Featured comment
I made this for the first time and it is AMAZING. My kids loved and and it is going to be a hit in our family for many years. Thanks for such a great site!
This is the story of how I bought 5 ingredients from Trader Joe’s and made one of my favorite dinners of all time.
The story begins with Lunch Envy as I watched my friend and coworker eat her saucy baby pasta with all those tiny chopped veggies in that creamy tomato base in the beloved teacher’s lounge. The place where great lunch ideas are born, right? I asked for the recipe before she had even taken one bite. Like the recipe-hungry food-bloggin’ girl that I am.
How To Make Our Pasta e Fagioli:
To develop the story for you, things have been pretty crazy for us lately. Oh yeah, that’s right, welcome to all of the lives of all the people in the world. WHY, you guys? Why do we do this to ourselves?
With the closing on our new old house which I have affectionately come to call our Yum Sweet Home (and which will be pictured in the next few days), and the out of town weekends for things like Holiday Baking Classes (rough. I know.), and the back-to-work Mondays with early morning meetings, and the late night cookie baking to keep caught up on the blog to keep sane, and the preparing for showings on our current home which = cleaning which = wahhh, I just don’t even know. ALL OF THE THINGS. Time starts to feel slippery.
And then, I know you probably can’t relate because you are beautiful home cooks who find time to make your families wholesome home cooked meals always no matter what, but we here in this home often find ourselves making up for lost time by eating things like toast and cereal and frozen Amy’s organic meals. Which I could eat forever but it would still probably be good to cook once in a while.
Cereal be gone.
Simple dinner that has rockin flavor: come to me.
Pasta e Fagioli just means pasta with beans, at least as I understand it after two seconds of Wiki reading. I added chicken sausage because, well, meat. So I claim no authenticity here, just a recipe that tastes great and takes very little time.
Trader Joe’s was the perfect place to stop on my way home from work because I could pick up some high quality short cut ingredients like the aforementioned CHICKEN SAUSAGE and a newbie to my ingredient favorites: MIREPOIX.
The chicken sausage that I bought was spicy Italian, made with red wine and Formaggio cheese. Um, what? How delicious is that?! (Very.) I just about burned my nose off cooking it – you know, when you cook spicy stuff and you end up basically choking? but then I settled down and ate a lot of it. Fast. It was so very yummms.
And then the mirepoix? Just a fancy word for chopped celery and carrots and onions that will be used as the veggie base here. TJ’s hooked me up by chopping the veggies for me and packaging them in a little container and placing them in the produce section for my time-hungry eyes to see.
By the way, this is in no way sponsored by Trader Joe’s. I am just over the moon excited that there’s one open within 20 miles of my house and was so happy with how their ingredients worked in this recipe. Superfan.
When this all cooks up, it’s going to look like a lot of sauce at first. Really good sauce, made with San Marzano (aka best tasting high quality) tomatoes and a plethora of other veggies. Including my friend baby spinach who had been occupying a lonely shelf on the fridge and needed a good home.
But just when you’re questioning whether you actually need this much sauce or not, you add the pasta – as it turns out, orecchiette from Trader Joe’s will be a good choice – and the sauce just soaks right into the pasta and you’re left with this velvety texture that is both saucy and thick. It’s not like soup, it’s like saucy pasta. Loaded with veggies. And red wine Formaggio chicken sausage.
You will love this.
Simple San Marzano Pasta e Fagioli
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 8 1x
Description
This yummy and simple San Marzano Pasta e Fagioli is so easy and FULL of flavor. A perfect delicious and comforting family dinner.
Ingredients
- 1 lb. chicken sausages in casing. GO SPICY if u dare.
- 1 1/2 cups mirepoix – chopped celery, carrot, and onion*
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 28-ounce can San Marzano tomatoes
- 1 14-ounce can cannellini beans
- 28 ounces chicken broth
- 1 lb. small pasta – I used orecchiette
- 8 ounces fresh baby spinach
- shaved Parmigiano Reggiano cheese for topping
Instructions
- Remove the chicken from its casing. In a large pot, brown the chicken sausage over medium high heat and drain the excess grease. Set aside.
- Crush the San Marzano tomatoes and sauce in a food processor and set aside. Drain the cannellini beans. Place in a food processor. Refill the can with water, add to the food processor, and puree until very smooth.
- In the same large pot as step one, saute the mirepoix, garlic, oregano, salt, and bay leaf (with a little olive oil if needed) until soft and fragrant. Add the tomatoes, pureed beans, and broth. Simmer for 20 minutes. Saucy.
- Add the pasta and simmer for another 20 minutes until pasta is cooked through as sauce is reduced. Throw in the baby spinach and the chicken sausage from step one. If needed, add water or broth to adjust the consistency of the pasta before serving. Top with cheese.
- Save some for lunch tomorrow. It makes awesome leftovers.
Notes
*You don’t have to, but it really does save time to buy prechopped mirepoix (just carrots, celery, and onion). I bought some at Trader Joe’s in the produce section and it was super fresh and cut down on prep time and number of ingredients I needed to buy on a busy weeknight! Thumbs up to that.
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 45 mins
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: Italian
Keywords: pasta e fagioli, san marzano tomatoes, pasta recipe
I still can’t get over that this isn’t one of your most popular recipes! Yummy, simple, and crowd pleasing! A regular in our fall/winter rotation.
WOW! This might be one of the best meals I’ve made – so comforting and flavorful. One of my faves of yours so far, and I love many of your recipes!!!
San Marzano tomatoes ♥ one of the most appreciated product of our land!
Good choice! 😉
Live Salerno, LOVE SALERNO and EAT SALERNO.
I substituted ground beef for the chicken sausage bc the husband is not a fan =( It was good, but I’m going to try it again with the sausage, sounds amazing!
