5-ingredient red wine and white bean pasta
This is one of my all-time top recipes in the “easy, low-maintenance, but really fucking good” category, and yet it’s one I’ve never actually seen anyone else make outside of The Stone Soup, who introduced me to it back in 2012 in the peak of my long-hours-zero-funds days.
The picture I took of it also is my most-liked Instagram photo of all time, so there are at least 2,280 people who have been exposed to its majesty. What are we all waiting for?
This is so elemental in its simplicity and so shamelessly ingredient-focused that it’s actually hard to believe it’s not a traditional dish of Italy. It’s just pasta, white beans (including the liquid!), red wine, tomato paste, and parm. It’s sort of like a deeper, darker. gothic pasta e ceci, another dish in the easy, low-maintenance, but really fucking good category, except even simpler and lower-key.
For this one, the ingredients don’t need any treatment. They don’t even need to be good. My very first rendition used 2-Buck Chuck (which was then $2.99), a can of Contadina, generic beans in a can, and plain penne. With a $10 bottle of wine for drinking and some pinky-up ziti, this dish really hasn’t evolved a whole lot.
And that’s the point. What’s good is timeless. What’s timeless is good.
This is absolutely what you want to eat on a tired, listless Thursday night once you’ve started wearing a jacket to leave the house, but before you’ve started turning the heat on.
RECIPE
A red version of pasta e ceci, this simple pasta features a rich wine and tomato sauce thickened not with cream, but white beans in their liquid. While the pasta shape is negotiable, serving with lots of fresh parm is not.
Effortful time: 10 minutes
Total time: 20 minutes
Serves: 2
YOU NEED
1 1/2 cups dry red wine, something you’d drink but nothing too fancy
6 tbsp. tomato paste
1 can cannellini beans, including the liquid - don’t drain!
8 oz short ridgy pasta, like mezzi rigatoni or ziti
Parmiggiano reggiano, for serving
MAKE IT
Create the sauce. Heat wine, beans and their liquid, and tomato paste in a pot until boiling. Lower to a simmer until thick and creamy, about 10 minutes. You can smash up some of the beans with the back of a spoon for a thicker consistency.
Cook pasta. In the meantime, cook pasta til al dente. Reserve some water.
Combine. Add the pasta straight from the pot to the skillet with the bean sauce, adding splashes of pasta water (a few tbsp. or so), until the sauce looks glossy and coats the pasta, about 2 minutes.
Serve it up. Top with shaved or grated parm and serve alongside whatever wine you did not sacrifice here.