Vegetarian Recipe: Evan Kleiman’s Pasta e Fagioli

Every week on the Good Food blog, we celebrate Meatless Monday by sharing a vegetarian recipe from our archives.

Good Food host Evan Kleiman first shared this recipe for Pasta e Fagioli during her on-air cooking classes with KCRW’s Bob Carlson on April 5, 2008. Keep reading for the full recipe…

Pasta e Fagioli or Pasta e Ceci

Beans and Pasta

This dish can either be a soup or a pasta. You vary the consistency by adding more or less dried pasta to the soup. Start by adding less so you get an idea of how much liquid it absorbs. If the soup is getting thicker then you want as the pasta starts to absorb the water you can always add a bit more water. Just add a half a cup of water at a time. You can always add more. You can’t take away.

1/4 cup olive oil

1 package Trader Joe’s Mirepoix

OR

1 onion, peeled and diced small

1 celery stalk, diced small

1 carrots, peeled and diced small

You may use the food processor to dice the veggies

1 garlic clove, peeled and minced, grated on a microplane or put through garlic press

2 15-ounce cans white beans or garbanzo beans

1 small sprig rosemary if using garbanzos

½ (half) cup tomato sauce

Salt to taste

Olive oil for drizzling

½ (half) cup broken spaghetti (use imported Italian dry pasta)

Heat the olive oil in a soup pot. Add the onions, celery, and carrots. Cook until the onions begin to soften and turn translucent. Add the garlic and cook until it gives off its characteristic odor. If using garbanzos, add the rosemary now.

Add the beans with their liquid and enough additional water to cover by about two inches. Add the tomato sauce. Bring to a boil, then turn down heat so soup simmers. Add salt to taste.