Olive Garden Pasta e Fagioli

By Addie

Menu Description: "White and red beans, ground beef, tomatoes and pasta in a savory broth."

It's amazing how many lousy clone recipes for this delicious chili-like soup are floating around the Internet. Cooking message boards, and questionable sites that claim to have "actual restaurant recipes" have for years passed off numerous versions only to have disappointed home chefs waste ingredients. What's puzzling is they leave out major ingredients that you can clearly see in the real thing, like the carrots, or ground beef, or two kinds of beans. Others don't even get the pasta right - it's obviously ditali pasta, which are short little tubes. So, if you want the taste of Olive Garden's famous Pasta e Fagioli at home, this may be the only recipe out there that will live up to a side-by-side taste test. Beware of imitation imitations!

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 14.5 oz. cans diced tomatoes)
• 1 15-oz. can red kidney beans (w/ juice)
• 1 15-oz. can Great Northern Beans (w/ liquid)
• 1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
• 1 12-ounce can V-8 juice
• 1 T. white vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon basil
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• 1/2 lb Ditalini pasta

Details

Adapted from keyingredient.com

Preparation

Step 1

1. Brown the ground beef in a large stock pot or Dutch Oven over medium heat.

2. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic, and saute for 10 minutes, until vegetables are tender.

3. Add remaining ingredients, except pasta, and simmer for 1 hour, stirring often.

4. At 50 minutes into simmer time, cook the pasta according to package directions, until al dente. Drain the pasta and add to the pot of soup.

5. Simmer for 5-10 minutes and serve. Top with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
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COMMENTS:

Thanks for having this out here. Lately I have been trying to recreate this recipe with iffy results. I stumbled on this recipe a few weeks ago. Its just fabulous. Since then, I've made it several times. I keep saying I want to make it to freeze in portions since I am single. HAH. If I dont make serious inroads into it, my college age daughter comes over and does the same thing. Does anyone know if this doubles well? Thanks again.

After searching several copycat sites looking for a recipe for my favorite soup I decided to use the recipe here. OMG, it was fabulous. Making my second batch this week. Thank you Mr. Wilbur! I pretty much stuck to the recipe but couldn't find the right pasta so I used small elbows. Will use MUCH LESS this time. I had no idea they could absorb so much liquid!! I also used beef broth for half of the V8. Oh so good!

I've made more copycat recipes than I care to remember. Some good, some great, some kinda terrible, but all of them had one thing in common; even if it tasted fantastic, it didn't taste like the real recipe. This soup is THE exception. It tastes EXACTLY like Olive Garden's. I Used several short cuts and it STILL tasted perfectly.

I think this recipe is even better than Olive Gardens'. My daughter told me that it was "Great!", but my 7-year old grandson disagreed and said it was "Awesome!" An all-around family hit. You can't beat that. It freezes well too. Just refrigerate the soup overnite to cool it before you put the pasta in (so the pasta doesn't swell up too much) and then freeze in ziploc bags.

I eat at OG just for this soup. I found this recipe, tried it, and fell in love! It is just as good and OG and I can have it any time I want. Awesome!!

Everyone I serve this to has asked me for the recipe. My Italian friends as well as my German friends. It is truley AWSOME!. I only use about 6 oz. of the ditail pasta. Also, after cooking the beef and vegies in the saucepan, I do the rest in a crock pot on high for 4 - 5 hours.

Everytime I went to the OG, I went specifically for the Fagioli. Since I've found this recipe, I don't have to wait for our next trip and I'm looking forward to sitting with a bowl, in front of the fireplace, during a snowstorm....HEAVENLY!

I used home canned tomatoes instead of the tomato sauce and it was delicious!!! Tasted just like OG. My daughter orders this every time we go, but she says this recipe is better. We use mini pinwheel pasta because our picky eater 3 year old loves them.

Made this last night and it was so delicious!! It was an easy recipe and the family loved it!!

My extraordinarily picky husband loves this. It really is so similar to the OG's version, but I modified it in two ways - 1) Served the pasta on the side as an addition since leftovers could get thick with it already there; and 2) We also put some very finely grated Asiago cheese on the top, and it accentuated the taste perfectly!

This is definitely a hit with my household