one pot cozy chickpea pasta
Pasta e ceci (pasta with chickpeas) can be found filed in the “highly debatable” section of the Italian cooking canon, right alongside arguments between regions about who really invented puttanesca and generational disagreements about what is and is not allowed in a ragù bolognese. Neither a soup or a pasta but also simultaneously both (?), the traditional version of the dish has some combination of the same few ingredients—tomato paste, garlic, olive oil, pasta, often wine, and garbanzo beans—cooked with varying amounts and varieties of liquid that take it down the path of either soupy pasta, or pasta soup. Whether you need a fork or a spoon is determined on a case-by-case basis.
As usual, there is no right answer, but that doesn’t stop people from trying to convince the internet that there is. But today, I am sparing you all of that with a dish that deviates so far from the formula that it no longer aspires to be called pasta e ceci anymore at all. Instead, he just wants to be accepted as his own person, exactly for who he is, which is a minimal-effort cozy chickpea pasta cooked in one pot, blanketed in a velvety tomato sauce with lots of torn basil tucked in. A spaghettio vibe, but for adults.
The major difference between pasta e ceci and this dish inspired by it is its sauce:broth ratio. Pasta e ceci’s base flavor is ultra-concentrated tomato paste, which is then thinned out with a substantial amount of liquid as it simmers with the beans and pasta. To give this rendition its cozy sauciness, I’m ditching the tomato paste completely and instead using a much larger volume of tomato passata: a thick, strained, pure tomato puree that’s often usually sold in jars rather than cans, that I unknowingly grew up eating in my mom’s Sunday Sauce for years because I was an unpleasant child for whom ANY tomato chunks would cause a psychological disturbance. Texturally, it’s the spiritual midpoint between tomato paste and crushed tomatoes: smooth and velvety, very thick, and concentrated. Because it can sometimes be hard to find outside of Italian specialty stores, I just store several jars of it (DeLallo’s) stashed in the pantry.
Some notes
Seriously, undrained beans? You read that right. Don’t drain. Fight the urge. Bean juice, otherwise known as aquafaba (literally “bean water” in Italian), contains special starchy compounds that help the sauce thicken up into its creamy, rich texture. I have tested this dish with drained beans, and it is neither the same nor as good as when they are undrained. Embrace bean juice. Bean juice is your life now.
On pasta shape: here I am using DeLallo’s shellbows, an elbow-shaped shell variety (surprise!) which I picked specifically because of their compatibility with chickpeas. They are excellent at holding this sauce thanks to their tubular shape, but unlike rigatoni, the hole is just a liiiiittle too small for the chickpeas to get lost in there. “Shellbow” is, in my opinion, a very descriptive name for this shape of pasta, but you can sometimes also find them billed as lumaconi or lumache—both of which roughly mean snail, which I find to be both conceptually less cute and charming than a shellbow.
Help, this looks soupy. That’s actually okay—the original pasta e ceci that inspired this dish is arguably more of a soup than a pasta, depending on who you ask and what Italian bean-pasta school of thought they subscribe to. However, if you prefer more of a pasta-with-sauce consistency vs. adult spaghettios (as pictured, we’re somewhere in the middle), you can start with 1 1/2 cups of water instead, and simply add more as you need if it starts to look dry.
Cooking times can vary—check and taste often! I know it’s annoying, but it’s only because science can sometimes also be kind of annoying. Depending on the shape and size of pot you use, liquid will evaporate at different rates: the shallower and wider the pan, the faster this will happen. If you use a deeper pot, you may find the dish stays soupier longer. If it’s more of a large sauté pan, you may find you need more water, because the surface area is larger and therefore the water will boil off faster. Keep it chill, go with the flow, and have a cup of water next to the pot so you can adjust as you go. Taste around 20 minutes and make the call from there. My pot was a 10”-ish, shallower Dutch oven, and it took me 25 minutes on the dot.
Allow your pan to go topless. I mean, you don’t have to, but the evaporation rate will be different, and you will likely have a MUCH wetter sauce if you don’t let it evaporate off in the process. If you want it to look like mine, don’t use a lid!
On reheating: for whatever reason, pasta cooked risotto-style like this tends to take a larger than usual amount of water when reheating. Dried-out tomatoes burn fast the second day. Dried out leftover bean starch burns even faster. Moral of the story: add a splash more water than you think you need if you’re stretching it to day two.
RECIPE
A one-pot pasta inspired by Roman pasta e ceci, with a velvety smooth tomato sauce made creamy using an unexciting secret: not draining the beans.
Effortful time: <5 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes
Serves 4-6, I like it with a lightly dressed arugula salad
you need
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3/4 cup dry white wine
24 oz. tomato passata; I used DeLallo—this is sometimes sold as strained tomatoes or tomato puree, but the only ingredient in it should be tomatoes!
1 lb pasta; I am using DeLallo’s shellbows
2 cans of chickpeas, NOT drained or rinsed
1 1/2-2 cups water, depending on how soupy you want it (see note)
1 tsp salt, plus more to taste
Pinch of chili flakes, optional
Any fresh herb you have—here I have 12-15 leaves of ribboned basil; I’ve also used rosemary and thyme in the winter, but you’ll want to frizzle these in the olive oil at step 1 instead of adding at the end
Shaved parm and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil, for serving
make it
Start your base. Heat 2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil in a medium (3-4qt) Dutch oven over medium heat. Sauté the garlic until fragrant but not browned, 30 seconds or so.
Deglaze the garlic with 3/4 cup of white wine. Turn the heat down to medium-low.
Build your one-pot wonder. Add the tomato passata, pasta, and undrained chickpeas with their liquid into the garlic and wine, along with salt, pepper, and a pinch of chili flakes. Give everything a good stir. Pour in the water, which should just submerge the pasta and chickpea mixture.
Simmer this (don’t allow to boil too vigorously, or the chickpeas will fall apart) on medium-low uncovered for 20-25 minutes, checking at the 20 minute mark for pasta doneness. That’s it!
Finish the dish. Stir in fresh chopped herbs, and spoon into bowls. Serve with shavings of parm and a drizzle of your favorite olive oil.