Cannellini beans with tomato

These tomato beans are an easy, fulfilling and delicious recipe, made with simple ingredients that you probably already have at home. Slowly we approach the weekend and soon I will keep the promise made to a fan of mine on Facebook ahahahahahaha.. I play it and sing it. But it's the truth, I promised to one of my dear supporters that before Saturday I would post the recipe! But not today, today I keep you here with this rich and tasty side dish that requires a very short preparation time., so it will be little time that you will kindly have to dedicate to me. I go immediately to the recipe without boring you with other useless chatter. To save time, you can also choose ready-to-cook beans.

There are many ways to cook beans in Italy. These beans with tomato sauce are very similar to the "Fagioli all'uccelletto", a traditional Tuscan recipe of beans cooked in a sauté of garlic and sage, and tomato sauce. In this recipe, instead of using garlic for sautéing, we put celery, carrot and onion. Then sage and chilli, and finally peeled tomatoes and beans. The result is amazing, a dish that you can eat on any occasion, with bread, polenta, rice, pasta, couscous, or any other cereal of your choice.

Ingredients: for 4 people

Beans: You can use canned beans or dried beans but you will have to cook them first. I like to make this dish with borlotti, but actually cannellini, or red beans are also fine.

Tomatoes: I recommend peeled tomatoes.

Red onion, celery and carrot: I use these vegetables to make the sauté.

Olive oil: better if extra virgin, I use it to gently fry vegetables.

Sage: fresh if possible, otherwise the dry one, but put less if you use dried sage. You can replace the sage with a sprig of rosemary.

Chili pepper: I love this dish a bit spicy. Then I recommend adding finely chopped red chili or chili powder.

Parsley: to spread over and add a touch of freshness to the dish.

Salt and pepper.

Guidelines

In a large pan, put 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and let heat over medium heat. While the oil heats up, peel and cut in half 1 large red onion. I cut it horizontally, then vertically, then finely chop it and add it to the pan with oil. We give a stir, then cut two carrots into cubes. First we cut them from the long side, then into thin slices and finally into cubes, and add them to the pan. Now we cut 2 stalks of celery. First from the long side, then diced and we also add these to the pan with the onion and carrot. Mix the vegetables and let them cook over medium-low heat for about 5 minutes. While they are cooking, prepare the herbs. I like to add sage to make them like beans all'uccelletto. But rosemary is also fine if you don't like sage. We can also use dried herbs, but in small quantities since they are stronger than fresh ones. We finely chop the sage and add it to the pan. Then we chop a red chili, adjusting the amount according to our taste. We add it to the pan with the vegetables, stir and cook for another 5 minutes adding a pinch of salt. If the pan dries, then we add a drop of water. This initial sauté made with celery, carrot, onions and aromas helps us to give a fuller flavor to our dishes, so I recommend always keeping these vegetables at hand to be able to use them in many preparations.

How to save some time?

But if we are in a hurry and do not have time to cut the vegetables by hand we can also use a food processor to do it, without blending too much that otherwise become a mush. What I usually do to save even more time during the week is chop many more vegetables than I need, for example I do it on Sunday evenings. Then I put them in a food container suitable for freezing, this is for baby food, and I freeze them. Then when we need to make the sauté, for a quick dinner during the week, we take only one portion from the freezer, saving a lot of time instead of cutting and cleaning the celery, carrot and onion. When the vegetables are soft, we add a large can of 800 grams of peeled tomatoes, rinse the can of tomato with a glass of water and also add that to the pan. Season with another pinch of salt and a few pinches of pepper and cook over low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent the tomatoes from sticking to the bottom of the pan. After 10 minutes, the tomatoes should be very tender. We crush them well with a fork, then drain and wash the canned beans and add them to the pan. Let it cook over low heat for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until you get a nice thick sauce. Before serving, we taste and add salt according to our tastes then let cool for a few minutes. While we wait for the beans to cool down a bit, we can decide how to accompany them. My favorite way to eat them during the week when we don't have much time but still want a healthy and nutritious meal is with fast polenta, the pre-steamed one. You can do it literally in 5 minutes by mixing the polenta in hot water with a pinch of salt, slowly, with a whisk, then cooking it for about 3 minutes or as indicated on the package. The taste of corn and beans together is too good, and so they also become an even more complete dish from a nutritional point of view. Arrange the polenta on a plate, add the beans on top and sprinkle with a little fresh parsley. My wife and I love tomato beans along with polenta.