Pasta with Creamy White Bean & Rosemary Sauce

 

This recipe is a (highly adapted) one from Smitten Kitchen – not a vegan blog, but certainly one with pretty photos! The original recipe calls for many steps, but I am a lazy person and have adapted it to be an easy weeknight dinner.

White beans (or “cannellini beans”) are a favourite of ours at the minute – so I’m sure you’ll be seeing lots more of them. Blend them into anything to make things creamy and lovely! We get them cheap at 4 cans for £1 – so ours are ready cooked, but if you want to use dried beans then I’m sure all the dishes would work with cooked, dried beans too.

The easiest part of this recipe is that it doesn’t need you to “finely chop” an onion, or garlic, or anything – it goes straight into the food processor.

Onion, garlic, carrots, chilli flakes, and some fresh rosemary (though I was a little lax on the rosemary as our rosemary bush seems to have grown a spider web…) all blend until finely chopped.

You then saute these off, add in several heaped tablespoons of tomato puree (I love tomato puree) and then the drained and rinsed beans.

Cook this whilst the pasta is boiling, then transfer two thirds of the bean mixture back into the food processor and blend until creamy and smooth. Or, if your processor is like ours, almost smooth.

Drain the pasta, mix it all together, and serve! Mmm.

• Servings: 2
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Ingredients

• 1 onion, cut in quarters
• 2 medium carrots, in big chunks
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes (or to taste -depending on how spicy you like!)
• 1 tbsp fresh rosemary – or 1tsp dried
• 3 heaped tbsp tomato puree
• 1 can white beans
• 180g pasta
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions

1. Put the onion, carrots, garlic, chilli flakes, and rosemary into the food processor and blend until finely chopped. Transfer to a pan and saute until starting to colour, and season well.
2. Meanwhile, start the pasta boiling.
3. Add three heaped tablespoons of tomato puree, and a small amount of water, and cook for a couple of minutes.
4. Stir in the drained and rinsed beans, and add more water if needed. Cook this until the pasta is almost done.
5. Transfer two thirds of the bean mixture to the food processor, and blend until smooth. Add back into the pan and mix with the remaining mixture.
6. Drain the pasta and stir into the sauce.
7. Serve!

Many thanks to Smitten Kitchen for the recipe inspiration! 🙂