Sausage Pasta Fazool (Pasta e Fagioli Recipe) - How to Make Pasta Fazool

Hello , this is Chef John from food wishes dot com with sausage pasta .

That's right .

I'm really looking forward to showing you this easy and extra meaty version of pasta , which of course is the Italian Americanized version of pasta fale , which you are certainly free to pronounce and spell that way if you want but not me .

It's a second generation Italian American .

I will proudly be misspelling and mispronouncing this but Americanized names aside , this is one of the best cold weather comfort foods of all time and relatively fast and easy to put together as you're about to see .

So let's go ahead and get started .

And first up , we're gonna brown our sausage in a little bit of olive oil over medium high heat .

So I'm gonna go ahead and toss in about 12 ounces of sweet Italian sausage , which for me were two large links that I removed the casing from .

And what we need to accomplish here is two things we want to brown this while breaking it up into some nice small pieces .

So I'm just gonna go ahead and take my completely normally sized wooden spatula and break up that meat while it cooks over , like I said , medium high heat and obviously you can break this up as small as you want .

But I still want to see a few chunks in the final product .

So I'm not gonna go too fine , but I will work that over with the spatula while it cooks until I have something resembling what you see right here .

And once that's been accomplished , what we can do is lower our heat to medium and add in two optional ingredients .

A little bit of diced celery as well as some chopped onion .

And we'll go ahead and stir that into our sausage and continue cooking for about four or five minutes or until those onions turn translucent and I say optional because if you're doing this for a quick weeknight dinner and you don't want to do the slicing and Dyson , that's ok .

It's still gonna be fantastic .

But if you can spare a couple of extra minutes , a little bit of aromatic vegetables , always gonna improve the flavor .

But anyway , like I said , if we're using them , we're gonna cook that in that sausage fat for about four or five minutes until those veggies kind of soften and sweeten up a little at which point , believe it or not , we're gonna add our pasta in the form of , at least for me elbow macaroni .

And what we're gonna do is stir that in and cook it for about two minutes , which might seem a little odd .

But trust me , this is one of the keys to this recipe .

All right , most people are gonna toss their pasta right into the boiling liquid .

But I think by adding it here , we're going to infuse it with even more flavor .

At least that's my theory , which I warn you is gonna be very hard to disprove .

So I'm gonna go ahead and cook that macaroni stirring for a couple of minutes .

At which point , we're gonna add a nice big spoon of tomato paste and we'll go ahead and stir that in and cook that for a couple of minutes .

And by the way , there's two basic styles of pasta that I categorize as the red and the brown varieties .

OK ?

The red ones feature more of a tomato sauce base .

Whereas the brown version , which I'm featuring today is more of a meaty broth infused with tomato .

So while I have had and enjoyed the tomato sauce based versions , I really do prefer this style .

So we'll go ahead and cook that tomato paste for a couple of minutes until our mixture is looking something like this .

At which point we can go ahead and pour in our chicken broth .

And for this recipe , you're probably gonna use up about four cups of broth , but I generally don't add it all at once .

What I'll do is dump in about three cups here and then save the rest to adjust with if I need later .

So we'll go ahead and dump that in and of course , that's gonna deglaze all the goodness on the bottom of the pan .

And then what we'll do is raise our heat up to high because we want to bring this up to a simmer .

And while we're waiting for that to happen , we'll go ahead and add a little bit of seasoning , which will definitely include some salt , but be careful .

That's gonna depend on how salty your broth and or sausage were .

And then we will also do some freshly ground black pepper as well as some how Italian chili flakes or a shake of cayenne or both .

Why not ?

And then last but not least , I'm also gonna do a pinch of dry oregano and yes , I do have a fresh oregano plant in the garden .

But for this , I actually prefer the slightly mustier flavor of the dry , but I think a little bit of fresh or dry is very nice in this .

But anyway , we're gonna go ahead and season it up as we see fit and like I said , wait for it to come to a simmer .

At which point we can back our heat down to medium and cook this stirring occasionally for about five minutes .

And I say medium heat , but you're gonna have to keep an eye on this and adjust it .

So it's simmering just right .

Ok .

We don't want a rolling boil , but we definitely want it simmering enthusiastically .

Something sort of like this .

And if we were just boiling that macaroni and salted water , it would only take about five or six minutes to cook all the way .

But because we're basically cooking this in a sauce , it's gonna take a little longer .

OK .

Start to finish .

This is probably gonna take about 10 minutes to cook all the way through .

But again , that's gonna be up to you .

