Gluten Free Pasta e Fagioli is hearty, filling, easy, and inexpensive to make. This soul-satisfying soup recipe is pure comfort food!
With summer in the rearview mirror and cooler temps upon us, it feels fitting to share the comforting recipe for Gluten Free Pasta e Fagioli with you today. This rustic soup is warming, filling, healthy, and feeds an army too!
What is Pasta e Fagioli?
Pasta e Fagioli is a traditional Italian soup made with pasta and beans, and is a cinch to make gluten free. It’s inexpensive, made with everyday ingredients, and is the perfect dish to whip up on a Sunday afternoon (glass of wine in hand for an extra dash of cozy!) then enjoy for Sunday dinner.
Leftovers reheat beautifully for easy lunches all week long OR you can transfer the soup into Ziplock freezer bags and freeze flat for another time.
Pasta e Fagioli Ingredients
Like I said, the ingredients for Pasta e Fagioli are humble, simple, and easy to find. I bet you’ve got most if not all of them on hand in the fridge and pantry right now.
- Ground beef. I prefer using 85/15 or 80/20 ground beef in soups and stews as it stays tender without drying out.
- Fresh vegetables: carrots, celery, onions, and garlic not only flavor the Pasta e Fagioli, but make it wholesome and nutritious.
- Crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce. Be sure to use gluten free tomato products – not all brands ensure ALL their tomato products are GF! I like Red Gold.
- Beef broth. I like Pacific, HyVee, or Progresso brands of gluten free beef broth.
- Kidney and Great Northern Beans. Inexpensive, filling, and packed with nutrients.
- Gluten free pasta. I use gluten free elbows, but any short grain pasta is fine. Or, you can use regular pasta if you don’t need to eat GF.
- Seasonings and herbs: salt, pepper, oregano, basil, dried parsley, and thyme.
- Parmesan cheese. Both grated parmesan cheese and parmesan cheese rind flavor this soup.
I mentioned that this soup freezes very well. Since gluten free pasta doesn’t hold up well to freezing after cooking though, I advise you cook the gluten free pasta fresh then add to the soup after thawing from frozen.
Alrighty, let’s cook!
How to Make Pasta e Fagioli Soup
Start by browning ground beef in a large soup pot, seasoning with homemade seasoned salt and pepper. Drain if there’s a lot of grease then return to the pot and add sliced carrots, celery, shallot or onion, and garlic. Saute for 10 minutes, stirring every so often.
Next add a crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, beef broth, light red kidney beans, great northern beans, plus dried oregano, dried basil, dried parsley, dried thyme, and a parmesan cheese rind, which will give the soup depth of flavor like you wouldn’t believe!
Bring the soup up to a bubble then turn the heat down to medium and simmer for 50-60 minutes, or until your desired consistency is reached, stirring every so often. I like my Pasta e Fagioli to be almost ragu-like, so I simmer for a full hour.
Just before eating, cook up your favorite gluten free short cut pasta – again, I use elbows – then add to bowls and scoop the hot Pasta e Fagioli on top.
Stir to combine, top with freshly grated parmesan cheese, then dig in! I hope you enjoy this hearty, filling dish!
More Cozy Soups and Chilis To Try
- One-Pot Chicken and Rice
- Kickin Green Chili
- CrockPot White Chicken Chili
- Hamburger Soup
- Smoked Sausage, White Bean and Spinach Soup
- Sweet Corn, Kielbasa and Potato Soup
- Signature Chili
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 cup baby carrots or 1 large carrot, thinly sliced
- 2 ribs celery, thinly sliced
- 1 small onion or large shallot, chopped
- homemade seasoned salt and pepper, see notes
- 2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
- 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
- 15 oz can tomato sauce
- 15 oz can beef broth, plus more for reheating
- 15 oz can light red kidney beans, undrained
- 15 oz can great northern beans, undrained
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 teaspoon dried parsley
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 2x2" parmesan rind, optional
- 8 oz gluten free elbows pasta, or another short-grain pasta
- freshly grated parmesan cheese for topping
Directions
- Brown ground beef in a large Dutch oven or soup pot over medium-high heat, seasoning with homemade seasoned salt and pepper. Drain if theres a lot of excess fat then return beef to the pot. Add carrots, celery, onion or shallot, season with more seasoned salt and pepper then saute for 7 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic then continue to saute for 3 more minutes.
