A rich, thick stovetop-cooked tomato sauce with white beans is topped with two cheeses and then baked. It can be vegetarian or not. Recipe below.
SOME PEOPLE THINK WE HAVE AN EDITORIAL CALENDAR FOR BLUE KITCHEN—that we carefully and thoughtfully plan what we are going to cook and talk about it weeks or even months in advance. Those people do not know us.
Sometimes we have recipes ready and cooked two or three weeks ahead of publication, but more often, it is Saturday and the clock is ticking and we have no idea whatsoever about next Wednesday’s post. We are as much in the dark about it as you are. At a food show a few years back, someone asked us to send him our editorial calendar for the year so that we could coordinate (and possibly get some sweet product). I am sure our facial expressions at that moment were a picture of utter astonishment: you mean bloggers do that?
So, the other day, I was fumbling around online, not even looking for ideas but just hunting for inspiration for that night’s dinner, and I ran across Deb Perelman’s post on Smitten Kitchen for Pizza Beans. Just the magical name was enough. Exclamation points and unicorn sparkles began firing off in my head. I already wanted to be cooking it, without even reading the post.
Deb’s own formal name for the recipe is Tomato and Gigante Beans Bake. The foundation is a thick, veggie-rich tomato sauce, mixed with white beans and topped with great lashings of mozzarella and parmesan. Since Deb published her recipe, numerous versions of Pizza Beans have appeared all over the place, and here is ours. (We’ll share a link to Deb’s version in the Kitchen Notes.)
When you’ve made this once, you will want to make it again and again. It freezes well, it stores well in the fridge (and tastes even more wonderful the next day, of course). You can reheat it in the microwave or the oven or, as we did, the toaster oven. You can add meat to the sauce or you can keep it vegetarian. You can multiply it, you can make a half recipe, but why? Because once you’ve tasted it, you will wish you’d made it in much vaster quantities. It hits all the same convivial, comforting, friendly spots as pizza, but with lovely beans upping the nutrition and fiber.
When you are prepping this, you can use a heavy pan or Dutch oven suitable for both stovetop and oven. I confess that when I made this, I failed to plan in advance (i.e., I grabbed a pan and just started) and so ended up using a pan to cook the sauce in and a casserole to assemble and bake the whole shebang in the oven (Present-Day Me is looking at Past Me and rolling her eyes). But whether you use a pan that can go from the stovetop to the oven or a bring-it-to-the-table casserole, you will love this dish.
Pizza Beans
Ingredients
- olive oil
- 1/4 pound pork sausage (optional)
- 1 cup shallots, chopped
- 2 carrots, chopped small
- 3 big cloves of garlic, minced
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon anchovy paste
- 1/2 – 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
- 1 teaspoon dried tarragon
- 1 28-ounce crushed tomatoes
- up to 1 cup red wine or chicken stock or mushroom stock
- salt, pepper, sugar (optional)
- 4 – 5 ounces ounces fresh spinach, torn into small pieces (see Kitchen Notes)
- 2 15-ounce cans of low-sodium or salt-free white beans, drained and rinsed (see Kitchen Notes)
- 1/3 – 1/2 pound mozzarella, in big shreds (see Kitchen Notes)
- 1/2 cup or more freshly grated Parmesan
Instructions
- If you are using pork sausage or other meat, sauté it with a little olive oil until browned, in the same big heavy-bottomed deep skillet (or Dutch oven) you will use for the rest of this operation. Then set aside in a little bowl and wipe out the pan.
- Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil to the pan, heat it to medium, then add the shallots and carrots and sauté about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another minute or so. Then add the tomato paste, anchovy paste and red pepper flakes (if you are using them), and stir and sauté everything another 2 minutes.
- Add the spinach and continue to sauté until it wilts, stirring frequently, probably another 90 seconds. Then add the crushed tomatoes and 1/3 cup of the wine or stock. Mix everything together and bring to a simmer. If you are using meat, return it to the pan now.
- Cook, occasionally stirring, for 10 – 12 minutes. You want the whole thing to reduce a bit and end up pretty thick, not liquidy—denser than the usual red sauce. Taste it. If it seems too acidic, add a bit of sugar. Add pepper now—you will add any salt later on. About five minutes in, add in the canned beans so everything can cook together for a bit. If the sauce is too thick and dry, you will know it—adjust with more wine or stock or even some water.
- When the beany sauce is nicely thick, add salt, if you want, to taste. Turn off the heat. Sprinkle the mozzarella evenly all over the top, then do the same with the parmesan. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes—the photo above shows this very handsomely browned top after 12 minutes in our fast oven. This is ready to serve. Enjoy!
What a great dish! Exactly the sort of thing we like to eat, so you know I’ll be making this. Or some version of this. 🙂 Oh, and that editorial calendar thing? We kinda sorta have one, but almost never feel like making what the calendar says when it says we should do it. So usually end up scrambling. 🙂 So really our calendar is just a big idea list. Still haven’t made the first thing we ever put on that list years and years ago. 🙂 Anyway, good stuff — thanks.
John, I like your approach to your editorial calendar! We send random emails to ourselves and each other to spark ideas, but you’re much more organized.
an editorial calendar? phew I’d never even thought of such a thing 🙂 tho i do jot down ideas for future posts in a notebook. very haphazardly. love your pizza beans!