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Spaghetti with White Bean Sauce

A pasta dish featuring spaghetti tossed with a seasoned white bean sauce.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Spaghetti with White Bean Sauce

Timeabout 20 minutes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the bean sauce

  1. Heat the olive oil in a non-stick frying pan.

  2. Add the garlic, onion, bell pepper, and celery and cook over medium heat until soft but not brown, about 4 minutes.

  3. Stir in the white beans and cook for 1 minute.

  4. Add the stock or bean liquid, half the parsley, pepper flakes, and salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Simmer until the beans are quite soft, about 20 minutes.

  6. Coarsely mash the beans with a fork.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the spaghetti in a large pot of 4 quarts rapidly boiling salted water until al dente, about 8 minutes.

  2. Drain the spaghetti well.

  3. Meanwhile, bring the sauce to a boil.

  4. Transfer the spaghetti sauce to a large shallow bowl and mix well.

  5. Sprinkle the spaghetti with the remaining parsley and serve immediately with freshly grated cheese on top.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

324Calories
10 gProtein
23 gFat
20 gCarbs

Counts 9 of 10 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Romano Cheese1 oz (28g) cheddar113
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Bell Pepper1 medium (119g)31
Celery Stalks1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Beannot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White beans
Soften and mash to form the body of the sauce, adding creaminess and thickness.
Spaghetti
Forms the base of the dish, carrying the bean sauce.
Celery
Softens into the sauce base, adding savory vegetable flavor and texture.
Red onion
Softens during cooking to build a sweet, savory base for the sauce.
Romano cheese
Adds salty, savory flavor when grated over the finished dish.

The step that matters

Simmering the beans until quite soft. Beans must cook long enough to become fully tender; undercooked beans stay firm and grainy and will not mash into a smooth sauce.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, garlic, onion, pepper, celery, parsley, romano cheese):

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Chickpeafits about as well
  3. Lentilsfits about as well
  4. Black-eyed peafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, garlic, onion, pepper, celery, parsley, romano cheese. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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