Instant Pot Pasta Fagioli (Italian Pasta and Bean Soup, AKA Pasta Fazool)

Instant Pot Pasta Fagioli (Italian Pasta and Bean Soup). Pasta Fazool is an Italian-American classic for a reason - it's a hearty meal in a bowl.

Now that it's winter, everyone wants soup. My sister-in-law wanted to know why I didn't have more soup recipes on my blog. My wife asked for more soup in our weekly meal plans. And Frank, my barber, was rhapsodizing about his mom's old-style Italian-American cooking. When I asked him for an example of a hearty soup, he started with Mom's Pasta Fazool.

Jump to:

• INGREDIENTS
• How to Make Instant Pot Pasta E Fagioli Soup
• Substitutions
• Variations:
• 🛠 Equipment
• 📏Scaling
• Do You Have to Soak Cannellini Beans Before Pressure Cooking?
• Sorting Beans
• Tips and Tricks
• Storage
• What to serve with Pasta Fagioli
• Instant Pot Pasta Fagioli Recipe
• Related Posts
• 💬 Comments

Pasta e Fagioli, the classic Italian soup, is all about the art of simple cooking. At its core, it is cooked white beans, and the bean liquid is used to cook pasta. Easy, right?

How can I improve on that? I can't. But I can sneak in my bean-cooking secret weapon, my pressure cooker. I brine the beans while I soak them, to season them all the way through. I add a bunch of aromatics to the pot, including a fistful of herb stems, a Parmesan rind, and a whole head of garlic.
Yes, toss the whole head of garlic in there, skin and all. We'll pull it out after it gives up its flavor to the beans. Make sure to trim off any roots, though. They hold on to dirt, and dirt is not good eats.

Finally, I cook a half pound of small pasta in the bean liquid. It soaks up all the flavors and turns this into a thick soup, one that borders on a stew. It is a simple and fantastic soup.

INGREDIENTS

Soaked beans

• Dry cannellini or great northern beans
• Water
• Fine sea salt

Soup

• Olive oil
• Onion
• Celery
• Carrots
• Red pepper flakes
• Fine sea salt
• Water
• Diced tomatoes
• Garlic
• Parmesan rind (optional)
• Bunch of parsley
• Fresh rosemary
• Small dried pasta (I used ditalini)
• Fresh ground black pepper
• Balsamic vinegar

Accompaniments

• Grated Parmesan cheese
• Minced fresh parsley leaves
• Red pepper flakes

How to Make Instant Pot Pasta E Fagioli Soup

Sort and rinse the beans

Sort the dry cannellini beans, discarding any stones, dirt, or broken beans. Rinse the beans, then do an overnight or a quick soak.

Overnight soak

Cover the beans with 8 cups of water, and sprinkle with 2 teaspoons of salt. Leave the beans to soak at least 8 hours, or overnight. Drain and discard the soaking liquid.

OR: Pressure Quick Soak for 1 minute with a 30-minute rest

Put the beans and 8 cups of water in an Instant Pot or other pressure cooker. Sprinkle with 2 teaspoons of salt. Pressure cook at high pressure for 1 minute (“Manual”, “Pressure Cook”, or "Pressure Cook - Custom" mode in an Instant Pot). Let the beans soak in the pot for 30 minutes, then quick release any remaining pressure. Drain the beans and discard the soaking liquid. (Wipe out the pot if you are re-using it in the next step.)

Sauté the aromatics

Heat the olive oil in an Instant Pot using sauté mode set to high (or medium-high heat in a stove top pressure cooker) until the oil is shimmering. Add the onion, celery, carrots, red pepper flakes, and sprinkle with ½ teaspoon salt. Saute until the onions are softened and starting to brown about 8 minutes.

Everything in the pot

Add the drained beans to the pot, then stir in the water and canned tomatoes. Scrape the bottom of the pot with a flat-edged wooden spoon to make sure nothing is sticking. Add the Parmesan rind and the head of garlic to the pot. Tie the parsley stems and rosemary sprig into a bundle, and add it to the pot.

Pressure cook for 18 minutes with a Natural Release

Lock the lid on the pressure cooker. Cook on high pressure for 18 minutes in an Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker, or for 15 minutes in a stovetop PC. (In an Instant Pot, use “Manual”, “Pressure Cook”, or "Pressure Cook - Custom" mode set for 18 minutes). Let the pressure release naturally, about 20 minutes. (If you're in a hurry, you can quick release any remaining pressure after 15 minutes.) Remove the lid carefully, opening away from you - even when it's not under pressure, the steam in the cooker is very hot.

Cook the pasta

Fish out the herb bundle, head of garlic, and Parmesan rind, and discard. Set the Instant Pot to Sauté mode adjusted to high (or turn the heat to high for a stovetop cooker) and bring the pot back to a simmer. Stir in the 2 teaspoons of salt and the pasta. Simmer until the pasta is tender, about 9 minutes. (Check the box of pasta for the cooking time.) Stir in the black pepper and balsamic vinegar.

Serve

Ladle the soup into bowls and serve, passing the accompaniments at the table. Enjoy!