Hope it works out better with the sausage, Dana!
I made this last night and it was mind-blowing how delicious it was. My boyfriend was super impressed with me. Definitely one of the best Italian dishes I have made! Two side notes: It took me longer to get my pasta to cook for some reason (like double the time) but that’s fine. Also I didn’t quite know where to add the 28 oz of broth? I just dumped it in as needed. Again, though: this was SO GOOD! Thanks for the recipe. I love this site.
So glad to hear that, Steff! Thanks for the comment!
It says to add the tomatoes and SAUCE into the food processor, but there is no sauce listed in your ingredients. Very confusing. Please help!
Good question, Christina! Simply use the “sauce” or “juice” that is in the canned tomatoes. Basically, don’t drain the tomatoes. 🙂 Hope that helps!
This was pure comfort food… Loved every bit of it and am so excited for leftovers this week! So easy to make and it beats anything you could buy in a store or restaurant. Kudos Lindsay 😀
I love hearing that! Thanks for the comment Krystle!
The soup looks so good… I love these recipe which are good enough for a complete meal. Going to make some real soon.
I made this for the first time and it is AMAZING. My kids loved and and it is going to be a hit in our family for many years. Thanks for such a great site!
Thank you Christina! This is one of my faves too!
This looks delicious! And I love pasta made with shells and all the yummy goodness gets stuffed in the shell in each bite! YUM!
This was delicious! We made it last night and added some crushed red pepper flakes and pepper to the sauce. Made a ton….so lots of leftovers for the weekend 🙂
yummmm! Glad you liked it!
I made this tonight, and my only modification was to cut the recipe in half. It tasted exactly like a dish one could order at an Italian restaurant, and orchiette noodles from Trader Joe’s were great.
Maybe my taste buds have been numbed by a cold and too much boiling hot ginger tea, but I felt that the sauce was a little bland for me. Next time I might spring for fresh oregano and some red pepper flakes to punch it up a notch.
Judy–Not sure if you will see this, as I’m not directly replying to you, but sausage is made of ground meat and spices. It isn’t the same thing as plain raw meat. You take it out of the casing so that you can break it up into pieces.
I know it’s sausage. And I know it’s seasoned but there’s no butchers here. The supermarket had plain old sausages.
I’m seeing this by luck.
Thanks for the comment Katie!
It’s so not fair :'(
Why can’t my stupid little country do better food wise.
Nowhere but nowhere would veggies be cut up for me and put into little containers.
I can’t get sausages like you do. If I take a bus to the butcher maybe I’d find something similar but…..
I don’t understand why you all buy sausages and take them out of the casing. Can’t you use chicken instead?
A reply would be nice 🙂
Hi Lindsay! I just bought your photography book, I already love it. It is very practical and simple to use. I just started blog about my food:
Thanks for the good job.
Rachida
This is cooking on the stovetop as I type. Almost done and the taste test was YUMMY! Thanks and happy Thanksgiving 🙂
Yum! Enjoy!
How pretty is this dish? It looks delicious! I’m in love with Trader Joe’s too… I can go on and on about them. They make the best (frozen) mini chocolate croissants… 😉
Who knew? sounds great!
I’m making this as we speak. Smell fantastic! When you simmer do you leave uncovered or do you cover?
I made this last night, it was absolutely fabulous. I followed your advice and bought the mirepoix – so worth it to not have to chop! Anyways, my husband and I loved it, and I’m actually eating it again for lunch as I type. Great re-heated, as expected. Thanks, Lindsay! This one is going into the rotation (with the other Pinch of Yum recipes!).
Awesome! Thanks Alaina!
I love the look of this! San Marzano are SO flavorful, and orchiette pasta is just so darn cute.
Your photos are beautiful! I have to ask – what kind of lighting setup do you use when you shoot at night? I’ve been trying so hard to get artificial light to look as good as this does, and I can’t seem to get it right. Natural light is just so darn beautiful, but not realistic with these short days and a full-time job. Anyway, great work, and congrats on your Yum Sweet Home 🙂
Hi Katie! I just have one lamp (Lowel EGO light) and a big white reflector, and I usually put the light to the side/back of the food. Don’t put the light right in front – it washes everything out and looks flat. Try it with the light off to the side of the food… that’s the best place to start. 🙂 And you’re so darn cute!
Also I just noticed that I wrote “so darn” twice in that comment. #minnesotan
Orchiette are my favorite kind of pasta and this simple dish looks like an amazing week-dinner to make in less than half an hour. And what a great idea to use chicken sausage instead of minced meat. This must add so much more flavor to the dish!
Wow this looks fantastic! Love the simple ingredients and it sounds so delicious!
When I taught, a fellow teacher and I would swap weeks to bring lunch for each other. She’d take one week and make lunch for both of us. I’d take the other week. Since we both loved to cook, it was such a fun experience and it was nice to have great food on my off week instead of PBJ.
(Today, we both homeschool our kids and work in food in our off hours. Kinda funny how that worked out.)
Made this tonight in a little less time by allowing the tomatoes to simmer just 5 minutes and reducing the chicken broth by about half before adding the pasta.
I also used about 1 cup of beans pureed with 1/2 cup cooked quinoa and added some sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil. So yummy!
Oh, and a time saver TIP: Since you’re already using a food processor for the tomatoes and beans, you can finely chop/puree the onions, celery, carrots, and garlic in the processor at the very beginning.
Great idea! Thanks Abby!
Keeping a kitchen/house in “showing” condition for selling, while being a food blogger? Oh my, I don’t envy you in this case. I was actually JUST thinking about maybe, possibly, selling our house the other day, and then looked around at what a mess the kitchen becomes every day and thought “mehhhh maybe not.” haha.
This looks so comforting and delicious!