Easy Chicken Gnocchi

This Easy Chicken Gnocchi has a garlic butter sauce that starts in a food processor, which sounds like an extra step and takes about 30 seconds. Butter, garlic, parsley, and lemon get blended into a paste, then melted into cream. Pillowy gnocchi, seasoned chicken, and a sauce that coats everything just right. Ready in just 27 minutes.

I am from Transylvania. I will find a reason to put 4 cloves of garlic into almost anything, and I have never once apologized for it.

This recipe gives me an excellent excuse, because the garlic goes into the food processor with cold butter, a big handful of parsley, and a squeeze of lemon. Thirty seconds of pulsing and you’ve got this green flecked butter that looks like something a restaurant would charge you extra for.

Then it melts into cream, and this is the part I love. Because the garlic is already blended through the butter, it spreads through the entire sauce instead of showing up as suspicious little bits. The parsley turns the whole thing a pale green. Nothing catches, nothing burns, and you get garlic in every single bite rather than a surprise chunk in bite number three.

Gnocchi is the perfect vessel for this dish. Those soft little potato dumplings have more nooks than pasta does and they grab onto a creamy sauce and refuse to let go.

Fancy name, very unfancy process. It’s butter with things blended into it. Restaurants do this constantly and then put a neat little slice on your steak and charge you for the privilege.

Here’s why it beats the usual way. Mince garlic into a hot pan and you’ve got about 40 seconds before it turns bitter, which in a cream sauce is a genuinely sad situation. Blended into cold butter, the garlic is protected. It melts out slowly and never gets the chance to catch. The parsley does better too, breaking down enough to color the whole sauce instead of sitting on top looking decorative.

Make double while you’re at it. It keeps a week in the fridge, longer if you roll it into a log and freeze it, and it’s spectacular on steak or melted over hot bread.

• Gnocchi (1 pound, uncooked): Store bought is what I use most of the time and nobody has ever complained. Shelf stable or refrigerated both work. My homemade gnocchi is 4 ingredients if you want to make your own.
• Chicken breasts (1 pound, boneless and skinless, cut into bite size pieces): Keep the pieces roughly the same size so they finish together. Thighs work and stay juicier.
• Salt (½ teaspoon) and pepper (¼ teaspoon): On the chicken, and be generous. This sauce is rich enough to swallow timid seasoning whole.
• Smoked paprika (1 teaspoon): Smoky, a bit sweet, and it gives the chicken a lovely color. Regular paprika works, you’ll just miss the smoke.
• Butter (6 tablespoons, unsalted): Cold, straight from the fridge, into the processor. Softened butter turns to paste instead of crumbs.
• Garlic (4 cloves): Whole, no chopping. Four cloves is assertive and that is entirely the point.
• Fresh parsley (1 cup, chopped): A whole cup looks mad and it’s going into a processor where it collapses to nothing. Flat leaf has more flavor than curly.
• Lemon juice (1 tablespoon, fresh): Fresh only. It’s cutting through all that butter and cream from the inside.
• Olive oil (1 tablespoon): For the chicken.
• Heavy cream (¾ cup): Full fat. Half and half gives you a thinner sauce that’s likelier to split, and milk won’t thicken at all.

Cook the gnocchi. Salted boiling water, and they’re done the moment they float. That’s the signal. Leave them longer and they go soft and start giving up. Drain and set aside.

Season the chicken. Salt, pepper, and smoked paprika, tossed until every piece is properly coated.

Make the butter. Cold butter, garlic, parsley, and lemon into the food processor. Pulse about 30 seconds until it’s crumbly and green and there’s no garlic left in recognizable pieces.

No processor? Mince the garlic finely, chop the parsley, mash it all into softened butter with a fork. Three minutes and you’re there.

Brown the chicken. Olive oil in a large skillet over medium high, chicken in, about 5 minutes until golden and cooked through. Give it room or it’ll steam instead of browning.

Cream and butter in, heat down. Medium low from here, because boiling cream splits and there’s no rescuing it. Stir as the butter melts, about 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens and turns glossy and pale green.

Gnocchi in, gently. Toss until everything’s coated, 2 minutes to warm through, and serve straight away. Cream sauces thicken as they sit and this is at its best right out of the pan.

• Gnocchi float when they’re done. That’s it. Don’t overthink it and don’t leave them in.
• Cold butter into the processor. Fridge cold, or you’ll get paste.
• Medium low once the cream goes in. Boiling cream splits and a split sauce is a lost sauce.
• Season the chicken properly. It’s the only part that gets seasoned on its own.
• Toss gently at the end. Gnocchi are soft and they break if you get enthusiastic.
• Serve immediately. This waits for nobody.

• Spinach. A couple of handfuls in with the gnocchi. Wilts in under a minute.
• Mushrooms. Sliced cremini browned in the pan before the chicken.
• Shrimp instead of chicken. Two to 3 minutes only, added right before the cream.
• Parmesan. Half a cup stirred into the sauce. Richer and saltier, so ease off the salt.
• Crispy gnocchi. Skip the boiling entirely and pan fry them in a little oil until golden. Completely different texture and genuinely excellent.
• Basil instead of parsley. Takes it somewhere sunnier.

Something green and sharp, because this is a rich plate and it wants a fight. A plain salad with a properly acidic dressing does more than any cooked side would.

Garlic bread if you’re going all in, though between the gnocchi and the cream you may not need it. Roasted asparagus with lemon is the better call.

Make ahead: the compound butter. A week in the fridge, or rolled into a log and frozen for months. The rest should be cooked fresh.

Fridge: 3 days in an airtight container. The sauce sets thick when cold.

Reheating: low in a skillet with a splash of cream, stirring gently. High heat will split what’s left of the sauce.

Freezing: don’t. Cream separates and cooked gnocchi comes back mealy.