This tasty plant-based dish makes it easy to create a nutrient-dense dinner that is healthy and vibrant.
As much as Tonal coach Trace Gotsis loves to meal-prep, dinner is his time to keep it fresh. For healthy weeknight cooking, his go-to recipes have three main ingredients: simple, versatile, and quick. “I’m not the best cook, and I don’t have the most elite palate either… but I love being able to unwind in the kitchen at night by making dinner,” he says.
The beauty of his pesto gnocchi recipe is that it lives well in the fridge so it’s great for leftovers, and it’s still quick enough to prepare on the fly if you, like Coach Trace, find making dinner at the end of the long day a meditative process. “I cook this gnocchi probably twice a week,” he says, and to add variety, he switches up the vegetables and ingredients depending on what’s available.
Don’t be afraid to play around with this recipe and make it your own. Vegetable gnocchi and chickpeas are a great canvas for your favorite sauces and colorful produce. “Utilizing a rainbow of vegetables in your meals will provide micronutrients to support healthy cognitive and immune functions within the body,” explains John Christie, a registered dietitian and director of Curriculum Intelligence at Tonal.
“You need to get after protein, but this recipe is a celebration of adding color to your plate so you can benefit from the spectrum of nutrients that reside in different vegetables. This helps facilitate other elements of health and function needed to perform, replenish, and recover,” Christie says.
Ingredients
- 1 packet of your choice of kale or cauliflower gnocchi*
- 1 Tbsp. olive oil
- 2 cups of mushrooms, sliced
- A few handfuls of baby spinach
- 1 red pepper, sliced
- 1 yellow pepper, sliced
- 2 zucchinis, sliced
- 1 can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- 8 Tbsp. vegan pesto
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 Tbsp. hemp hearts
Method
- Cook the gnocchi according to the instructions on the packet and set them aside in a bowl.
- Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and cook the peppers and zucchini for a few minutes. Next, cook the mushrooms and then wilt the spinach.
- Add the chickpeas and gnocchi to the veggies in the skillet and heat through. Stir in vegan pesto.
- Plate the gnocchi, veggies, and cooked chickpeas, and garnish with the hemp hearts.
If you are meal-prepping this recipe, cook the vegetables and chickpeas, toss them with the vegan pesto, and divide them into containers, and store them in the fridge for up to four days. Cook the gnocchi fresh each day, and heat up everything else in a skillet before serving.
Note: These values below represent an estimate of one serving.
- Calories: 527 kcal
- Carbohydrates: 58g
- Fiber: 11g
- Protein: 17g
- Fat: 26g
