Pasta Fazool!

I love cooking Italian. Truly, it's a whole thing that involves wine and Mambo Italiano radio on Pandora...I love it! When I stumbled across this recipe for Pasta Fagioli, or Pasta Fazool, by Cooking Classy last week I quickly realized I had to try it, so I did.

I will say that it was a bit of work, but it was worth every single bit of it! Everyone in the family loved this recipe and it made enough that we ate if for three days.

You have to try this amazing zoup! If you do try it, let me know what you think! I must agree with Dean Martin: That's Amore!

Homemade Pasta Fagioli Soup Recipe

This pasta fagioli recipe is a MUST that you can’t miss out on. It’s one of the ultimate comfort food and truly one of the best soups you’ll make!

Since sharing this soup 6 years ago it has become a reader favorite recipe. And of course a family favorite too – everyone in my family loves this soup!

You’ll love that it uses ingredients that are commonly kept on hand (do you store ground beef in the freezer like I do?), it has such a delicious satisfying flavor, it’s so hearty and it’s a dinner everyone agree on.

Plus this is super easy to make, nothing complicated here and it all comes together in one pot!

What Does Pasta e Fagioli Mean?

The Italian term “pasta e fagoili” translates in English to pasta and beans. It’s a hearty soup consisting of plenty of the two.

What Ingredients go into Pasta Fagioli?

• Ground beef. Use at least 80% lean ground beef. You can also try it with half Italian sausage.

• Olive oil. This is used for sauteing the veggies so you won’t need much.

• Yellow onion, carrots, celery, garlic and parsley. These fresh vegetables add layers of flavor.

• Canned tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, kidney beans, great northern beans, and low-sodium chicken broth. These canned ingredients make this a weeknight friendly recipe cutting way down on prep.

• Sugar. This very small amount just balances the acidity of the canned tomatoes. If preferred you can omit it.

• Dried oregano, basil, thyme, marjoram. If you don’t have all the different dried herbs then you can just use an Italian seasoning blend. Use 1 Tbsp.

• Ditalini pasta. In a pinch another small pasta will work fine here like macaroni or even orzo.

• Parmesan cheese. Shredded Romano will work great too.

How to Make Pasta Fagioli Soup:

1. Cook beef in a pot, drain and transfer beef.

2. Saute veggies in same pot.

3. Add broth, tomato sauce, canned tomatoes, sugar, dried herbs and beef.

4. Simmer until veggies are tender.

5. Cook ditalini.

6. Add pasta and beans to soup warm briefly then stir in parsley.

How to Store:

Store pasta e fagioli soup (separate from pasta) for up to 3 days in the refrigerator in an airtight container. I like to store in individual microwave safe containers to I can reheat individual portions straight from the fridge.

Pasta e Fagioli Soup {Olive Garden Copycat Recipe}

This Pasta e Fagioli is one of my all time favorite soups and one of my most popular recipes! It's loaded with vegetables and brimming with Italian flavor. It's perfectly comforting, hearty and absolutely delicious!

Watch the video

Servings: 6 servings

Prep15 minutes Cook35 minutes Ready in: 50 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp olive oil, divided

• 1 lb lean ground beef

• 1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion

• 1 cup diced carrots (about 2 medium)

• 1 cup diced celery (about 3 stalks)

• 3 cloves garlic, minced (1 Tbsp)

• 3 (8 oz) cans tomato sauce

• 2 14.5 oz cans low-sodium chicken broth

• 1/2 cup water, then more as desired

• 1 (15 oz) can diced tomatoes

• 2 tsp granulated sugar

• 1 1/2 tsp dried basil

• 1 tsp dried oregano

• 3/4 tsp dried thyme

• 1/2 tsp dried marjoram

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

• 1 cup dry ditalini pasta

• 1 (15 oz) can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

• 1 (15 oz) can great northern beans, drained and rinsed

• Finely shredded Romano or Parmesan cheese , for serving

• 3 Tbsp minced fresh parsley

Instructions

• Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a large pot over medium high heat, crumble in ground beef and cook, stirring occasionally until cooked through.

• Drain fat from beef then transfer beef to a plate, set aside. Heat remaining 1 Tbsp olive oil in same pot.

• Add onions, carrots, and celery and saute over medium-high heat until tender about 6 minutes, add garlic and saute 1 minute longer.

• Add chicken broth, tomato sauce, water, canned tomatoes, sugar, basil, oregano, thyme, marjoram and cooked beef then season with salt and pepper to taste.

• Bring to a boil then reduce heat to medium-low, cover with lid and allow to simmer, stirring occasionally, until veggies are soft, about 15 - 20 minutes.

