Italian Pasta & Bean Soup
Submitted by snap-on
Italian pasta and bean soup (pasta e fagioli) simmers Great Northern beans with onion, carrot, celery, zucchini, and tomato paste, then finishes with al dente pasta. A rustic, hearty peasant-style bowl.
YIELD
4 servingsPREP
20 minCOOK
35 minREADY
1 hrsItalian pasta and bean soup is the home version of pasta e fagioli, Italy’s most famous peasant soup. Every nonna has a version. This one uses Great Northern beans for a creamy, mild bean that takes on flavor beautifully, plus zucchini for a pop of green that keeps the whole pot from feeling heavy.
The overnight soak is a step you skip at your peril. Soaked beans cook evenly, digest easier, and give you a clean cooking liquid you actually want to keep in the soup as extra body.
The sofrito of onion, garlic, carrots, and celery is the flavor foundation. Saute until the onion turns golden. That’s not a throwaway instruction, the gentle browning creates the backbone of the whole bowl.
Here’s the move most recipes get wrong: cook the pasta separately and add it just before serving. Otherwise the pasta soaks up all your broth and day-two leftovers turn into a sad bean paste.
Let the soup rest for an hour off the heat before adding the pasta. That standing time is when the flavors settle and the soup tastes like it simmered all day.
Chef Tips
- Use small pasta shapes: ditalini, tubetti, or broken spaghetti. Big shapes bully the beans out of the spoon.
- Save the bean cooking liquid. Using it as part of the soup base adds natural creaminess and depth plain water can’t match.
- A Parmesan rind tossed in while simmering adds a savory umami backbone. Fish it out before serving.
- Finish each bowl with a drizzle of good extra-virgin olive oil and a grating of fresh Parmesan.
Variations
- Swap half the beans for cannellini or borlotti for a more traditional mix.
- Add a handful of chopped kale or spinach in the last five minutes for greens.
- Stir in a small piece of chopped pancetta with the sofrito for a meatier pot.
Ingredients
Directions
Pick over beans, then rinse thoroughly.
Put the 1½ cups beans in a large bowl with 4 times more water than beans and leave to soak over night.
Drain off soaking water and put beans in a heavy skillet or saucepan with the specified about of water.
Bring the beans to a boil, lower the heat, cover and simmer until tender.
Heat the olive oil in a soup pot.
Add the onion, garlic, carrot and celery and saut? over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the onion is golden.
Add the beans, cooking liquid or water, zucchini, bay leaves, herb mix and tomato paste.
Bring to a boil lower heat, and then simmer gently covered until the zucchini is just tender, about 10 minutes.
Remove from the heat and allow the soup to stand for an hour or so to develop flavor.
In a separate saucepan, cook the pasta al dente.
Rinse briefly under cool water until it stops steaming.
Add the parsley to the soup and heat it through.
When the soup is hot, add the cooked pasta and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Serve at once.
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