Starchy Alternative

• For cooks who choose to eliminate eggs from their gnocchi recipes, the most common alternative is potatoes. The starch in the potatoes act as the binding agent, resulting in a dough that is not as heavy as one made with eggs, according to New York Chef Joey Campanaro. After boiling potatoes, Campanaro allows them to cool before passing them through a food mill. He then combines the potatoes little by little with flour to form the gnocchi dough.

Skip the Kneading

• Egg-free, potato gnocchi recipes create a dough that is delicate to handle. Although the dough has the preferred airy consistency, a potato binder does not create the familiar stickiness that is common with the addition of eggs. In Food and Wine magazine online, Chef Paula Wolfert suggests skipping the kneading process when working with this fragile dough. Instead, combine the flour and potato with a pastry scraper -- cutting and folding in the dough with the metal blade.

Semolina

• Gnocchi started out as a food for aristocrats -- made with semolina -- a grain once too costly for the average citizen. When mixed with water, semolina forms a dense paste, which works well as an egg-free gnocchi dough. While most egg-based gnocchi recipes call for the addition of flour, semolina recipes eliminate the need for either. Simply prepare the semolina paste and form the gnocchi mounds.

Egg-Free Preparation

• If you opt to make the gnocchi with potatoes, simply boil peeled potatoes in water until tender, allowing them to cool at room temperature afterward before passing them through a food mill and adding just enough white flour to form a dough. The semolina method requires mixing semolina with just enough water to make pasty dough. After preparing the dough, break off pieces, roll them into ropes about 1/2 inch thick, and cut the ropes into 1-inch pieces. Add the pieces to boiling water and remove with a straining spoon once they rise to the top, quickly placing them in an ice water bath to cease cooking.