Before anything goes in the oven, check the package. Chilled gnocchi, the kind sold in the refrigerated case, is soft enough to cook through in a short bake without pre-cooking. Shelf-stable gnocchi, the kind sold in a box or vacuum-sealed bag on a regular shelf, is denser and drier, and needs either a specifically tested direct-bake formula or a quick boil first.

The table below lays out the three documented approaches side by side, so the choice happens before the oven preheats, not after you've already plated a one-pan feta gnocchi with a raw center.

Boiled down, the decision is short. Chilled gnocchi gets Frei Style's raw-bake formula. Shelf-stable gnocchi gets Delish's direct-bake formula, but only if you're comfortable with a result that depends on your specific brand. Anything you're unsure about gets boiled first.

That split also explains why two recipes that look nearly identical on paper can come out of the oven in very different states. A package's listed boil time isn't proof it will also survive a direct bake; the instructions on the bag describe boiling, not roasting, and the two aren't interchangeable just because both involve heat and a little water. Treat the Delish method as a tested recipe for shelf-stable gnocchi generally, not a rule guaranteed to transfer to whatever specific brand happens to be in your pantry.

This is the Delish formula, approved by the Delish Test Kitchen and built specifically around shelf-stable gnocchi. It's not a universal method; it's a tested recipe for one category of product, serving four.

Ingredients: 16 oz. cherry tomatoes, one 16-oz. package of shelf-stable gnocchi, four finely chopped garlic cloves, ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil plus more for drizzling, ¾ tsp kosher salt, ¼ tsp red pepper flakes, black pepper, one 8-oz. feta block, fresh basil for serving (optional).

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. In a 13x9-inch baking dish, toss the tomatoes, gnocchi, garlic, oil, salt, and red pepper flakes. Add roughly 1 teaspoon of water per ½ cup of gnocchi to keep it from drying out, then season with black pepper (Delish).
2. Nestle the feta block into the center of the tomato mixture and drizzle the top with oil.
3. Roast for 25 to 30 minutes, until the feta has softened and the tomatoes have burst into a sauce (Delish).
4. Switch to broil and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, watching closely, until the tomatoes and feta blister (Delish). The broil is what blisters the tomatoes and feta; the finished dish is what Delish describes as soft inside with a crisp top.
5. Before mixing anything together, cut one piece of gnocchi in half and check the center. Dense or chalky means it needs a few more minutes in the oven, not a pass at the table. Test one piece before serving, especially with a brand you haven't used in this recipe before.
6. Top with basil, then mix everything into a creamy sauce, breaking up the feta and tomatoes and folding in the gnocchi (Delish).

If the gnocchi in your dish is chilled rather than shelf-stable, don't apply these times or the added water. Go back to the table: 392°F for 20 to 25 minutes, with one stir halfway through in place of the broil (Frei Style).

For packaged gnocchi you haven't tested before, or whenever the package itself calls for more than a quick boil, the safer route is to bake the sauce and boil the gnocchi separately, then combine them at the end. This comes from Little Home in the Making, a recipe first published in 2022, and it uses different quantities than the Delish method above. Follow its measurements as a whole rather than mixing the two ingredient lists.

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. In a 9x13-inch dish, toss 2 pints of cherry tomatoes with ½ cup olive oil, ½ tsp kosher salt, and ¼ tsp black pepper. Nestle an 8-oz. feta block into the center (Little Home in the Making).
2. Bake uncovered for 30 to 35 minutes, until bubbly (Little Home in the Making).
3. With about 10 to 15 minutes left on the bake, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook 1½ pounds of packaged gnocchi according to the directions on the package, usually until the pieces float, about 3 to 5 minutes, then drain in a colander (Little Home in the Making).
4. If the baking dish is broiler-safe, broil for 2 to 3 minutes, until the tomatoes blister and the feta browns (Little Home in the Making).
5. Pull the dish from the oven, stir in three minced garlic cloves and ¼ cup chopped basil, and break the feta and tomatoes into a chunky, uniform sauce with a wooden spoon. Fold in the drained gnocchi and serve right away (Little Home in the Making).

It costs a second pot and some of the direct-bake method's crisp top. What it buys back is reliability: every piece has already spent time in boiling water before it hits the sauce, so there's no guesswork about the center.

Once vegetables enter the dish, the same chilled-versus-shelf-stable logic gets a second layer: how much water is hiding in what you're adding. Frei Style's spinach version stirs 400g of frozen leaf spinach, 50g sun-dried tomatoes, and 100g cocktail tomatoes into 500g chilled gnocchi and 250g feta, baked at the same 392°F for 20 to 25 minutes with one stir halfway through (Frei Style).

The spinach has to be squeezed dry first. That much frozen spinach releases roughly 50ml, about 3 tablespoons, of liquid on its own, which is enough to make the gnocchi poach instead of brown (Frei Style). Raw fresh spinach releases far too much liquid to go into the dish uncooked, according to Frei Style, which doesn't recommend it at all in that form. For spinach, excess water is what prevents browning, not the gnocchi itself.

Delish's teaspoon-per-half-cup water addition works in the opposite direction: a small, deliberately measured amount of liquid keeps gnocchi from drying out during a longer roast (Delish). The same principle carries over to other water-heavy add-ins, like other frozen vegetables: squeeze out the excess first, then decide whether the pan actually needs it, rather than assuming any vegetable is a safe drop-in.

Cheese swaps are mostly forgiving. French feta runs creamier but less salty than the Greek-style block, so taste the sauce before serving if you switch (Delish). Goat cheese melts with similar tang, ricotta softens the whole dish, and halloumi holds its shape and adds bite instead of creaminess (Frei Style). A vegan version calls for a vegan feta plus 2 tablespoons of oat cream, so the sauce still turns creamy rather than relying on the cheese alone (Frei Style).

None of those swaps change the two questions that matter before anything goes in the oven: what kind of gnocchi is actually in the dish, and how much liquid, if any, the add-ins are bringing with them. Answer those first, whether it's a new brand of gnocchi, a different feta, or a vegetable this article hasn't covered, and the rest of the recipe is just following the steps.