Legendary chef Chris Kimball may be the founder of foodie company Milk Street, but he’s still the author of some truly stunning cookbooks. In fact, he and food writer J.M. Hirsh recently penned Milk Street Backroads Italy: Finding Italy’s Forgotten Recipes; the book skips over the most popular Italian dishes in favor of the rustic unsung heroes. Chief among them: pasta con fagioli.
You may not immediately recognize the name, but you’ve probably had pasta con fagioli before — it’s often called “pasta fazool” stateside. For the uninitiated, though, this hearty meal of pasta with beans is a study in elegant simplicity. To master the dish, Kimball and Hirsh travelled to Sicily, where they consulted some masterful cooks: “We were taught how to make pasta con fagioli by Piera Ferruzza, winery cook at Cantina della Val di Suro, and Maria Enza Arena, shopkeeper in the hilltop town of Castelbuono.” (If you’re simultaneously getting jealous, hungry, and lapsing into an Italian vacation daydream, we don’t blame you.)
“Sicilian cooks showed us how rosemary, lemon, and tomatoes keep a rustic pasta and bean dish light and fresh,” Hirsh and Kimball write. And the proof of that tutelage shows up in the authors’ version of the classic, which gets even more flavor from the addition of fennel and garlic.
“In Italy,” they continue, “dried borlotti beans (often called cranberry beans in the U.S.) are used. For weeknight ease, we opted for canned beans.” Thank goodness for that simple fix — but you’ll have to be careful which ones you select: “Some producers label canned borlotti beans as ‘Roman beans,'” Hirsh and Kimball write. “If you cannot find them, use pink or kidney beans, which have a similar creaminess and mildly sweet flavor. Don’t use cannellini beans, which are too tender.”
“The pasta is boiled only until very slightly softened, then drained and rinsed to stop the cooking,” the authors advise. “It finishes cooking when combined with the beans and vegetables.” A sprinkling of pecorino Romano cheese brings the whole dish together with a unique tang. If you can’t afford that ticket to Sicily, here’s the next best thing — and you could be enjoying it tonight.
Ingredients
- 8 ounces campanelle or other short pasta
- Kosher salt and ground black pepper
- 5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided, plus more to serve
- 2 pints grape or cherry tomatoes
- 1 large red onion, chopped
- 1 large fennel bulb, halved, cored and thinly sliced
- 4 medium garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
- 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
- ¾ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- Two 15½-ounce cans Roman beans (see headnote), drained but not rinsed
- 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest, plus
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 ounces pecorino Romano cheese, grated (1 cup)
Note: Don’t rinse the canned beans after draining them; the starchy liquid clinging to them adds body to the sauce.
Instructions
- In a large Dutch oven over medium-high, bring 2 quarts water to a boil. Add the pasta and 1½ teaspoons salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until just shy of al dente. Reserve 2 cups of cooking water, then drain and rinse with cold water until cool; set aside.
- In the same pot, over medium-high, heat 3 tablespoons of oil until barely smoking. Add the tomatoes, then cover, reduce to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly charred, about 5 minutes. Add the onion, sliced fennel and ¼ teaspoon salt, then cook on medium-high, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes.
- Add the garlic, rosemary, fennel seeds and pepper flakes, then cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in the beans, broth and ½ cup of the reserved cooking water. Bring to a simmer over medium-high. Cover, reduce to medium and cook, stirring once or twice, until the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes.
- Add the pasta and cook, stirring frequently, until the pasta is al dente and the sauce is creamy, 3 to 5 minutes. If needed, add the remaining reserved cooking water 1 tablespoon at a time to reach the proper consistency. Off heat, stir in the lemon zest and juice and the remaining 2 tablespoons oil. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Serve with the cheese and additional oil for drizzling.
Excerpted from MILK STREET BACKROADS ITALY by Christopher Kimball and J.M. Hirsch. Copyright © 2025 by CPK Media, LLC. Photograph by Connie Miller. Used with permission of Voracious, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. New York, NY. All rights reserved.
