Trader Joes Gnocchi Alla Sorrentina

I have been meaning to blog about the Trader Joes Gnocchi Sorrentina for a while, but kept forgetting to take a picture before I ate it and it feels incomplete to post something with a photo to accompany it.  So, today I finally remembered to take a picture and can now rave about it!

This is my favorite frozen item from Trader Joe's and it is my third time eating it already, which says a lot.  When I was walking down the frozen aisle at Trader Joes and saw the Gnocchi, I immediately picked it up because it was just simply gnocchi, marinara sauce, and mozzarella cheese, and I knew it could be good to have for when I am craving pasta.  I was a little fearful at first to turn the package around and look at the nutritional information because I knew that the combination of gnocchi with cheese could make it a high calorie/high fat dish.  Surprisingly, one serving had only170 calories and 2.5 grams of fat, and I was immediately sold!  There are three servings in the package, one cup each, so I upped the serving to 1 1/2 cups since I was having it for dinner.

When I first opened the package, it did not look like what I expected.  Just like with the frozen ravioli I previously blogged about, the sauce is frozen into circles and the cheese is frozen in the sauce circles.

I chose to cook it on the stove, though you also have the option to heat it up in the microwave.  All you have to do is add 1 tablespoon of water and put it on high heat, and the circles of sauce slowly begin to melt.  After about 7 minutes the sauce thickened up, the cheese became melty, and I knew it was ready to eat!

After my first bite, I knew it was going to be one of my favorites.  The gnocchi were soft and fluffy, and the sauce was really amazing.  You would not expect that the sauce would actually be good after seeing it frozen into little circles, but it honestly tasted like fresh tomato sauce to me!  While there wasn't very much cheese, I did enjoy the little bits I got here and there.  I'm sure that the nutritional information would be much worse if there was more cheese, but it could've used a bit more.  

Even so, I highly recommend this item.  Gnocchi tends to be very unhealthy because it is dense and can be fattening depending on the sauce it is cooked in, so this is a much leaner option for when you have that craving.  If you are having it on its own for dinner, you should probably plan on eating 1 1/2 cups because a 1 cup serving would be way too little.  This has become one of my staples in my freezer, and if you try it I'm sure you will like it too!