My family loves Knoepfli, and I love them because they’re so versatile. While my basic recipe for Knoepfli (and Spaetzli) can be used for all kinds of dishes, I also love this version with baby spinach and quark; they’re wonderfully green and have the added benefit of some spinach goodness.
Recipe by Betty Bossi
Recipe for 4 people
- 150g (5.2 oz) baby spinach
- 150g (5.2 oz) Rahmquark (substitutes: normal quark or mascarpone)
- 2 fresh eggs
- 300g Knöpflimehl (2 cups) or plain white flour (2.5 cups)
- 1 tsp salt
Method
Blend the spinach with the Rahmquark and the eggs. If you use mascarpone instead of quark you might need to add a dash of milk to make it more liquidy.
Add the flour and salt and mix until combined. Let mixture rest for 10 minutes.
In a pan, bring 2-3 litres of water and a little salt to the boil. Once the water is boiling, press dough through a Knoepfli sieve and cook for 3-5 minutes. Drain Knoepfli, add some butter, let it melt and mix.
Serve!
I may need to have a go at these in the next few days!
They’re fun! And my kids loved them even though they were green 🙂
OMG the possibilities! I kind of want to go back to the Migros again and get some quark now!
Made it tonight. Very tasty! Next time I think I might add basil too – something that green seems like it should be pesto-flavoured! 🙂
Making this for lunch today! Can’t wait to try pumpkin ones at some point… 🙂
[…] 3. Coloured Knöpfli: For a bit of a twist, add vegetables to your Knöpfli dough. Blended spinach makes them green, carrot purée makes orange-coloured ones, beetroot makes them red, and adding fresh herbs gives them a further twist. The ingredients for coloured Knöpfli are often a little different from the above basic recipe, so do some research before preparing them. My recipe for green spinach Knöpfli can be found here. […]
Hi, Spazle are a german tradition that spreded out to Switzerland…
Hi Emma, thanks for your comment. Yes you’re right but we have to differentiate between food origin and tradition. This blog is about Swiss food traditions, not food origins. Spätzli have been eaten in Switzerland for hundreds of years, which means it is a traditional food here in Switzerland, as it is in many other central European countries.
Thanks for posting this recipe! I’ve made it quite a few times now, because it’s an easy way of getting something green into my toddler 🙂
I live in Australia, so we don’t have a proper Knoepfli sieve. I’ve found that a cheap metal pizza tray (with large holes) works well, scraping the dough through with a flat-edged wooden spoon.
That’s great to hear! Yes it’s a great way to get some vegetables into kids 😉 the pizza tray is an ingenious idea, thanks so much for sharing!
Has anyone replaced eggs with flaxseed meal in this recipe?
Is there a reason you have taken down your basic Spaetzli recipe. I lost my printed copy and found the link is dead. Luckily I was able to get it from the web archive if anyone else is looking for it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180124095823/https://www.littlezurichkitchen.ch/spaetzli/
Hi there, the recipe is still online: https://www.littlezurichkitchen.ch/knopfli-homemade-swiss-pasta/ But good that you could find it elsewhere again!