Three Bean Pasta Fagioli Soup

Recipe Review: Hearty Italian Soup that's filling but not heavy

I'm feeling crappy and sick. So that means that I make soup. I usually don't have much of an appetite when I'm not feeling well, and like to stick to soups and hot tea. I had planned on making this before I started feeling bad, so only needed to grab a few things. I took a slew of cold medicine, washed it down with some green tea, waited 20 minutes for it all to kick in and got to chopping (side note: Kevin got me an amazing set of knives for Christmas I got to use it for the first time to chop up the veggies in this soup).  I adapted the soup from this crock pot recipe, but changed up the beans and the ingredient ratio a bit.

Three Bean Pasta Fagioli

yield: 10-12 servings

1 lb lean ground beef

1 small onion, diced

3 carrots, finely diced

3 stalks of celery, finely diced

1 can of garbanzo beans, drained

1 can of pinto beans, drained

1 can great northern beans

1 28oz can diced tomatoes

3 cups beef stock

1 12oz jar of tomato sauce

1 cup whole wheat pasta- elbows or other small shape

1 Tbsp Italian seasoning

salt and pepper to taste

3 shakes hot sauce

Brown ground beef in a skillet, drain and transfer to a soup pot. Add in all remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Add pasta and cook uncovered for 15-20 minutes until soup thickens to desired consistency. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

Nutrition Information: Serving Size- 1 cup. Calories 266, Fat 4.6g (Saturated Fat 1.6g) Cholesterol 37 mg, Sodium 702 mg, Carbohydrates 35.2g, Fiber 7.6g, Protein 21.3g

printable recipe

I love recipes like this because with very little effort you can make up a healthy meal in one bowl, and per serving its not too expensive either. (all your ingredients should cost less than 20 dollars, unless you shop at Whole Foods or somewhere fancy) Plus this makes a ton of soup, and thicker soups and stews like this usually freeze very well.

I had some extra ground turkey so actually I used that, it cut down on the flavor a little bit, I've had this with beef before and it's much better, but turkey is an option. Also I think next time I'll only use garbanzo and white beans, I liked their flavor more than the pintos. My mom makes a great vegetarian white pasta fagioli that has a completely different flavor but is soooo yummy. Eating this made me crave that.

In other news I found a site that will analyze ingredients and do the math on nutrition for recipes. Its a bit of a pain because I have to enter each ingredient and verify it individually, but I'm going to try to start adding them at the end of each recipe. As of now I have a job that affords me lots of idle time and internet access so I'm going to do my best to include nutritional information for most recipes (with the exception of baked goods. No one really wants to know the calorie count in that cookie or slice of cake... at least I don't).