- Add remaining ingredients except the pasta to the pot then turn heat to high to bring to a simmer. Turn heat down to medium then simmer for 50-60 minutes, uncovered, or until soup has thickened, stirring occasionally.
- When soup has 15 minutes left to cook, cook pasta in boiling water then drain and divy up between bowls. Remove parmesan cheese rind from soup then scoop over pasta and serve with freshly grated parmesan cheese.
Notes
- Click here for my Homemade Seasoned Salt recipe.
- Slightly adapted from Todd Wilbur
Nutrition
Nutritional values are estimates only. Please read our full nutrition information disclaimer.
this recipe says its for a serving of 4??? Seems like a lot of ingredients for a small serving?? Also has anyone froze this soup??
Yummo! Made this for dinner tonight and will definitely be making again. Thanks for sharing
I made this last night and it was so good! Perfect cold weather food. LOVE your blog and recipes!!!
It’s 20 degrees outside, so I thought this a perfect time to try this. I’ve actually never tried Olive Garden’s version; I always eat Zuppa Toscana when I visit the restaurant. This was an easy to follow recipe and the result was SCRUMPTIOUS with lots of leftovers. Great with homemade bread and blueberry cobbler. We are rubbing our bellies and smiling; thank you!
Delicious! Made this today & my family loved it. The only thing I would do differently next time is add the cooked pasta to the serving bowl & add the soup on top instead of mixing the cooked pasta into the soup. It absorbs so much liquid so quickly!
The OG out here serves this quite spicy- runny nose after 3 bites spicy. It’s a bit like chili. Does this recipe turn out spicy? (I was searching for the cayenne in the ingredients-lol)
Nope, definitely not spicy!
I made this tonight and we all loved it!! So delicious and hearty. Thank you for the recipe! :)
This is excellent! So yummy and seriously restaurant quality. I made this exactly as stated (minus the Parmesan rinds)and it was incredibly delicious. This will be my Pasta Fagioli recipe from now on.
I would like to say that I made this recipe before I commented on it. I really wish people would actually make the recipes before they comment on them. These bloggers spend a lot of their free-time posting recipes and it doesn’t help them in any way if you comment without actually making the recipe. No one cares if you think they “look good”. They want to know how they actually taste.
Love it ! I substituted half italian sausage with ground beef its yummy . I am selling bowls of soup at work to support our breast cancer awareness 5k Im positive this will sell out
I made this last night using 1.5 lbs ground beef and 12 ounces pasta. I felt it was missing something so seasoned it more but nothing. So I added another 15 ounces beef broth brought to boil and simmered for hours. It tasted just like olive gardens!!! Thanks for sharing your version.
Can this recipe be frozen?
Hey Alex! I’ve never tried but I’m sure it’d be just fine!
Usually use a recipe that doesn’t have meat because the hubby loves OG´s version which doesn’t have meat. I had some ground beef though that needed to be used so I found this on pinterest and decided to try it The family liked it just as well. I added some extra garlic and an additional 4 cups of broth so I could just add the ditalini at the end and it still was soupy like we prefer it. I used chicken broth because I had some to use up and that’s what our original recipe called for.
The OG soup I’ve had in restaurants on the west coast has more spice (heat) than is indicated in this recipe. It’s not exactly a spicy soup at OG, but it has a little something in it. The OG in the Midwest, on the other hand, is a little more like your recipe, probably. I live in the Midwest now and found the pasta fagioli to have less heat, as does most Midwestern food, it seems. Wish I knew what the difference in recipes is. What was in that soup I loved so much in California?