Gluten Free Pasta e Ceci Recipe
Some of the best dishes I’ve had come from simple pantry staples. A little of this and that from the pantry and a couple fresh ingredients and suddenly you’ve got dinner on the table in a flash! This Gluten Free Pasta e Ceci recipe is a prime example of making the most out of your pantry.
Stocking your pantry with versatile gluten-free products will not only help to feed you quickly but will also make it easier to avoid the temptation of dining out too often, which not only costs more money but can also add to your waistline and increase your chances of getting glutened.
Some of my favorite pantry staples include: canned diced tomatoes (and tomatoes with green chilies), tomato paste, broth/stock, plenty of seasonings, a variety of beans including black beans and garbanzo beans, a variety of rice, and gluten-free pastas.
For this Pasta e Ceci, which uses several staples, I used Sam Mills gluten free corn and quinoa penne. I love the taste and texture of blended pastas like corn and rice or corn and quinoa, so I tend to stock plenty of those!
This pasta is so flavorful, you’ll think you’re dining out in Italy … but really, it’s just clever cooking! Buon appetito!
Gluten Free Pasta e Ceci Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 (15-ounce) cans garbanzo beans, drained, liquid reserved, and rinsed
- Kosher or fine sea salt
- 12 ounces Sam Mills gluten free corn and quinoa penne
- 6 tablespoon olive oil plus more for serving
- 6 garlic cloves minced or grated
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 (8-ounce) can tomato paste
- ½ cup Italian parsley chopped, plus more for garnish
- ½ cup shaved or grated Parmesan cheese plus more for garnish
Instructions
- Pour the reserved garbanzo bean liquid into a large pot. Add water and 1 tablespoon salt. Bring to a boil and cook the pasta according to the package directions. Reserve the cooking liquid and drain the pasta. Set aside.
- In a large skillet, heat 6 tablespoons olive oil. Add the garlic, red and black pepper, and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add 4 cups of the reserved pasta cooking water and the garbanzo beans. Bring to a simmer, uncovered, and let simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in the pasta, parsley, and Parmesan, and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning, if desired.
- To serve, drizzle with olive oil and garnish with parsley and Parmesan.
Nutrition
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Made this tonight, at least as close as I could with available ingredients. I like the Sam Mills pasta, but the only one I had was spaghetti, so I used Molisana rice, corn, and quinoa fusilli. (The Molisana pastas are from Italy, and are very good, too.) I didn’t have canned chick peas, but I had home-cooked chick peas in the freezer, so I thawed some out. (I don’t cook them with additives, so they are softer than canned chick peas; I like them that way for making hummus.) And I usually use grated Romano instead of Parmesan, although I did use shaved Parmesan as a garnish. The only other sub I had to make was cilantro for Italian parsley, but that worked fine. I’d say the dish was a qualified success.
The whole dish worked pretty well, but both my wife and I thought it need more flavor– next time I’d use some fresh basil, dried oregano, probably a little cumin, and maybe some home-smoked hot Italian sausage, the latter either cut into thin slices and mixed into the dish or served on the side.
BTW, I love the ability to scale the ingredients for the number of people to be served. This is a really neat feature. And it’s good that amounts in the instructions also get scaled. (Except that the amount of pasta cooking liquid stays at 4 cups, regardless of the number of servings. Oops.)
Glad you liked it! And yes, we love the ability to scale the ingredients – that was a new feature we started at the end of last year. I’ve corrected the 4 cups to scale, too.