How to Make an Italian One Pot Pasta and Bean Dish [Recipe]

It's comfort food season and the UK Cooperative Extension Office has come up with the perfect Fall recipe. If you love pasta, you're going to love this really unique dish that combines that pasta with beans. And the best part? You can cook it up in just one pot!

This week, Catherine Dowdy, from the UK Cooperative Extension Office in Daviess County, visited our radio show for our weekly What's Cookin'? segment. She served up a delicious Kentucky Sweet Potato Bread. That bread, easily a dessert bread, could be a great compliment to this recipe, which is featured as the October recipe in the Extension Office's annual recipe calendar.

ITALIAN ONE POT PASTA AND BEANS

1 tablespoon oil

1 medium yellow or white onion, diced

1 large carrot, sliced

1 stalk celery, diced

2 minced garlic cloves (or 2 tablespoons garlic powder)

1 tablespoon Italian seasoning

4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth or water

1 can (15 ounces) no-salt-added diced tomatoes

1 can (15 ounces) no-salt-added tomato sauce

1 1/2 cups dry elbow macaroni

2 cans (15 ounces) white beans, undrained

1 teaspoon salt

Parmesan cheese *optional

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DIRECTIONS:

1) Over medium heat, add oil to large pot. Saute onion, carrots and celery until soft.

2) Add garlic and Italian seasoning and stir 1 minute.

3) Add broth, diced tomatoes and tomato sauce and bring mixture to a boil.

4) Stir in uncooked pasta, stirring from time to time for 7 to 9 minutes until pasta is almost cooked.

5) Stir in beans and salt. Simmer another 5 minutes.

6) Ladle into bowls and top with Parmesan cheese, if desired.

And here's the greatest thing about this recipe. The UK Cooperative Extension Office strives to develop recipes designed to feed lots of people in a healthy way at a relatively low cost. This Italian One Pot Pasta and Beans recipe does just that. Here's the cost breakdown.

It makes 12 servings and each serving is 1 cup. The cost for the entire recipe is just $6.38 making the cost per serving just $.53.