• Meanwhile prepare ditalani pasta according to directions on package, cooking to al dente.

• Add cooked and drained pasta to soup* along with kidney beans and great northern beans. Thin with a little more broth or water if desired.

• Allow to cook 1 minute longer. Stir in parsley, serve warm with grated Romano or Parmesan cheese.

Notes *If you don't plan on eating all of the soup right away I recommend adding the pasta to individual servings. Otherwise pasta gets soggy and absorbs too much broth.

Nutrition Facts Pasta e Fagioli Soup {Olive Garden Copycat Recipe} Amount Per Serving Calories 540Calories from Fat 126 % Daily Value* Fat 14g22% Saturated Fat 4g25% Cholesterol 49mg16% Sodium 718mg31% Potassium 1616mg46% Carbohydrates 70g23% Fiber 13g54% Sugar 12g13% Protein 35g70% Vitamin A 4375IU88% Vitamin C 24mg29% Calcium 150mg15% Iron 8mg44% * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. Nutrition values are estimates only. See full disclaimer here.

Course: Main Course Cuisine: American Keyword: Pasta Fagioli Author: Jaclyn

Why this year I said "Yes" to competitive dance.

So I wrote a long and well thought out post last year about why I said “NO” to competition dance for Skylar. Several things have changed since then, which led me to saying yes this year.

Going in to middle school this year meant she had more opportunities for sports, and she put lots of thought into the things she would like to choose as extracurricular. She ultimately decided that she would not have time to do both dance and another sport, like cheer or soccer, and she wanted to keep dancing.

While not something that would scar her for life, all of her best friends are on the competition team, so she has often felt left out. Last year at the recital she was in a dressing room all by herself, while all of the competition girls were together down the hall. That sucked. She had a great attitude about it though, which helped soften my resolve, she is a great kid!

At last year’s recital she won a scholarship for her Jazz abilities. It was worth $200, which is only a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme, but it was a testament to her talent and abilities.

One of the biggest deciding factors for me is that both my girls are getting older, and soon we will be faced with summer and after school jobs. One thing I cannot abide is either of them having to take a job at one of the local fast food places here where we live. I have no problem with them learning to work hard for their pittance of a paycheck like the rest of us. What I cannot allow is them to be treated badly for the sake of earning that dime, bullied and spoken down to for a dollar. What I’ve seen of the treatment of the kids working around here is horrendous. When a young friend came crying to me about it a few years ago I knew immediately my girls would never work in one of those places because they deserve to be treated with respect. I want them to learn that they deserve to be respected, even if they are working a minimum wage job. What I realized this year about the dance studio is that the young ladies who have risen the ranks through the dance classes are now going to college and teaching dance at the studio they grew up in. They are loved, respected and at home with their dance family. And they were allowed and encouraged to start helping around the studio after school years ago, when they were not much older than Skylar. I can definitely feel comfortable with that kind of potential as a short term future for her. The icing on our competition dance cake, though? The owner of the studio called me the day of auditions. I was not even aware auditions were to be held that day because it was completely not on my radar, I hadn’t paid attention. But she called. She told me that Skylar was so very talented, and she felt that with the guidance and experience she would get as a part of the competition team would be extremely beneficial for her, and the sky is the limit for what she could accomplish…pun intended I think.

I had 2 hours to make a decision and deliver her to the studio if we were going to do it. My mind was racing the whole time. I knew she wanted to do it, but we had never discussed it as an option for NOW. In fact, we had agreed that if she did well in her first year of middle school I would do whatever I had to do so she could try competition the following year. I called my dad to get his opinion, and after several minutes of discussion he asked the pivotal question: would it make Skylar happy? Ah, happiness. Ok, then, lets go kid! At that point she had one hour until auditions, which she spent in the waiting room of her sisters afternoon appointment stretching and practicing. She was so nervous! Moreover it was the beginning of the new dance season and we hadn’t even made sure her dance gear still fit…it didn’t. But, she wore it anyway and I dropped her off a the studio for an hour and a half audition.

Turns out, my Skyar is so talented that in her first year of competition she skipped the mini and junior companies and was selected to go straight into the advanced company. She has classes every day of the week, often until 8. I spend 3 hours driving the two girls from place to place after work every day and I work on Sunday to pay for her dance tuition. So far I’ve earned the other fees through fundraising, lets hope that continues! Her grades are all A’s for now, and she is finding the time to do homework after school and before dance starts. I look at all of it as my duty to her, and I consider it an honor to support what she loves, and do whatever I can to be the wind beneath her wings and help make her dreams possible.