So , like I said , we're gonna go ahead and let this cook for about five minutes stir it occasionally .

At which point we'll finish this off with our greens and beans .

And for the greens today , I'm gonna be going with Swiss Chard , which is very easy to prep .

We're simply going to rip those nice tender green leafy parts off those tough white ribs .

Ok ?

Just tear it off like this .

And once we've removed the leaves , what we'll do is kind of wat it up and then slice it across .

And then once that set , we'll just give it the old choa chapa until it's as small as we want .

And if you want , you could prep your Swiss chart ahead of time .

But I always think it's a lot more exciting knowing you have exactly five minutes to prep it before it has to go into the sauce .

You know , kind of like in the movie where the hero has to diffuse the bomb in five minutes or the whole world explodes .

It's just like that .

Only more exciting .

So we'll go ahead and slice and chop those Swiss chard leaves , at which point we'll transfer that into a bowl because we really do want to wash this stuff thoroughly before it goes in our pasta fazul .

And the best way to do that is fill this with cold water and switch those greens around with your hand .

And that way any dirt or sand is gonna fall to the bottom .

And that way when we fish this out to add to the pan , it's gonna be perfectly clean .

So , like I said , we're gonna go ahead and use that five minutes to prep our greens .

At which point we'll head back to the stove and see how we're doing .

And as you can see just in five minutes , that pasta is gonna be pretty close to being cooked , but not quite .

So at this point , we'll go ahead and add our greens after checking our liquid level .

Remember , we reserve some of our broth .

So I'm gonna go ahead and add another splash here because I decided I wanted this just a little bit thinner and then we'll go ahead and dumping those greens and stir them in .

And don't worry if you think you put in too much greens , it might look like that when you first start stirring .

But as you'll see , these are gonna wold down very quickly and after a few seconds you'll realize , oh , that's not too much .

That's the perfect amount .

And then what I'm gonna do at this point besides switch to a different spoon is give our liquid level one more check .

And to me , this is looking just about perfect .

So I'm gonna go ahead and add the last major ingredients .

One can of drained and rinse to tailing white beans also known as Canini beans .

And we'll go ahead and stir those in .

And then once our beans have been mixed in , all we need to do to finish this off is continue cooking , stirring for just a few more minutes or until our pasta is perfectly cooked and by perfectly cooked , I mean , perfectly tender .

OK , you cook it any way you want .

You are after all the vita blue of your pasta fazul .

But I don't think this is something where you want your pasta al Dente .

So I continue cooking his stirring for a few more minutes until I determine my macaroni , we're perfectly cooked .

And once that's it , we're pretty much done except for two easy but important things .

We're definitely gonna want to give this a taste and check for seasoning .

It almost always needs another pinch of salt and maybe some pepper .

And then what we're gonna do is the last official step is turn off the heat and stir in a little bit of freshly grated Parmesan cheese .

And you may be thinking is this one of those recipes where we could get away using the fake stuff ?

No , definitely not .

You're gonna wanna find some real Parmesan Reggiano .

So , with the heat off , we'll go ahead and grate in a little bit of cheese and stir that in and that's it .

Our pasta fazul is ready to serve up and hopefully a nice warm bowl and right here you're gonna get a great look at what I think is the perfect liquid amount .

All right , I'm not trying to serve a soup here .

All right .

It should look like a bowl of pasta .

But I do want a fair amount of broth if for no other reason than to dip our bread .

So we'll go ahead and serve that up and I'm gonna finish mine off with a little more gravy parmesan .

And because I have it a little bit of freshly chopped Italian parsley .

And then last , but not least we'll finish off with a few drops of extra virgin olive oil as well as the optional but mandatory crusty Italian bread .

And that's it .

My version of sausage pasta vezo is ready to enjoy .

And I think something this delicious and comforting is gonna work any time , but especially after one of those days , you know , the days it's cold , it's damp , it's windy .

Not to mention you just got through a long day at work where your coworkers just don't get you and your boss is .

What's a nice word for it ?

Totally incompetent if you get home after one of those days and treat yourself to a bowl of this suddenly and almost magically , everything seems right with the world and sure maybe the red wine you're serving with , this has something to do with that .

But mostly I think it's that comforting stick to your ribs goodness , which is the magic of a dish like this .

This is like getting a big warm hug from an Italian grandma without all that perfume .

So just a very hearty , comforting and incredibly delicious dish that start to finish is only gonna take you about 30 minutes .

Ok .

So for those reasons and more , I really do hope you give this a try soon .

So head over to food wishes dot com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy .