Pasta Fazool

Grandma’s Pasta Fazool is our family recipe and we can’t wait to share it with you. This is Grandma’s pasta fazool, and it has giant pieces of tender ham that fall right off the ham bone while the soup is cooking. This soup turns out so thick, it’s almost like a stew, with elbow macaroni and white beans to round it out.

Is It Pasta Fazool or Pasta Fagioli?

The traditional way to pronounce this ham and pasta soup recipe is pasta fagioli or pasta e fagioli. Pasta e fagioli translates to pasta and beans. It’s often called pasta fazool or pasta fasul in the New York and New Jersey Italian dialect, deriving from the Neopolitan name, pasta e fasul.

We think you should call it whatever you like, but we urge you to try this recipe. The flavors are so simple, you might think the recipe isn’t going to work but it does. We look forward to making this at least two times a year and there’s never any leftovers.

How To Make Pasta Fazool

This ham soup is very easy to make, but it does take some time to cook. You’ll need at least an 8 quart stock pot for this recipe, trust me, it makes a LOT of soup.

• Soak the beans: Add 6 quarts of water to an 8 quart stock pot. Rinse the beans and then add the to the pot and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat, cover the pot and let sit on the stove for 1 hour.
• Prepare the ham bone: Cut most of the ham off of the ham bone. You’ll need 4 cups of ham for this recipe, you can buy a ham steak from the store if you think you’ll need more.
• Prepare the soup: Add the ham bone and ham into the pot with the beans, along with tomato sauce, onions, celery and seasonings. Bring the pot to a simmer and partially cover for 2 hours.
• Remove the ham bone, add the pasta: Take the ham bone out of the soup. Add the reserved ham back into the soup along with a box of elbow pasta. Cook for another 15 minutes until the pasta is tender.

What If I Don’t Have A Ham Bone?

This soup is one of our favorite leftover ham recipes because it uses everything up! Cooking the ham bone in the broth is what gives the soup it’s delicious, home-cooked flavor.

If you really want to make this pasta fazool without cooking a whole ham, you can grab a few ham hocks from your grocery store or butcher and use those instead. However, when using ham hocks instead of the ham bone, you’ll have to buy a couple of ham steaks to cut up and use in the soup. Unless of course, you already have enough ham leftover.

Storing and Reheating

As this soup sits, the elbow macaroni will absorb a lot of the broth almost giving it a stew-like feel. We love that about this pasta fazool recipe, it just gets better as it sits.

If you like to have more broth, you can either add less pasta to the soup or just add some chicken broth to your bowl when you reheat it.

Here’s Some More Of Our Favorite Family Recipes

• Grandma’s Sunday Meatballs and Sauce
• Buddha’s Baked Beans
• Grandma’s Stuffed Artichokes
• Grandma’s Pot Roast Recipe
• Grandma’s Nut Cup Cookies

Pasta Fazool Recipe

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• Author: Dan
• Prep Time: 1 hour
• Cook Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
• Total Time: 3 hours 15 minutes
• Yield: 10 servings 1x

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Pasta Fazool (AKA Pasta e Fagioli!) is a mega comforting, meal in a bowl soup! This is our family favorite recipe that has just a few simple ingredients with giant, tender pieces of ham, tender beans and elbow macaroni.

Ingredients

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• 16 ounce bag dried great northern beans (can also use cannellini beans)
• 1 ham bone from an 8-10 pound ham with ham cut off, reserve ham (about 4 cups)
• 2 cups diced onion
• 2 cups diced celery
• 15 ounce can tomato sauce
• 2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• Fresh black pepper to taste
• 16 ounce box elbow macaroni
• Grated parmesan cheese for serving

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Instructions

1. Add 6 quarts of water to an 8 quart stock pot. Rinse the beans and then add the to the pot and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat, cover the pot and let sit on the stove for 1 hour.
2. In the meantime, cut the ham off the ham bone and reserve. You’ll need about 4 cups of ham for this recipe, a little more or less is fine. Chop the onion and celery and set aside.
3. After the beans have soaked for an hour, add the ham bone to the pot along with the reserved ham, onions and celery. Pour in the tomato sauce and add the Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Stir and bring to a simmer. Partially cover the pot and let the soup simmer for 2 hours. You can stir the soup a few times while it’s cooking, but it’s not totally necessary. 
4. Remove the ham bone from the soup and set aside. Pour in the whole box of elbow macaroni along with the reserved 4 cups of ham. (You can also trim off any ham that was left on the ham bone and add that back into the pot). Stir and cook covered for another 15 minutes. The soup will thicken as it sits – we usually let the soup sit on the stove top with the heat off for about 15 minutes before serving, but you can certainly enjoy right away. 
5. Garnish the soup with fresh black pepper and grated parmesan cheese if desired.

Recipe Notes

Store: Store leftover soup in an air tight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. NOTE: this will depend on how long ago you cooked your ham.

Reheat: Reheat the soup in the microwave or on the stove top. If you need more broth, add a splash of chicken broth before heating.

• Category: Dinner
• Method: stove top
• Cuisine: American / Italian