Grant Crilly is the Executive Director and cofounder of ChefSteps. Grant is a classically trained chef and, prior to ChefSteps, he worked on the award-winning cookbook series Modernist Cuisine and cooked at various restaurants, including L’Astrance in Paris, Busaba in Mumbai, and Mistral Kitchen in Seattle.

Grant Crilly

Some people believe that gnudi are difficult to make tender, light, and fluffy. Well, that’s because—for some reason—everyone has been telling you to make gnudi with high protein pasta or bread flour. Why? Rather than try to answer that question, I tried to answer the root question. How do you get a super tender gnudi that’s also easy to make?The answer came quickly. One, get rid of any extra tough protein. Substitute the typical bread flour for cake flour. Two, get rid of any extra water that may activate any residual gluten in the flour. And three, don’t overwork the dough. If you see perfectly shaped gnudi, those are probably more worked than they need to be. Choose texture over perfection. Let’s dive in.

Gnudi—more flavor, more tender, made better.