Olympic Equestrian. You want to do what?

My daughter, Cameron, has loved horses as long as I can remember, and has been around a horse quite a bit. We still have the old mare I have had since I was 15 years old. Ms. Swen Boyd is too old to ride, according to her veterinarian, so she is retired to the peaceful pasture life.

When Cameron was six I took a job feeding Kathy Daly’s fancy dressage horses when she had a busy schedule or needed to travel for work. In exchange, she gave Cameron basic riding lessons. Cameron got to train with an award winning trainer, think Misty of Chincoteague, for a few months, and loved it dearly. But Kathy took a job training some other horses and moved out of state.

Eventually we found a new trainer, and again Cameron took riding lessons once a week for about a year. The lessons were expensive though, and her father refused to help with that expense. As a single mother I couldn’t keep doing it, so her lessons came to an end.

Her love of horses has only grown over the years. Realizing that it is still important to her, her dad put her back in lessons right after Christmas of 2018. She has been riding at Equistarre Horsemanship once a week for almost 10 months now. Her lesson horse is Gracie, a rescue horse who has several ailments, but she is sound for lessons and HUGE. And Cameron’s heart, she loves that horse, and their time together. Cameron still has much to learn, but she is taking it seriously, is making progress and has serious goals. She is riding Western and learning the basics, but she hopes she will be allowed to graduate to English soon and start learning about how she really wants to ride. She has done research, because she is her mama’s kid and we’re good at that, and concluded that at this rate of study, it will take her approximately two years to learn the basics.

Cameron struggles with expressing her needs and feelings. She recently told me that she feels depressed at least a little bit every day, and has for about 5 years. We have had weekly appointments with a family counselor for the last few months. I really like her counselor, who also works with me some and has really opened my eyes to the roll I have played in Cameron’s learning to keep things bottled up. By trying to keep the peace with their father and make sure everything remained calm and drama free for the kids, I inadvertently taught them to keep their mouth shut and not express their needs. Talk about feeling guilty! Anyway, Cameron still has feelings of depression, but she is learning to express herself and communicate her needs better, finding positive ways to deal with her emotions. One of which is horses. She recently confided to me that she doesn’t just like horses, they are her happy place, the only place in the world where she feels free and good, always. That’s heavy for a worried mother to hear.

She is smart, taking four honors classes this year and is several years ahead of schedule academically. She also has all A’s and had the trip of a lifetime this past summer when NASA invited her to come explore their facilities, all expenses paid. She is kind, and good. She is amazing, and sometimes I can’t believe she is my daughter. I have always been smart, but this kid has surpassed me intellectually already, at 14! She has chosen Stanford as her preferred college. Yes, that is in California. Stanford is a great school, with a 5% acceptance rate. Tough, but not impossible for someone like her. But her primary reason for choosing that school is their equestrian team and the famous big red barn. Her dad says she can’t, that she should stay close and attend FSU, but by george if that is what she sees for her future, we will make it happen!

She wants to be a forensic scientist. And an author. Oh, and also an Olympic Equestrian. She told me that if she tells people that part of her future goals they will laugh and dismiss her idea as being frivolous and ridiculous, but she is very serious about it.

With her sister Skylar getting so involved with dance this year, and me committing so much of my time and energy to those pursuits, I felt I should somehow do the same for Cameron. Money is a problem, as is time. After much thought and debate, I decided the best thing for now is to just get her as immersed in that world as I can. As such, we have joined the local horseman’s association, and attended our first horse show last month. Both girls really loved it, but especially Cameron who wants to ride in the show next month! These shows are monthly, and if it falls on my weekend with them I vow to get her there. I have also signed her up for this year’s new and improved 4-H horse program, which also has monthly meetings run by several of the local equestrian leaders.

I have also been following her own trainer’s schedule of events, and plan to take Cameron to audit any workshops she has going forward. I’m hoping to get her more involved at the barn where she rides, so that she might have the opportunity to do some after school work there and further immerse herself in the world of the horse that she loves so much. Yesterday I saw a post about Christopher Reeves on facebook. Seeing reminders of his story always causes me to have a momentary feeling of panic. I don’t want my beloved first born child to end up paralyzed because what she’s chosen to dedicate her life to is deadly! But on the other hand, what is life if not to be lived? It can be scary, and very much is scary for me, but I have to support her and help her make her dreams a reality, just like I’m trying to do for her little sister.

Those two girls are my heart, and I would do anything for them..including drive around from place to place for three hours every day and work seven days a week to pay for the privilege of doing so. After all, someone has to get her to the Olympics!