Pasta e fagioli (often referred to as "pasta fazool" in America) is commonly served as a soup outside of the Boot. In southern Italy, however, pasta e fagioli is literally pasta with beans and is in no way soupy!
Watch the Pasta Grammar video where we make this recipe here:
While this dish works with many different pasta shapes, we prefer Calabrian fileja pasta!
You'll need to have some cooked cannellini beans on hand; follow our cannellini bean recipe to make a pot, just skip the peppers and bread!
Serves 2, but can easily be scaled up by increasing the amount of pasta, beans and tomatoes used.
For this recipe, you will need:
- 2-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 garlic clove, peeled
- Cooked cannellini beans (see above)
- 1 canned whole peeled tomato, plus a spoonful of the purée from the can
- Salt
- Fresh black pepper
- 5.5 oz. (160g) dry pasta
- Chili pepper powder for topping (optional)
Put a large pot of water on to boil for the pasta.
Heat the oil and the garlic clove in a saucepan over medium heat until the garlic begins to sizzle. Add 2 ladlefuls of cooked beans into the pot, along with a ladle of the bean water.
Crush the tomato with a fork and add this into the saucepan, along with the purée. Bring the sauce to a simmer, salt/pepper it to taste and allow it to cook, partially covered, while you boil the pasta.
Salt the boiling pasta water generously and add the dry pasta. Cook as directed or until al dente to your taste. Drain it and return it to the pasta pot. After removing and discarding the garlic clove, add the bean sauce into the pasta.
Stir all together over medium heat until the sauce completely coats the pasta. If there's excess moisture, turn up the heat and stir until it thickens.
Serve immediately, topped with a sprinkle of chili powder. Buon appetito!
canned white kidney beans, would that still work or is that a no go?
Curious guys can anyone help me with scaling issue, whole peeled tomatoes without citric acid are very tricky to find in my area, how many grams or tablespoons of crushed tomatoes or puree/passata comes approx to one whole tomato?
I found the recipe underwhelming, I must have done something wrong. The beans after being cooked for 2.5 hours tasted a bit chalky and the dish was lacking in flavor, like it could use some fat, I added parmesan cheese and it was decent after that.
Update: I cooked the beans for an additional 90 minutes the next day, for a total of four hours, the texture of the beans finally became smooth and not chalky. I remade the dish as directed and it was excellent.
I made this for lunch today and everyone loved it! Definitely a good choice on a day with subzero temps.
When I see chili powder here, I'm not sure what that means if I'm looking at the spice aisle in my grocery store -- the chili powder there seems more "Mexican." So, guidance?