Homemade Soup With Less Hassle: Pennyweight's Pasta Fagioli
Updated: Nov 11
Our kickstarter soups offer many advantages. They remove much of the prep work without sacrificing that fabulous "from scratch" flavour. Our soups can be prepared straight from the bag, or you can get creative! We highly recommend adding fresh ingredients you love, to personalize them. Don't be afraid to step outside "the bag" and experiment. Customizing allows you to transform these soups into something genuinely created just for you. Pasta Fagioli is essentially "Pasta & Beans", a hearty and traditional Italian soup. It lends itself to many variations. It's a filling soup, combining two ingredients rarely found together. However, the mixing of beans and pasta makes for a stand alone meal. All dried beans require time to soften in water, before cooking. Soaking helps break down some of the complex sugars in beans, that can make them difficult to digest. It also makes them cook faster. Fill a pot with enough water to generously cover the beans, and let them sit for 2-3 hours. A great tip at this stage to speed up the process, is to parboil the beans before setting them aside to soak. If you are really proactive, you could soak them overnight, and have them ready to go the following day (insert super achievers/Type A's here). Make sure to remove the pasta and set it aside. You always add your pasta towards the end, to avoid overcooking.
Knowing this soup is rooted in Italian cuisine, helps inform some of the ingredient choices you may want to explore. A spicy sausage or ground beef is traditionally added to these soups, but feel free to personalize further if you prefer bacon, a spicy chorizo sausage or ham. We recommend adding canned or fresh tomatoes to the pot. Even a jar of pasta sauce or tomato paste works great. Other options might include diced onion, celery, carrot, green beans or corn. For our video tutorial (click the above image to view the video tutorial) we chose to use cooked hamburger, onion and canned tomatoes. Another tip that will elevate the taste of most soups is a squeeze of fresh lemon. Seriously. This simple ingredient is a secret weapon! At Pennyweight Market, we carry a variety of flavoured oils, and specialty salts. Experimenting with different varieties of these items is a quick way to add interesting flavors. We recommend pairing Prairie oils and Vinegars Tuscan herb oil with this soup. It is easy to improvise and create a homemade soup that accommodates your favourite ingredients. Taking the hassle out of homemade is our motto. We hope you think so too. Enjoy your soup!
