watching your salt intake
in a bowl, combine the Philadelphia, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper together
mix it into your beef and add the gnocchi
top with the grated cheese
pop into the oven for about fifteen minutes, then under the grill to crisp up for about another five minutes (keep an eye on it)
we serve in a bowl with a lake of hot sauce, but your experience may vary
Notes
Books
our slimming cookbook can be ordered online now - full of 100+ slimming recipes, and bloody amazing, with over 2400 5* reviews - even if we do say so ourselves: click here to order
our new diet planner is launching soon and is utterly brilliant - you can order it here (it’ll open in a new window)
Food
we buy our flavoured oils from Yorkshire Drizzle and we used their chilli oil to cook off the mince and vegetables - you can take a look at their range here: it'll open in a new window
we have started using Musclefood again for meat - until we're happy that their quality is back to what it was, we will not be referring people there - but it's all under review. The mince we used here was superb however!
Tools
a decent sized frying pan that you can make this entire dish in will keep it as a one-pot dinner
we're lucky enough to have a big Le Creuset frying pan which goes in the oven and under the grill no problem at all - we love them, but they're expensive
we were asked where we got our silicone oven-mitts from that someone spotted in a video - they're from Amazon and are dirt cheap (£6) - you can buy them here and the good news is, once you've got your hot pan from the oven, you can grip your boob with the hot mitts and it feels lovely...so I'm told
Coursesdinner
Cuisineeasy dinner
Recipe by twochubbycubs at https://twochubbycubs.com/2020/06/18/cheesy-gnocchi-bake/