SIMPLI Good
PASTA E LUPINI
Celebrated for their high protein profile, nutty flavors, and sustainable growing properties, Lupini beans are powerhouse legumes that deserve a space in your pantry! Enjoy them on top of salads, in soups, as a quick snack – even in pasta. We loved working with our friend Vilda Gonzalez to help bring our Lupini beans to life with this creative, delicious recipe.
COOK TIME: 3 hours
SERVINGS: 2
Vilda Gonzalez is a chef, recipe developer, and creative. Her work takes many forms, from cooking private dinners, to feeding big groups on retreat, developing recipes for brands, teaching cooking classes, and advocating for more sustainable local food systems, but the through line is constant: she believes that food should be delicious, flavorful, and indulgent, while also being deeply nourishing, sourced with integrity, and inherently healthful. Her mission is to rewire our collective relationship to what eating well truly means, through the lens of seasonality, sensuality, and intuitive home cooking.
Tender, nutty, olive oil laden Lupini beans are married with al dente spaghetti and bruised rosemary for a craveable riff on the classic pasta e fagioli, a cozy dish of pasta and beans. We soak our Lupini beans overnight, before sending them off for a long, lazy trip to a warm oven. Lots of lemon zest, bay leaves, rosemary, and a whole head of garlic infuse the broth with brightness and rich flavor. The beans, alongside the soft cloves of garlic from the pot and a generous ladle of their broth, serve as a rustic sauce for coating the spaghetti. Impressively plant based, this pasta has all the lusciousness and depth that butter and cheese usually provide - all thanks to the Lupini beans and their zesty liquor.
Ingredients
For the Lupini beans
1 bag SIMPLi Regenerative Organic Certified® Lupini beans
2 pieces kombu seaweed
2 bay leaves
3 sprigs rosemary
1 dried smoked chili of your choosing
1 head garlic, halved down the equator
Zest of 2 lemons, peeled in strips
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon SIMPLi Herb Salt Blend, plus more to taste
For the Pasta e Lupini
8 ounces spaghetti
Leaves from one juicy sprig of rosemary, finely chopped
3 cups cooked Lupini beans
1 cup bean broth, plus more as needed
As many garlic cloves as you can retrieve from the broth
SIMPLi Peruvian Pink Salt and freshly ground black pepper to season
Parsley to serve
Instructions
Place the Lupini beans and a piece of kombu in a large mixing bowl, and cover with a generous amount of filtered water. Make sure that the beans are covered by at least twice their volume in water, as they’ll double in size as they soak. Set aside at room temperature (so long as your ambient room temperature isn’t particularly warm. If it is, place the beans in the fridge to soak) to soak for 8 hours.
Preheat your oven to 325°F.
Strain and rinse the beans, then add them to a Dutch oven and add enough filtered water to cover the beans by a generous 3-4 inches (about 6-7 cups of water). Add the remaining listed ingredients. Bring to a boil, then lower to maintain a simmer. Skim any scum that rises to the surface. Once the scumming subsides, place a lid on the pot and transfer the Dutch oven to the oven. Cook the beans for 2 to 2½ hours, or until tender and plump. Lupini beans aren’t as starchy as most beans; their texture will be firmer than what you might be accustomed to, even when fully cooked. Once the beans are fully cooked, taste for seasoning and adjust with another pinch each of salt or pepper if needed.
Store the beans in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week
To make the Pasta e Lupini, add 1½ cups of cooked Lupini beans and ½ cup of bean broth to a blender and blend until roughly pureed.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. When the water is boiling, season with a generous pinch of salt. Add the pasta and cook according to the package instructions.
In a large frying pan set over medium heat, add a glug of olive oil and the rosemary. Cook for a minute or two, until the rosemary smells aromatic. Add the remaining 1½ cups Lupini beans, ½ cup of broth, and all the garlic you managed to find. Add the pureed Lupini beans and a generous ladleful or two of pasta water to help make everything saucy.
When the pasta is just shy of al dente (about a minute less than the package recommends), use tongs or a spider skimmer to transfer the spaghetti to the cauldron of smooshed Lupini beans. Ladle in another ½ cup of pasta water and bring everything up to a voracious simmer. Assertively stir the pasta, as you nudge the pan back and forth with your other hand - this motion helps the starches in the pasta to release into the sauce. When the pasta is al dente and each noodle is slicked in sauce, take the pasta off the heat. Taste for seasoning and adjust with a pinch of salt if needed.
Serve with a scattering of chopped parsley and a few grinds of black pepper.
For more delicious recipes like this, you can subscribe to Vilda’s Substack here.
Re-create this recipe and find our SIMPLi products at a store near you! For more information and other methods on how to prep our beans & grains, check out our thorough cooking guides.