Pasta e Lenticchie
Small pasta cooked with brown lentils, tomato, carrot and celery into a thick Italian soup-stew.
Photograph credit: Zuppa di Lenticchie con Trofie by paPisc · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Flickr · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Don't Make These Mistakes
Cook the lentils before adding the pasta.
Stir often once the pasta goes in.
Crush a few lentils to thicken the broth.
Add hot water, not cold, when loosening the dish.
Cooking Pasta e Lenticchie
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Heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a large pan and cook the onion, carrot and celery over a low heat for 8 minutes until soft. Add the garlic and tomato paste for 1 minute.
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Add the lentils, stock and rosemary and bring to the boil. Simmer for 15 minutes.
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Stir in the pasta and cook for 8 minutes, stirring now and then, until tender. Add water if the stew is too thick.
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Remove the rosemary. Season with the salt and pepper and serve with the remaining oil trickled over.
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Why the Method Works
Most home versions come out one of two ways, either too thin or gluey, and the fix is to decide what you want before you start. A loose soup needs more stock; a thick stew needs less, and the pasta will drink up what is there as it stands.
Pasta e lenticchie is the Italian pairing of pasta and lentils, and it is a dish of the poor kitchen: two cheap dry goods, a few vegetables and good olive oil. The lentils should be brown or green, which hold their shape. Cook the lentils before the pasta goes in. Lentils take about 20 minutes, and pasta needs only the last 8.
Start with a soffritto of onion, carrot and celery, cooked slowly in oil until soft and sweet. Add garlic, a spoonful of tomato paste and a rosemary sprig. Add the lentils and stock, simmer until tender, then add the small pasta.
Crush a few lentils to thicken the broth. A drizzle of oil at the table finishes the bowl.
After You've Cooked It
Keeps in the fridge for 3 days. The pasta soaks up the broth, so add water when reheating.
Common Substitutions & Variations
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
Serving Pasta e Lenticchie
- Crusty bread
- Grated parmesan
- Green salad
- Chilli oil
Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Focaccia Genovese, Rosemary Focaccia, Creamy Parmesan Polenta.
The Numbers per Serving
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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