Pasta Fagioli

Pasta "fazool" is my husband's favorite Olive Garden soup. Always looking to expand my very meager homemade soup options, I offered to try and replicate it at home. The result was a soup that even I, a non-soup sort of person, could get excited about. Easy enough to make after work for dinner, good enough to eat for left overs, and I've heard it freezes well (but I've never personally gotten to freeze it, since in this household between lunches and dinners it's gobbled up within just a few days).

For those of you that haven't had it before and need an idea of what this is going to look and taste like (since apparently unless you are a pro food photographer, soup is never ever going to look good in a photo), it's a tomato and broth based soup that is built on mire pox, with the ground meat, beans, pasta, and vegetables all in such a perfect balance so that it is impossible to decide which is the dominant element.


What you need

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 pound italian sausage (I find that substituting sausage for all or part of ground meat in many of my recipes gives a more flavorful result and it's not as hard to get a good finished well-seasoned flavor in the end.)
• 2 carrots, small diced 
• 3 celery sticks, small diced
• 1 medium onioin, small diced
• 2 gloves of garlic, minced
• 2-14 oz cans tomato sauce
• 1-14 oz can diced tomatoes
• 2-14 oz cans chicken broth
• Either an addition 14 oz can of tomato sauce OR chicken broth, depending on taste. I prefer to use an extra can of broth to lighten the soup a tad. 
• 1-14 oz can kidney beans
• 1-14 oz can small white beans
• 1 cup of small noodles - I like to use the ditalini pasta type. 
• Fresh Parsley - chopped, small handful or about 3 tablespoons
• Dried italian herbs to taste - like oregano, majoram, or penzey's sandwich sprinkle. If you use the italian sausage for all or part of your meat the exact seasoning you do will be less critical. 
• Optional - 1/2 c. of water to thin the soup

How to get 'er done

• Choose a bigger pot than you think you will need
• Cook the meat, and then remove meat.
• Cook the carrot/celery/onion until soft. About 6 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. 
• Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, broth, and herbs. Simmer for a minimum of 15 minutes. In the meantime cook the pasta in a separate pot, and then drain. 
• Add the meat, pasta, beans and heat through. 
• Add the parsley just before serving. 

Hints and Notes

My version is a touch heavier on the meat than it needs to be because my husband likes it that way. I think you could eliminate about 1/2 the meat and still have it be very tasty.

Especially if you want to get this soup cooked and served quickly, cutting your vegetables small is the key. They will actually cook and be soft after sauteeing and minimum simmering. If you are vegetable adverse like my husband, consider shredding the carrots so that they are invisible as possible - but they still add to the mire pox base flavor. Don't leave them out! So far just cutting them up into very small cubes and making sure they are absolutely not crunchy works. The soup's flavor improves when kept in the fridge overnight, and he no longer noticed the carrots after it sat. This soup would probably gain that extra flavor without having to sit in the fridge if I planned ahead simmered it for much longer, or used a pressure cooker, or used a crock pot......but honestly I think the flavor is perfectly adequate the first day without a long simmer, and I'm a keep it simple person.