Substitutions

Small Pasta Shapes: Ditalini pasta - small, short tubes of pasta - are the traditional shape for soup. (Barilla even calls them "soup pasta" on their box). But any extra-small pasta shape will do. Try pastina (little stars) or rotelle (mini wheels) for a fun shape.
Different Kinds of Beans: Cannellini beans are the traditional bean with pasta e fagioli, but great northern beans are a very close substitute. Borlotti beans (aka cranberry beans) also work well in this recipe. Navy beans will also work, if you can't find a larger white bean, but they cook quickly. Cut the pressure cooking time back to 10 minutes (with a natural pressure release) for soaked navy beans.
Different Tomatoes: I use diced tomatoes because I like small chunks of tomato in the soup. If you want a red-colored broth, substitute tomato sauce for the diced tomatoes.
Herb bundle: I like adding a herb bundle to flavor the beans…when I have them on hand. Don't have fresh parsley or rosemary? Substitute 2 teaspoons of Italian seasoning, or a mix of dried rosemary, dried basil, and dried thyme.
Broth for water: If you want an extra-rich soup, substitute vegetable broth or chicken broth for some or all of the cooking water. (Note: Not the bean-soaking water, but the water used for cooking.)

Variations:

Vegetarian pasta fagioli: Good news, this recipe is vegetarian as written!
Vegan pasta fagioli: Skip the Parmesan rind and grated Parmesan. Substitute a couple of dried porcini mushrooms for the rind, and drizzle the soup with olive oil.
Carnivore pasta fagioli Add some Italian sausage or diced pancetta with the onions, and cook until browned. (Or, brown the pancetta separately and use it as a garnish.) Or, if you have a leftover ham bone or smoked pork shank, toss it in the pot with the beans. When the beans are done cooking, remove the bone, strip off any ham that was left, shred it, and stir it into the beans.

🛠 Equipment

A 6-quart pressure cooker

📏Scaling

This instant pot soup recipe scales down easily - cut everything in half if you don't need as many beans, or have a 3-quart pressure cooker. Scaling up runs into space issues; if you have an 8-quart pressure cooker, or larger, you can double this recipe, but it's too much to fit in a 6-quart pressure cooker.

Do You Have to Soak Cannellini Beans Before Pressure Cooking?

I get a lot of questions about soaking beans. Cannellini beans are one of the few beans I prefer to soak. (They must be a denser bean, because it takes a long time to pressure cook them to tenderness if they are not soaked.)
When I remember, I soak my cannellini beans overnight; when I forget, I use the quick soak method. (I do the quick soak more often than I should. I’m an enthusiastic home cook, but not great at planning ahead.)
If I completely forget to soak, this recipe works without soaking. Cook the beans for 45 minutes at high pressure with a natural pressure release. Then, check the beans. If they need it, I’ll pressure cook them for another 5 minutes with a quick release. (See the “Tips and Tricks” section about floaters, below - I seem to get a lot of those in my Kidney beans.)

Sorting Beans

Beans are an agricultural product, and stuff tends to creep in when they are processed. Beans should always be sorted and rinsed before using, to get rid of any twigs, stones, clumps of dirt, or broken beans.
To sort the beans, I pour them out on one side of a rimmed baking sheet (a half-sheet pan), to keep the beans from escaping. Then I slowly run my fingers through the pile of beans, pulling them towards me on the sheet. I watch the beans as they move, looking for anything that doesn't seem right. If I see something, I poke around in the beans until I find what caught my eye, and discard it. I repeat this a couple of times, until I'm satisfied everything is out of the beans.
Then I dump the beans into a fine mesh strainer and rinse them under cold running water, to wash off any dirt or dust still on the beans.
Now the beans are sorted, rinsed, and ready for soaking or cooking.

Tips and Tricks

No pressure cooker? No problem: Follow the directions, but replace the pressure cooker pot with a large pot or Dutch oven. In the "cook the cannellini beans" step, add 10 cups of water instead of 8 cups, bring the pot to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, and partially cover. Simmer until the beans are creamy, about 2 hours. Continue with the rest of the recipe as written.
Floaters: If your beans are still tough when the cooking time is over, especially any “floaters” at the top of the pot, give the beans a stir, lock the lid, and pressure cook for another five minutes. Older beans take longer to cook, and if the beans have been sitting on the shelf for a while, they may need extra time.

Storage

This Instant Pot pasta e fagioli recipe makes fantastic leftovers. (It is probably even better the next day, when all the flavors have a chance to mingle overnight.) An airtight container of pasta e fagioli lasts in the refrigerator for a few days, and freezes for up to 6 months. I love having 2-cup containers of soup in my freezer, ready for quick lunches from the microwave.

What to serve with Pasta Fagioli

Soup, salad, and breadsticks are probably too "Olive Garden", but I love the combination. (It's a classic for a reason). Instead of soft breadsticks (like Olive Garden), I buy boxes of thin breadsticks at the grocery store, which are basically a straw-shaped cracker. (Soup and crackers are also a classic for a reason.) - and all I have to do is pull out the box to serve dinner. Or, I use a loaf of crusty bread instead of the breadsticks.

Inspired by: Tamar Adler, An Everlasting Meal

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