Kale & Pesto Gnocchi with Roasted Chicken

After over nine years of doing life together, Matt and I have gotten dinner duty pretty figured out. I make the majority of the meals we eat, while Matt makes all of the exciting kinda out-there stuff. I won’t spend three hours making a dinner I really want to try, but he will! It’s a good balance—I keep us alive and he keeps us happy to be alive.

Its not that I don’t love being creative, it’s more that I’m usually limited on time and also that when I get super into a meal I tend to want to make it over and over again. So we wind up eating a lot of the same, simple but delicious meals on repeat, and often the same meal will get made on a very regular basis for months or years. In fact you could pretty easily map out my life by the phases of what I was making for dinner. There was the Maple Crystal Chicken phase of 2015 (basically sweet and tangy baked chicken wings). There was my Kale Avocado Salad phase of 2016, wherein I’d make this simple kale salad Matt came up with and cover it in whatever protein we had (clearly a health kick). And neither of us will soon forget my my pizza phase of 2018 (I think I can squarely blame this on trialing Prozac?).

Normally what happens is I make a thing a thousand times and then one day just… stop… and it gets banished from the weeknight meal rotation for months or years before making it’s return. I’m currently deep in the throws of a kale & pesto gnocchi phase and before I’ve made enough gnocchi for a lifetime and banish it from the realms of our table, I wanted to make sure to share this recipe with you.

We’re playing on simple flavor combinations here—lemon, butter, garlic, parmesan, pine nuts—to create a delicious take on a pesto pasta salad that is packed with green goodness. The fresh ingredients and variety of different bites to take is what makes this dish so enjoyable, with every mouthful being different from the next to create a pesto-covered kaleidoscope of flavor. And who doesn’t love gnocchi? We’re not making it from scratch because we’re busy bodies with places to be and store-bought gnocchi is honestly kinda lit. But we’re giving it a helping hand by pan frying it in butter after boiling to make for an even more delicious crispy-on-the-outside-chewy-on-the-inside delight.

Whether you serve this with roasted chicken as in the recipe below, portobello ‘steaks’ for a vegetarian take, or just on its own as a side dish, you’re going to love it. Bonus points: it takes about 35 minutes from start to finish. Let’s begin!

Kale & Pesto Gnocci with Roasted Chicken

serves 4 | takes 35 minutes

  • 4 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs or breasts

  • 1 cup fresh basil leaves

  • 1 cup pine nuts

  • 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese plus more for garnish

  • 2 cloves garlic

  • 2 lemons

  • 1/2 cup olive oil + more for cooking

  • 1 head of kale, chopped (about 4 cups of chopped kale)

  • 2 tablespoons butter (salted or unsalted, whatever you have on hand!)

  • one pound of gnocchi, boiled to package instructions and strained of excess liquid

Preheat your own to 400 degrees. In a roasting pan, lightly coat your chicken in olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 35 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees F. While the chicken is roasting, prepare the remaining components.

Make the pesto by combining in a blender the basil, 1/2 cup pine nuts, Parmesan, garlic, juice of 1 lemon, 1/2 cup olive oil, and salt and pepper. Pulse until mostly smooth, taste, and add more salt and pepper if desired. Pour into a mixing bowl.

In a sauté pan over medium heat, add a tablespoon of olive oil and sauté the kale just until it begins to wilt, about two minutes. Remove from pan and add to the bowl with pesto.

Add 2 tablespoons of butter to the pan and heat until it begins to bubble. Add the gnocchi and toss to coat. Tossing regularly, cook for five to eight minutes until the gnocchi has begun to brown. Remove from the pan and add to the bowl with pesto and kale.

With the pan still over medium heat, add the 1/2 cup pine nuts and cook until they begin to brown, about three minutes, stirring often to avoid burning. Add to the gnocchi.

Toss together the pesto, kale, gnocchi, and pine nuts and serve with your roasted chicken, squeezing fresh lemon on top just before serving.

Thanks for stopping by the blog and we hope you give this recipe a try :)

xoxo Beau & Matt & Fox & Barley & Rye

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