Cannellini Beans with Olive Oil (Fagioli Cannellini All' Olio): Simple Beany Goodness

Beans fill my pantry--dried beans in jars and canned beans for quick and easy meals. I love me some beans and I usually make some form or another of them once a week. Beans are healthy, cheap, filling and tasty--excellent comfort food. Since we are celebrating the mighty bean this week at I Heart Cooking Clubs with our Bean There Done That theme, I selected a simple dish of Cannellini Beans with Olive Oil (Fagioli Cannellini All' Olio) to use some of my dried bean collection. Although it would be difficult for me to pick my favorite beans, I do love the smooth, creaminess of the cannellini and the fact that they are paired with my beloved sage in this recipe made me happy.


This recipe comes from Twelve: A Tuscan Cookbook by Tessa Kiros

Tessa Kiros says, "You can use fresh or dried cannelloni beans for these recipes. Dreied beans, however, will need a minimum of 12 hours of soaking and will require double the cooking time of fresh beans."


Canellini Beans with Olive Oil (Fagioli Cannellini All' Olio)
Twelve by Tessa Kiros
(Serves 6)

500 g (1 lb 2 oz) fresh or dried cannellini beans (soaked overnight in cold water if dried)
1 red onion, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
1/2 a celery stalk, trimmed and chopped
10 sage leaves
1 bay leaf
3 Tbsp olive oil plus extra for serving

If you are using fresh cannellini beans, wash them in cold water. If they are dried, drain the previously soaked beans. Put them into a large saucepan and cover completely with cold water. Bring to the boil and skim the surface with a slotted spoon to remove any scum.

Add the rest of the ingredients. Lower the heat slightly and cook uncovered for about 40 minutes for the fresh beans and 1 1/2 hours for the dried beans. Add more water during this cooking time to ensure the beans are covered. Season with salt in the last 10 mites of this cooking time.

Test to see if the beans are soft, if not, cook for longer. Drain the beans and serve hot, or at room temperature, drizzled with olive oil and a grinding of black pepper.


Notes/Results: Creamy and full of flavor. I did make a few changes--upping the garlic, celery, carrots and sage slightly, and leaving the broth rather than draining the beans before serving. It's part of the bean experience--being able to soak up all the sauce with some bread (in this case it was a whole grain flat bread), and besides, the beans will continue to soak it up a bit as they sit. I cooked mine about 2 hours as I prefer them nice and creamy, and I cooked the beans and the bay leaves for about 40 minutes before putting in the vegetables and sage (so they didn't cook away to nothing and still had some texture). I like to ladle the hot beans on top of some baby spinach in order to get some greens into my meal. The heat wilts the spinach nicely and makes it a more complete (and more colorful) dish. Eat these as is (they are even better the next day), add some extra veggie broth to make a soup, or drain and mash them, add a binder and make them into bean burgers or croquettes.

You can check out the bean dishes of the other IHCC participants by going to the post and following the links.